Sunday May 21st 1972
We came home from mass and then went down to the 21st May ceremonial at the telegraph office.
May 21st was called “The day of the Naval Glories” and commemorated two battles in the war of the Pacific (1879-1884).
When we arrived there was a speech from the Governor going on and all the Chilean military standing to attention facing the dais. Many people were lining the sides of the road watching the goings on. Most of the school was neatly dressed in military style ready to march with their band. After the mass a little group of children sang a couple of Pascuence songs with Kiko at the back and then there was a procession back and forth of the various forms of the military- FACH (the Air Force), carabinieros (police), army etc followed by the children’s military band and the school marching rather sadly and out of step. The boys were much worse than the girls. It was a rather depressing spectacle. Even the little tiny children were there straggling along holding hands. When this was finished the soldiers fired off a salute with their rifles – it sounded oddly ineffectual.
A salvo of gunfire was a traditional part of this Chilean celebration. On the conti they probably had more impressive firearms.
During all this a lot of people went along to Alvarez’s shop and bought lollipops. They were not all that impressed.
After the procession we decided to go down to the couranto [public earth oven] on the portside but were very thirsty and so dived into the Bar-restaurant where I was surprised to find Soledad. We asked for a cold drink but were given taro juice and cognac. The woman with the dark glasses and her husband (?) were already drinking. Victor (Soledad’s baby) was brought out and as usual was immaculately dressed in a peluchia, tights and a dainty little top with a bib. He seemed almost stiff with clothes. He’s bigger now and will give a big smile if one clicks one’s tongue at him. He was apparently not very well today = a bit of a cold and diarrhoea, so the aunt said. He did not react to being removed from Soledad or returned to her.
These odd notes were there because I was supposed to be observing childcare practices. I know the islanders observed and attempted to improve mine, so I suppose it was a two way street. We none of us minded our own business, but my intrusiveness seems cheekier in retrospect, but then anthropology is bit cheeky, especially if you are not qualified.
We all walked down to the couranto together but Sole didn’t come. I put the bar lady’s (Soledad’s aunt) cognac bottle in in Mungo’s sleeping compartment [in his baby carrier] because she seemed to be hiding it rather ineffectually from the passers by who spoke to her.
At the couranto we were given two fishes out of a great trough of cooked fish and some sweet potatoes, taro and bananas. The fish was beautiful, cooked in its scales which one peeled off. Everyone was sitting around in groups and most people had brought plates or things to eat off.
I met up with Margarita Atan who has the little adopted American boy and we chatted a little. She was very insistent that we got our share of food. When a girl came round with a basket of bananas she grabbed a lot of extra ones for Mungo. Mungo ate his way through a lot of fish, I was pleased to see. I’m a bit worried by his pallor these days. I’m sure he used to be a bit rosier.
There seemed to be no sort of thank you. One just upped and offed with any little extras one managed to get.
I was accosted by a friend of Kiko’s (Maria Ika) who was supposed to take us back to her place after mass and she did take us with her to her house near the church. As usual I felt she regretted inviting us, or we’d transgressed some rule because it was an uneasy sort of visit with Mungo getting into everything. She has a daughter, Amelia who didn’t seem to want to talk – six years old. We had tea with fish and talked of the wickedness of Santiago
Afterwards we went to Mamflora’s and discussed the house and had a look at it. If we build the bathroom and the kitchen we can have it rent free for a year.
Tonight the fiesta for the baptism is on with the god parents, a brother of Luis’s, Benedicto and his wife Maria Pacomio and Adriana, Johnny, Pedro, a couple of men and a girl I don’t know.
Maria Pacomio said I ought to get Mungo baptized cos a woman she knew had all her (baby’s?) clothes eaten by a horse that wasn’t a horse but the devil. She also says she has three sons, the eldest of whom died on the continent. She got very worked up about a song on a record. Partly cognac I think.
Tonight Christian wouldn’t sleep except on my lap. I asked Chico why he wouldn’t and he said very seriously that he was afraid a tatane [devil] would come in the window.
