20 after the release of anti-apartheid fighter Nelson Mandela

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The South Africans left the racism and took refuge in Chile

There are about 40 South African families across the country. Escaped the violence and racial segregation of their land. The uprooting and integration were not easy, but now live in peace. This is the story of five lives marked by apartheid.
CARLOS Cornelius Greyling Saldivia When he was 18, in 1985, being the son of a prominent journalist in Cape Town late, got the Beeld newspaper gave him a scholarship to study philosophy at the Rand Afrikaans University in exchange for working as a police reporter and photographer. He discovered that South Africa did not come out in the media, and this finding led him to flee his country, despite belonging to the 15% of the white population.

"The day was fun, but violent. There was a typical police profile, with crimes of passion, accidents and suicides. If you were white, was news: Blacks not so interested, since they were often killed and because our paper was not for people of color, "says the breakaway from South African apartheid Resort Algarrobo, on the Chilean coast.

The other side of the conflict occurred when, for example, the ANC, which opposed apartheid, detonated car bombs in locations close to white, while hundreds of blacks died in the attack. "One night, near the Ellis Park Stadium, I went to photograph an attack. There were dead and had to write fast. I took pictures and went back to the newspaper. When writing, the second bomb exploded right where I took the pictures. .. I was saved ., "says Cornelius Greyling.

After graduating he got a notice to do military service, he could not escape. Their options were to further study o. .. escape: "I came with nothing and just enough money. I took my Datsun and I went to Swaziland. The next day I bought two machetes, a backpack, and headed to the border of Mozambique."

Crawling through the jungle to avoid being discovered. With a machete broke branches and with pliers, wire border. In Mozambique he was arrested on suspicion of spying and spent months arrested. "After giving a press conference and ask for asylum, was recognized by the UN as a refugee. In prison I was offered an affiliate of the ANC. I said I had fled for being against the government, but that would not change a devil on the other" .

In Mozambique met his wife, with an L in your passport. They fell in love and decided to settle in Chile. "I algarrobina of heart and turned my back on a comfortable life in Switzerland to come to us here, where the quality of life is very high, something that Chileans do not appreciate sometimes. In South Africa if you come home and are robbing you, make you suffer full prior to murder and take your TV. Here the worst thing that happened to me was losing my car radio, "he says.

For Whites Only

"We were separated into races with a number on the card. The target was 00 at the end of the identity document. If it was mestizo, 01. The 02 was for foreign Muslims. A Chinaman was colored, but a Japanese man was white, and so, to get to 08, which was a black man. They taught their children that they had no soul and were worse than a dog. You could not access the privileges of riding the train in the first three cars. They had a sign saying For White Only. It was like Nazi Germany, "recalls Steven Theunnisien, an English professor who speaks five languages.

It is one of the few black South Africans that are in Chile. The mother was French and was not white, so Theunnisien was considered mestizo. The father, on marriage, lost all his white privilege 00. Has a sister who was white, but the rest of his brothers did not: "I remember when children had to go to different beaches, because we were mestizos and she was 00. Many mestizos postulated to be white with a humiliating test that took the secret police. I put a pencil in her hair. If he fell, was white hair. "

On a mission of the Evangelical Church in Mozambique met a Chilean, married her shortly thereafter and traveled to meet his family. "When I arrived I was surprised to see blond people, I had the mentality of apartheid and thought that here would be like going to the Amazon. The people were very affectionate with strangers," he recalls with humor Theunnisien, who once lost a scholarship for refusing to reject the whites to a black dean of a university.

Another compatriot, Krystin Maclaurin, arrived in Chile in 2004 from a village near the Kruger National Park. For the tsunami in Chile on February 27 was alone in Chiguayante, and experience is still scared. "Luckily I do not live by the sea, I'm still nervous," Maclaurin said. In his hometown, his most powerful experiences were being attacked by an elephant, a leopard found yards from his home ...

"Mandela's presence was overwhelming"

In Chile, Maclaurin found a more developed than I imagined, but other than their homeland. But the more known to Chileans, he likes: "South Africans are very high, so when I arrived was a giant. The Chilean is very feminine, South Africa's is stronger, because we live in a country more dangerous. In Conception difficult to make friends because people form friendships in college. Here people work all the time: Chile live to work. In South Africa, however, work to live. "

Remember racism everywhere: black and mixed race held in the suburbs, under curfew, with "passport" to enter and leave the "white areas." That in the segregated apartheid South Africa places to eat, bathrooms, cinemas and transport. "The release of Mandela saw it on TV. As a white girl did not know much about him, was not taught that part of history. There is still racism, and I hope the new generation is more tolerant, but it takes time to undo the hatred and anger. Today, racism is affecting us (whites). It is very difficult for a white man get a job, even with excellent grades. "

Christopher Rhomberg The engineer arrived in Chile as a refugee not, but to do business. He had invented a revolutionary device, a wind-up radio by a spring. Such was the fame of the apparatus, that a long train of cars arrived one day at a factory where she worked. "After the limo, in an old Toyota, Mandela arrived. Very humble came in to see the workers, most disabled. His presence was overwhelming, it was impossible not to want to stay with him," the inventor of a device that, after Mandela's departure from power, began to be manufactured in South Africa.

On the World Cup, that in a couple of months in his home country, is critical: "The great benefit from the World Cup is FIFA. The humble people who have a small business to two miles from the stadium should pay 6 million pesos in taxes if you sell the day of a game, "he said annoyed.

Venter Maxin psychologist working for the government of Thabo Mbeki, Mandela's successor, the Social Work Department. One morning, a group of men of color with tribal accent broke into his home in Durban, irons his children, 4 and 10 years. "They began a terrifying mental game to demonstrate power. In talking with people working violent or victims, and tried to stay calm, I gave them the keys, money, jewelry, everything. I did not care whether you were white or black, my neighbors were violated by criminals from AIDS killed. scared I lived for several years, "he says.

In 2005 her husband was offered work in Chile, and agreed to come: "I was very sad. I knew nothing of the country, did not speak Spanish, it was cold, leaving friends and my parents 20 years but could not go there, and wanted my children to grow well. Here there is more freedom to have fun, nightclubs open without problems. The food was strange to us, we did not understand what was pan, until they ate it. " For her, the World Cup has created many jobs and built buildings. "But prices are out of reach for blacks."