She had been assaulted twice.
Twice.
One Day she came crying...
...and I told her "Margarita, what happened?"
She was where the bicycles are placed.
She was nervous and crying and screaming.
That's how she was.
And to come from her house she also had to walk a lot.
Well, she told me, I don't know how many kilometers,
that I don't... I don't know...
I have no idea how many kilometers.
And once she was assaulted there too.
And all she asked for was her keys.
I remember she said her ID and her keys.
And she would tell me that she always put her ID in her cargo pants...
...that we wore to work.
She used to say to me. "If not", she told me,
"how am I going to be famous?"
And she laughed.
We had a five thirty AM work schedule,
but we would arrive at five AM...
...because we were short-staffed.
So, in order to have the facilities ready,
we used to start working at five in the morning.
Cata, you´ve to go check the classrooms in chemistry, please.
By mutual agreement,
we were capable to do the job, to get along.
There were times when we would arrive at four thirty AM,
a quarter to five in the morning.
Yes, there were teachers who would suddenly come up to us,
and we were surprised because sometimes they didn't say hello,
but then they would begin to talk to us.
The students, what can I say,
they are lovely,
sweet and they called us aunts, they tell us aunts.
Yes, always with respect.
Margarita always told me "Paulita, but why are you so afraid?"
She told me, "let's ask them to change our schedule".
And I never... I was a coward in that sense,
I admit it because I never backed her.
I never supported her.
I never told her "come on, let's ask for schedule changes".
So Margarita was more straightforward than I was
and she would speak her mind,
even if it made them angry.
Margarita had goals.
She kept telling me that she came to work to be able to get along.
She was paying for her little house...
and she said to me, "when I am done paying my house",
she told me, "I am going to go to the south".
Because she doesn't like the life in Santiago, she told me.
Well, you know that the night...
...and the early morning hours have all sorts of hazards,
but, yes, it is dangerous.
It is dangerous because I saw a lot of things that,
Well, all of us,
well, because of my work schedule.
let's say not all of us had the same working schedule...
...because I come mostly, I come at five AM,
I was on the bus. They are...
some are concierges, others work at the market,
many are housekeepers...
...who were going uptown,
there are many people who travel early to work.
I remember that day I arrived at five in the morning.
I always waited for Margarita
or she waited for me before we change our clothes,
and start working because we both began to work together...
and I kept waiting for her until the time started to pass.
I started to worry
and I called her on the phone and she didn't answer.
So, I said, I'm going to go ahead,
I said, while Margarita arrives...
and I started to do all of the classrooms
and then Ana Oliva arrived and she said,
"I don't know what's going on",
she said, "there is police",
and I looked at the corner, and there was a tape,
and Ana Oliva asked the policeman what had happened.
The policeman told her "there was an accident,
I can't give any more information".
I thought ok, I took my bucket, my stuff,
and I went to the classrooms.
Then suddenly Ana Oliva told me "Pao Pao",
she said, "something happened", she told me,
because the police officer asked her how was our colleague.
So I went down the stairs, and I went over there,
and the policeman would not let me pass because there was a tape,
and then I told him, "they sent for me",
I said.
And I approached the policeman...
...who was next to Margarita's body,
and there he told me "who are you?", and I said "I am her colleague",
he told me, "describe me what your colleague looks like",
I gave him the descriptions,
and he asked me what her name was,
and I said, "her name is Margarita Ancacoy",
and then he answered that it was her.
I found out through a phone call from a nephew from Temuco,
who was watching television in the morning.
He saw it appear and went to the news
and found Margarita's information...
...in the Mega publication.
Elena Margarita Ancacoy Huircan, forty years old,
Magi as her family and friends called her,
was brutally murdered in the early hours of Monday morning...
...in the middle of downtown Santiago,
on República Avenue.
At hands of apparently a gang of foreign citizens.
Four of them are in custody...
...and the family and friends are closely following the investigation carried out...
... by the Attorney General's Office.
On about the third day,
an uncle sent me a link of when they were,
they were getting beaten up in prison.
-Have these guys confessed, Pato? -Yes.
They confessed. They did it.
They beat her to death. They ran away laughing.
I'm sorry, Pato. They screwed up the life of a whole family.
And they left laughing over a wallet and a cell phone.
I'm going to say something super unpopular...
...even if I'm treated like whatever,
well done,
well done the beatings. Minor injuries.
Yes, it complicated me at that minute...
...that the television was showing so much morbid,
because my mother-in-law was still alive. And she got sick,
and from that moment on she stopped eating,
and after four months she was gone.
I don't know if the University of Chile is responsible for it as a university,
but I do understand that there has to be a head...
that takes responsibility and says, yes, I knew what was going on...
...and that they don't wash their hands saying, no,
I didn't know what was going on,
I didn't know they were starting on this schedule, that they were arriving this way.
A lot of things followed,
because there were also a lot of female coworkers who began to...
we sort of rebelled in a certain way...
...because there also were problems with the hours,
that they did not pay us.
I had never complained, I never complained...
because, later I found out that the earliest time to enter the university...
...is seven AM in the morning.
So I don't know how they gave us that schedule.
We, well, we accepted, but always with fear.
Margarita shows us a reality that for many was hidden entirely.
Margarita's departure reveals that there is a workers' community,
that is totally invisible.
It shows us that institutionalism...
...does not really work to protect its workers.
It tells us that the university's internal bureaucracy...
...even overcomes the one of our legal power.
Who inflicts this fear?
How do we deal with this fear?
How do we ensure that these workers stop feeling that fear...
that they feel part of the community,
that they are indeed part of the community,
and that no more workers have to put up with undignified conditions,
abuse of power, and misjudgments of this level.
A few days ago...
...we were called to obtain the final verdict of this administrative investigation.
The verdict was plain and simple...
There were no executive responsibilities.
A bucket of cold water.
But no one had been killed on their way to work.
So, I believe that it is not a question of making memorials...
...and not a question of making all these media performances…
…that they are finally trying to make.
They gave more importance to the criminals,
the criminals and the prison guards kind of took more of the attention of the news.
Yes. She took a back seat.
Well, in terms of what could have been achieved,
it was what I had expected from the trial,
from how it was set up,
from how the evidence was built up against the accused...
however,
I had never expected anything from the Chilean justice system.
An authority told me once that people pass and institutions remain,
and therefore it is always necessary to look after the well-being of the institutions.
The same toxic,
patriarchal and credentialism dynamics are applied...
Because let's agree that in this country…
…it is not the same to have a professional degree.
It is not the same thing.
Because it is a way of being validated...
the education, the background, the money, the neighborhood where you come from...
...it seems that for Chilean society,
these are tremendously relevant, even beyond the person.
For me... I would say that I have learned to live...
...because for me the thoughts,
and everything comes to me at every moment.
Bu, if you ask me, where you notice the absence, in everything,
in everything we did.
Suddenly, one weekend, when we were free,
we said "now, let's take our things, let's go to the south".
Then you feel it. Every moment,
I think, of Margarita's absence.