In 1977 when I was 17 years old, there was a song that was very popular in Argentina called “Volver a los 17”-which kind of means “Return to being 17 years old” but sounds much better in Spanish.  It was sung by Mercedes Sosa. Last month, thanks to an interview I did with the journalist Andres Lopez, from Clarin called “My first Job” I travelled back to when I was 17. This innocent journey back in time took hold of me with a great force. The result is the first autobiographical post on this blog. What follows is the story of my life from September 1976 to September 1977.  This article was already published in my Spanish blog and was one of the most commented ever.  It was also published by Noticias, the Newsweek or Time of Argentina.  The translation was done by my cousin Carla Diamond.  Somehow I was unable to translate my own story and she helped me out.  Here it goes and as a warning I would like to say that I will continue to edit this story online and will not include editing marks as it improves.   The challenge here is that I don´t believe in translation but rather than rewriting the story into another culture, in this case the English culture.

First let me give you the setting. I am now 47 years old and when I got the call from the Argentine journalist enquiring about my first job I was sailing with my wife and the youngest of my four children, baby Leo, to the Isla del Aire in Menorca. While on our way back my PA called and told me that I had an appointment to speak with a journalist in Buenos Aires.  When I got on the call the writer asked me to talk about my first job. And then my journey back in time begins. He asks me to “Return to being 17 years old” and I find myself traveling back with an intensity that makes our conversation almost tense. At that moment, thanks to the mix of the most modern of technologies (the cell phone) with the most ancient (memory), I returned to when I was 17 and found myself overtaken by the deepest emotions, by a profound sadness. These sensations were so strong I found it incredibly difficult to stay focused on the subject of the interview- my first job as an apprentice carpenter in a shipyard in San Martin on the outskirts of Buenos Aires.  When the interview was over I felt obliged to share the story of the most important year of my life in this blog. In writing about my first job, I realize that I can’t do this without telling the tragic story of the Argentine military dictatorship and its actions, of the years where friends and loved ones were kidnapped and murdered. The age of youth, where the first deep relationships built on love were created for me, was forced to live next to the first pain of mourning, of grieving without funerals; this is the story of los “desaparecidos”, the disappeared. They died… without funerals.

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