I am in the Lake District of Chile getting to know a relative-in-law, a Swiss-Italian woman with definite fascist tendencies. In her glory days of Germanic Brigitte Bardot beauty, she was a couture model who hobnobbed with Audrey Hepburn and dated Ronald Reagan. She married my great uncle, a regal Bavarian version of Hugh Hefner, and they eventually retired to a Chilean ranch where they keep about 68 dogs, along with thirty horses who never appear to be ridden. They have become devout Evangelical Christians and have an on-site chocolate factory, so there is as much natural chocolates and homemade marmalade as you could desire. It is a surprising confluence of disparate elements: Jesus-loving former Jet-Set Germans, endearing Spanish servants, tranquil Chilean farmland, afternoon küchen, and a gaggle of formerly homeless dogs.

2. Reading aloud excerpts from a Wikipedia entry about how said country´s former dictator instituted a period of repression called “The Caravan of Death.”

Tweet This Post