In the Night, In the Day, At Every Hour
(En la noche, en el día, a toda hora)
This piece is a eulogy to what we lost during the pandemic, and the rate to which we are still losing so much. At the heart of this loss are our own people, and with them, their knowledge, and their part in our history. The disappearance of our elders, with their unspoken and meticulous skills and crafts, family stories, legends, wisdom, dances, songs, unique talents – never recorded, will be permanent. This sudden, silent, yet overwhelming loss is visible even more in those areas of the world that are subject to entrenched power games and systems and years of inequality. The effects of a merciless pandemic in Argentina, Peru, Brazil, and the region more generally, patently strike us as a result of the unforgiving fragility of the systems of protection and so many inescapable injustices, where the pandemic continues to make its way with no end in view. As a result, in addition to so many millions of deaths, it is the cultural and humanitarian loss in the region that we mourn, the loss of a future to dream on.
The piece reflects on the enormity of the emergence of the pandemic, and the way it sweeps through in the form of a massive, unstoppable wave – dragging with it our people, their stories, their tacit way of embodying their culture, the effects of which we will only be able to start to grasp in years to come. Will the new landscape of losses inspire us to bring forward real and sustainable changes?
Will we see sprouts of hope as the world starts to awaken from the shock of the loss, past and future? Will this be the real impetus for a change that is not dependent on the insatiable thirst for power?