moviendo (moving)
snapshots from Chile
A political activist and supply distributor, 75 years old, who lives with his wife of 35 years in the countryside. Their four kids have moved to Santiago, a plane flight away.
He was a muralist focused on political messaging during the country’s military dictatorship. On how rural communities especially lack state-funded spaces for art, creativity, deeper thought:
To keep yourself active, you have to recover your creativity. The state gives you a space, but it’s limited for older adults— to play games, to dance tango.
But space for critical thinking, reflection, of that there is very little. We have to create it. If we’re together, loneliness is cut in half.
On the bigger pattern he sees: a lack of public policies supporting the vast majority of older Chileans socially in so many regards:
In a country like ours, where there are 2 million older adults, there are no public policies, spaces, nothing. Despite everything that is done, always in Chile, 10% of the population is reached. 90% does not have access, does not approach, or isolates.
A couple who lives in the city center of Temuco, both 79 years old. She is a retired administrator, he is retired from the Chilean army. After both of their spouses passed away, they found each other.
The partnership brought them both out of a depression. Hear how this man struggled (with humor) in the wake of his wife’s death:
When one is left widowed, and he’s barely functioning… the ‘computer’ I mean [pointing to his head, laughing.] It's hard on you. It's hard on you to be alone. One has to find a way to [find someone.] Because human beings are practically born to be accompanied.
One small piece of the challenge he faced was that he was raised to believe men should never help in the kitchen. That made things complicated:
This was a thing of my time, because now men have their [household] tasks from a young age. And this norm, this belief, that a man who dedicates himself to the kitchen, he’s not very manly, or very masculine, or something like that.
The two knew each other for 10 years, but just as friends. With time, and loss, that changed:
I think I started to grow close with him because I saw him as a very respectable person. I never saw him as a potential partner. And 15 years ago, we started to go out together.
Their partnership has helped them be independent of their children. She holds this as a priority, even in her final moments:
I try to be independent of my family. But I’m clear that they help me while we’re together. I think that when someday I pass away, I’m going to be alone in my house. Because my daughter has her life, my son has his life.
A secretary at a local university, 66 years old, retired now two years. She is unmarried, and lived with her son until he had a daughter of his own. She contentedly lives alone in an apartment in the city center.
She rents an apartment to supplement her savings, which gives her enough to live on. On the inadequacy of Chile’s pension system:
In Chile, retirement is like a punishment. [Government-provided pension] is 30 percent of what you made when you were actively working. So you have a terrible disadvantage.
The city, she finds, is doing far better than the state in supporting healthy, social aging. On her local dance group, which is in fact how I met her:
[The dance group] we’re all eager to talk. This never happens to me at the YMCA. Because there’s is no group. I enter class and everyone is on their phones.
I am sure that if someone got sick in that [dance] group, many of us would go to see her. It’s very beautiful this group, because it’s very human.
I wish all groups were like this.
Photos taken by Grace Ellrodt with subjects’ consent.