22nd May Monday
I’ll continue a bit about last night. I talked a lot with Maria Pacomio last night and she said some interesting things – firstly about the Americans. Every week they used to bring things and they used to eat like the islanders, not with knives and forks (like the Chileans). She said she had three sons, the eldest of whom died on the continent and the record of Pascuence music got her very upset and she got her handkerchief out. But then she told me to go over to Grant and ask him to dance with her, which I did.
This morning we all got up late and I did all the washing up from the night before. Rosa surfaced late too with an eye infection which I bathed with antiseptic and a clean disposable nappy.
This surprises me as I can’t remember disposable nappies as a part of life then. Perhaps they were a little luxury for now and then. Must’ve come in on the plane.
Christian had shat in the kitchen I think because last night after I’d tried to put him off my lap and into bed three times Rosa came and called him “manioso”[naughty] and gave him a wallop and he screamed himself to sleep. However both kids seem to be growing closer to Pedro [their half brother] which is nice. Pedro seems to be growing bored though. This morning he swept the floor and then lay on the couch staring at the ceiling till lunch time. He only went out to phone at Entel.
Entel was the telephone exchange which was quite a walk from the village and the only way of communicating with the outside world. It was used extensively by islanders to contact family on the conti and to place orders for goods to be sent on the plane.
Grant phoned from Entel this morning but couldn’t get through to Juan Domecquo to ask about cement (for possibly building Mamaflora’s bathroom and kitchen) so went to the ECA. The manager there was very helpful and said he may have enough damaged sacks to sell cheap. Romero has a bed for 1000 escudos so we may be able to get going.
Rosa told me this morning that she thought the names they’d given the baby were very ugly - Luisa Magdalena. She said Mary Magdalene was a bad woman who drank and so I said she got better later on, but Rosa didn’t like it much.
Rosa had wanted Jacqueline. No chance!
The baptism party came home in the evening with the baby in a new cotton jacket with a little Chilean style lacy bib. That was presented by the god parents. The food was four chickens from Luis’s house cooked by him in the yard – a big salad using up the American onions, a smaller cabbage salad with tomatoes from Alvarez and a lot of bread. Rosa made up a hot sauce too and a bit of potato salad. Luis had one blue fish as well which was cooked up and he drank the juice of it saying “salud”. Luis comes alive when he’s drunk. It’s sad because he’s really rather a warm child-like person then. He has a taste for ceremony and he loves to announce his songs before singing then. Rosa will never play his games but shrugs pettishly sometimes with just a bit of a smile.
I went to the FACH cinema tonight with Rosa. Got lost on the way over the airfield and had to ask the way. Am giving an English lesson to Adriana Araki tomorrow evening. The place looks like a pigsty tonight with kittens all over the place and toilet paper and muck everywhere and every single saucepan used. I’m sick of it.
Note
I’m a bit surprised at my reaction, especially to the kittens which sound rather nice. Nobody would call me a tidy person and on the whole I get a sort of creative energy out of disorder. Things bump up against each other and provoke ideas. I am accommodating, at present, my middle son’s wife and kids while they look for their own place. His wife is acutely fastidious and has reformed me a bit, but it doesn’t come naturally and I do wonder why tidiness always gets the moral high ground. Sometimes unpleasantly too. Grant used to be tidy.
Down on the South Coast where we go sometimes there is a Bowerbird’s bower in the garden. It is a cleverly constructed little twiggy tepee in amongst the vegetation. All around the construction, designed by the glossy males to entice the rather dowdy females, is scattered an abundance of random blue objects, a chocolate wrapping, a bottle top, a bit of cloth, an empty pill packet, odd scraps of paper and heaps more - all grotty and sometimes distasteful rubbish, but blue. Not orderly either, just scattered, and actually there is a rogue red bottle top at the edge of the clearing. I long to remove the red bottle top and tidy up a bit but have decided it is none of my business. Am I right or am I right or am I wrong?