History, Wonder Tales, Fairy Tales, Myths and Legends Living in a Shanty Town | Page 2

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A SHANTY TOWN NAMED CLARA ZETKIN

Marlies and Anthonia were lodged in
Maipú, in a respectable suburb of
Santiago. Yet, on the other side of
the road was a campamento: a
collection of about 400 shacks
housing about 3.000 people.

They immediately learned that the
people from the campamento,
though treating them with the
greatest respect, were suspicious
about their real intentions and
afraid to talk about their problems.

According to local gossip, the
campamento was a hotbed of vice,
drugs, violence, robbery and
prostitution.

After all, this was 1978 and the
country was being ruled with iron
hand by Pinochet.

The reality, such as Marlies and
Anthonia observed it, was that these
were families who had fled the
poverty from other regions and
were hoping to find work and build a
decent living in Santiago.
Marlies Adriaens, aged 23, soon after
her arrival in Santiago de Chile.

There was something else hindering the relations between the
people from the campamento and
the two European girls. “How can
you help us? You don’t even
understand our reality” they were
told over and over again. “At night,
you go to sleep in a warm bed;
during the week-ends, you eat at
restaurants and watch movies in
the cinema … you don’t know how
it is to spend your days in mud and
dirt, not being able to send your
children to school, or to pay a
doctor when they need one.
With some trepidation, the two
girls decided to built their own little
cottage and settle down amongst
the people of the slum. “One day,
no more than one day, that is how
long it will take before you are
raped and robbed”, the good
people of Maipú warned them.
“I have been robbed”, Marlies
smiles: “But never in Chile. Some
years ago however, in Brussels, the
radio was stolen from my car”.

Soon, they started frequenting the
people from the campamento.

To live with the people and be part of
their life, was a first step.
The second step was, to become
aware of the problems. There was no
shortage of these: poverty, unemployment, malnutrition, in some cases
even bordering on starvation,
especially in the children. In addition:
widespread neurosis in the women
and alcoholism in the men, both the
fruit of frustration and despair. There
were the health problems related to
living in conditions not worthy of man:
skin diseases, respiratory problems,
allergies, parasites, …
Step three was the most difficult:
convince the people to organize.
“They will imprison us, they will raid
our houses, shoot at us, …”
The tragic truth was that, unless they
organized, they would lose all they
ever hoped to find in Santiago.
Families would fall apart, people
would die. There was no alternative
to organizing. And so, they organized!

People – especially poor people were not allowed to organize, and
the oppression and intimidation
from army and police had left the
people very conscious of their
vulnerability and afraid of
retaliations should they dare to
break the law.

The first initiatives concentrated on
the children. First, a “children
restaurant” was organized with
leftovers from adjacent markets
and food begged in shops. But
soon, lack of space forced them to
switch to a system of “village
kitchen” in which teams of women
prepared the meals, which were
then taken home and eaten in
family circle.
Knit-teams made the uniforms that
allowed the children to go to school
and the smartest youngsters
helped the slow learners amongst
younger children.
Once started, the people were
eager to learn and create opportunities: lessons in dressmaking, hair
care and electricity were organized
and the municipal authorities were
contacted about items such as
distribution of water and electricity,
collection of household refuse and
medical assistance.