20 Minutes to Congress

18/11/08
This past week has been hectic in a very different sort of way and I haven’t had much time to write down my thoughts. I only have about two weeks left to finish up my project and things seem to somewhat be moving forward. Last week I began to talk to some people that live in communities around Valparaíso. It has been a learning process for me to actually see more the reality of poverty. The following is a rather brief description of one of the encounters I had. I say brief because I leave out many details of what they said to me, I just can’t bring myself to write it all out in English because I already wrote almost 5 pages on it in Spanish. This one will stay with me for a long time to come. Apologize in advance for the entry, but there isn´t a happy part.

I walk up the earthen steps chiseled into the slope watching carefully so as not to step in poop or on the animals that left it. Weeds threaten me on either side and electricity lines drape precariously alongside my face. The house was blue at some point but now almost all of the paint has chipped or faded away. Three mangy dogs guard the door lazily amongst the piles of scraps. A cat with a bloody gash across the top of its head turns and runs away. She leads me up a rickety wooden staircase and opens the door of the house. In the first room is a white plastic table set that would be found in the backyard of a middleclass home in America. A couple food remains are strewn around on the small counter space, but we continue on and pass into the second and only other room in the house. A television blares Japanese cartoons most likely dubbed in English then redubbed again in Spanish. A small dresser is pressed up against the wall with a few articles of clothing hanging out. The air is thick with the smell of cigarettes and a slight haze meanders about the room. One full size bed is the only other article of furniture that could fit in the room and in it propped up so he can watch the television rests a man underneath the blue and white flower patterned covers. We say our introductions and I explain why I am here in their bedroom and the questions that I will be asking them. Both of them agree and seem ready to begin. I first ask boring demographic information; what age are you, how much education have you received, do you have electricity? We get past the formalities and begin to talk about their lives. There are no lights in the neighborhood. There are no paved streets. Prostitution is rampant and the kids from the neighborhood up the way are a constant sort of problems. I begin to feel worse, but we haven’t even started talking about their battles. He got hurt on the job almost 20 years ago and to this day can barely walk because of his enduring back problems. Stemming from this he has frequent episodes of periods in which he goes into trances, recognizes nobody, begins to wander, wakes up with a splitting pain in his head, and remembers nothing of the incident. They both suffer from sever depression. She suffers as well from back problems as well as other general pains in her body including one of her arms. Then the laundry list of getting fucked over by the Chilean healthcare system begins. Ambulances refuse to come pick them up when they call. The occasions that an ambulance does arrive, such as once when he was in a trance and fell down a ravine, the paramedics tell him that it is something he can deal with by himself. In the occasions in which the ambulance must take him to the hospital, they make him walk to the ambulance instead of using a stretcher even though every step causes him immense pain. They are forced to walk for an hour and a half to go receive services at the clinic because they can’t afford to pay for the bus only to have the nurses turn them away. When I ask her why she doesn’t try to receive help, her answer is, “I’m depressed.” The people in the community are forced to share his pain medications for his back because nobody can afford to buy their own, including her, even though it gives her chronic pain in her abdomen. The only reason they even have these medications, which aren’t very effective, is through workers compensation. They begin to relate a story of a homeless woman who would sometimes sleep on their floor. She was an alcoholic who tried multiple times to go to the hospital to receive some kind of help. Each time she went they told her there were no beds for her. The last time she was turned away she committed suicide that night. The conversation begins to wrap up after about two hours. He tells me that he is going to die in this pain. I leave the smoky room and stumble out of the front room past the mangy animals. She walks me down the earthy steps chiseled into slope this time not watching where I step. I reach the gate and we part. The entire time I had been holding it in. I double over and almost throw up into the bushes, but I can’t, there is no relief. I flag the micro down and we travel down the hillside and I stare out the window looking at the houses scattered onto the slopes thinking about how many other she and he’s there are. After 20 minutes we arrive at Congress and I get off. 20 minutes from that house to the Congress of Chile.