ALGÚN DÍA, SI DIOS QUIERE

As I fly over the Andes, before the plane lands in Santiago de Chile, I feel like entering a country that I belong to, but that doesn’t belong to me. What I land in has some similarities to something that is home: the smell of eucalyptus, the pebre sauce with every dish, the way the Chilean Spanish leaves people’s lips and floats out in the air, Victor Jara’s songs of revolution or the sunset over the Pacific.

After the Coup d’État in 1973, an estimated 200,000 Chileans fled from a dictatorship that would last 17 years. I exist because my father was one of the 200,000 Chileans who fled. I exist in the separation.

Born and raised in Sweden, I moved to Chile in March 2020, to get to know the country that lived in me through the cultural heritage transmitted by my father. I wanted to get to know my family and understand the dictatorship that had torn it apart.

However, Chile, as the rest of the world, got hit by the Covid-19 Pandemic. I had traveled all the way across the globe, but I was forced to distance myself from my relatives, out of fear of carrying the virus from Europe.

During the exile, the only way for my family and so many others to communicate, was through rare phone calls and letters. For several years, the only part of each other they had access to where their voices, and sometimes, images sent by mail that would arrive several weeks or months later.

Now, during the Covid lockdown, the images and voices remain the only connection to my Chilean past. Although I am in Chile, I can barely touch it with the tips of my fingers. I’m still so far away, but one day, god willing, I will arrive. Algún día, si dios quiere.

Santiago de Chile, 2020