Like someone moving in before I’m moved out
There’s a woman, another gringa, who’s been coming into the office some days. I think she’s doing a project about maternal–I forget the word she used, maternality or something. Different human rights groups, but focusing specifically on mothers in some form or another.
Ruby and I had been asking about their (Co-Madres’) archives and telling them specific things we were looking for, and they were like, Look, here’s the thing, and then they told us where their archives were and what the situation is, because they took a lot of them out of the country to keep them safe (their office was bombed numerous times, and at least once it was taken over by the military for a period of time and everything in it was confiscated). My point is that they told us exactly what was what without us really having to ask.
On the other hand, this other woman came in and was asking about their archives and where they were, etc, and Pati just wasn’t going to tell her anything except that they were out of the country. Then later she said to me, “When I’m here, you can take out the archives [that are in the office] and look at them, but when I’m not, don’t. Because I know you, but I don’t know her.”
So today Ruby said to me that sometimes she gets frustrated to come in and not really do much, but that’s just what it takes– that showing up every day and being with them is what it takes to gain their confidence so that they can tell us the things they tell us.