Education on the walls... meeting Karen and Neruda

Before leaving London a great friend there, Denise, had given me the amazing gift of a hand-made package of maps of Sanitago and Buenos Aires with images of places to go, things to see and foods to try.  This has been like my own private guide and treasure map for the city - what a gift!  Thanks Denise you're a star :-) x

Denise is originally from Chile, so she was also kind enough to put me in touch with some of her friends and family in Santiago so on Sunday I met up with her cousin, Karen, and was treated to a locals insight into the capital.  Karen's work is actually in Human Rights and off the back of an article she write last year she has just been invited to work with an NGO researching how children in Chile view the dictatorship and what they understand of human rights today, 40 years after the coup d'etat that marked the beginning of the dictatorship.  She was a fascinating person to talk with and answered loads of my questions.

One of the first questions I had for Karen was about all the graffiti I'd been noticing that was about education, autonomy and revolution.  She explained that education had been privatised again in 2011, that there were public primary and secondary schools but that the quality of education provided by them was significantly lower than in private schools, with the result that anyone who could afford it would pay for their children's education.  University was also really expensive Karen told me, around $6,000 U.S. per year for 5 years for an undergraduate degree and two years for postgrad courses.  With good timing straight after this conversation we crossed paths with a group of musicians, young lads struggling again the heat in their black tights and puffy pantaloons, who explained that they were carrying on the old university tradition of busking for the money to pay for their books, pencils, bus fares.  

What a contradiction to be admiring one moment the declaration at the Human Rights museum that everyone has the right to an education and that the education should be free (see the image above left) and then to be reading the screams on the walls demanding free education.  This gorgeous mural at one art gallery reads "We want excellent education for all Chileans" and "Free and inclusive education now!"  The stencil on the right reads "Against the privatisation of education. Struggle and organisation."

One Chilean who was a voice for the people and a lover of Chilean culture and nature was the poet Pablo Neruda (his is the bust in the photo above - the images read "Nature is life, take care of it" and "Admire beauty, God's shadow on the Universe")

Karen and I went to visit his house in Santiago, which is one of three.  This one, called La Chascona, meaning the wild-haired woman, is named after the love of his life, Matilda, who the house was originally built for when they were secret lovers.  They later married and lived together openly and you could really feel their warmth and love while wandering around their house, which is filled with a rich collection of objects mixing together their two tastes, Matilda's for pop and Neruda's for the artesian.  They even had a logo of their intertwined initials mounted on the wall of their bedroom.

This home, like the other two, was designed by Neruda to look and feel like a boat so here one bar had holes in the counter to hold bottles and another room had its floor built on a slant.  I loved the feel of the home - I kept thinking how I'd like to live in a home like that whenever I would settle down (and actually Neruda was a nomadic type of person too - according to our guide he never lived for a full year in any one place until his illness when he was bedridden with pancreatic cancer for the final year).  I loved the rich tapestry of tales told by the many objects he collected and filled the house with, each holding their own story of travel, adventure and friendships. There were statues,  tapestries, throws, shells, dolls, maps, letters from friends, paintings from famous artist friends, photos of Neruda, Matilda, and other poets and artists including  a gorgeous image of Picasso and Neruda hugging and grinning ear to ear.  There was also a cabinet with Neruda's awards and the medal marking his Nobel Prize for Literature in 1971. 

Significantly there were very few books, and those that there were in the library we were told were ones donated by the foundation running the house.  This is because in 1973, at the time of the coup d'état, right wing militants came and burned and destroyed the books because Neruda was a socialist and therefore perceived to be a threat to the dictatorship.  Neruda's death in the same year is attributed to heartbreak at seeing the atrocities happening in his beloved country.

I've loved Neruda since I was first introduced to his poetry by Jesse in Nicaragua by the El Salto falls back in 2010.  I loved the theme of the sea that runs through many of his verses, and even took some of his lyrics onto the harp in an exercise in creating music with Mike Parker in London. So it really was a joy to wander around his home.  In some small way it felt like wandering close to a kindred spirit!