The silent names

by Jimena María Bello Garrido (Uruguay)

Making a local connection Uruguay

How can you define silence? As something that gives you peace? Or as something that in its quietness makes the terrible to be forgotten? The silence of death was the one I was scared the most because some people do not choose the silence but become slaves of it. I felt my feet burning, my hands sweating and I only had been there for half an hour. I was able to see them, to hear them breathing, it was the kind of breath that could be their penultimate breath...or their last one. Their eyes directly into my eyes, their sweat, their hands shaking. I could even smell the fear that their bodies being emanated. And then suddenly, an explosion, screams, and silence. They claimed for hope and still, those crosses were standing there reminding us of the people whose names seemed buried in the deep of that land. “I made these wood crosses as a way of screaming to the world how much they suffered, of screaming that in this place something happened. Their bodies are not here, they just disappeared as all trace of their lives…” “Who were them?” a student interrupted. The artist looked at her and started answering. I just couldn’t concentrate. I saw them saying goodbye to their families with that terrified look in their eyes just hoping to see them again, begging with all their hearts to achieve their goal: to give them a better life. The woman taking her children’s rough and dirty hands... maybe for the last time. The man crying and begging to come back. Why?” The little kid asked, “why?” he repeated almost in a whisper, but nobody answered. Words couldn’t explain why they had to leave, words couldn’t even represent a thing of what they truly felt. How do you explain to your own kids that they needed a better life? That they didn’t want to see them die due to diseases, that they didn’t want them to become slaves of their lack of luck in life (if it’s that how you can call possibilities...luck) And if to see them smile and alive they had to risk their own life then, so be it! They started walking at midnight leaving their kids behind. “How can you?” The eldest one screamed, “how can you leave us?” But the parents didn’t answer. They couldn’t turn around, they couldn’t even dare to look at them, they were afraid of that being the last time of their lives. Their legs were trembling and their forehead sweating the fear of the future...or the lack of it. “Then why? Why didn’t they stay there?” the student asked interrupting those images I had. She was with her hands …. as if anger and disappointment were fighting a battle inside her and she couldn’t decide what to feel as if a choice it was. But the silence was all that answered. If only we knew how much they suffer, if only we knew the things they have to face, if only we knew...if only we knew. But we won’t, we will just continue with that images trying to imagine what does it feel to walk for weeks, months without anything, we will just continue imaging the sadness, the fear they feel, the threats they face, the agony they have to deal with. The artist continued showing other wood painted crosses over that huge desert surrounded by cactus. Each of the crosses represented a migrant, represented a try to survive, represented the risks they face and the family they left alone behind. Would the children know that their parents didn’t leave them? Would they know about their parents' death? How can the silence of death become the silence of a huge reality? I could see the couple walking in the darkness praying for that to finish, fearing every sound and just hoping to give another step and continue living. I heard their last scream and I raised my head and thousands of crosses were over the place reminding people that lives were taken away. “This is my purpose now,” the old and wrinkled man said and I sighed… those names wouldn’t be silent anymore.