Mario M Vallejos

Story

‘Che Guevara captured and killed in Bolivia’. These were the main headlines and news all over the country (and most of the world too) that will mark for me the planning and start of a long journey to Australia, albeit that by then I had no idea of how this dream could become a reality.

It was October 1967 and as a young 21 years old near graduation university student I was spending much of my time talking with my friends about our future and discussing the next elections in Chile.

My friends and my family as much of my own education were a mixture of a Catholic and conservative culture on one hand to a more radical and left oriented political milieu that was part of our everyday life on the other.

I lived then in San Carlos a small town about 400 kilometres south of the Chilean capital Santiago but I was brought up in a small rural rather isolated area with no public transport nor social, educational or other facilities nearby. I visited home only for my vacations from my boarding primary and high school years that my parents with great sacrifice have provided for me. By the time I went to university my parents have moved to live in the town where I had greater opportunities of socialising and enjoying some of the modest facilities when I came back home visiting.

It was in one of those late spring evenings with my friends that I said I would leave for Australia. Initially it was bewilderment by everybody and then it was taken as another joke or just a flippant remark by me that will be the subject of much teasing for quite a while.

I had thought to leave Chile three years before when I had just finished my high school but my father not only categorically refused it but also said that I must enrol at University and must get a degree to be somebody in my life. No need to explain here that what a father said to do a son must comply with and it was then that I enrolled and went to complete my first degree in Business Administration.

It would take another year till I finally got my backpack ready which I have made of an old army bag donated by an older cousin. Then in late November 1968 I said good bye to my family and friends hitchhiking to Santiago initially with another friend.

In Santiago we applied for visas to Australia but as we were anxious to keep moving we arranged to have the final visas processed in Peru seeking to find work in a ship to Australia there after unsuccessfully trying in Chile.

It would take another year after travelling mostly alone east, south, north and west in every country and harbour in South America (the challenges, vicissitudes and survival the subject of another story) that I was finally able in early January 1970 to get a lift in the French ocean liner Taitien bound for Australia from Panama.

I finally reached Sydney on 9 February 1970 as the sun was rising and reflecting on the Opera House still under the final days of its construction. I felt an exhilarating great satisfaction of a dream made reality with my heart full of hopes for a new beginning after a long and unforgetful journey.

I had then $10 in my pocket and 10 words of English. My skills of survival in South America were quite inadequate in a country with such a different culture and a language that was not only hard to understand but also many Australian had little inclination to help new migrants.

After a few days surviving in Sydney the employment service gave me a train ticket to Melbourne and from there stright to Mildura where I found out the harsh reality of working in a 40 degree vineyard and sleeping in a hotter third world hut of walls and roof made of corrugated iron.

From Mildura I went to Melbourne and after working in the assembly line at GMH Holden and other labouring jobs I went to English classes and later to further education.

For a time I almost gave up and attempted return to Chile since my frustration learning English and adjusting to life in Australia seemed unsurmountable. In 1973 on my way back to Chile the country faced the most brutal military coup and made me realised that Australia was a better place to make my home. Che Guevara was killed and then they also killed the elected President Salvador Allende in Chile. At least in Australia they might have a coup but only dismissed the Prime Minister.

Upon my return to Australia I did a post graduate Diploma of Education and in 1976 I began my career working in local government community services. First in Fitzroy Victoria then Alice Springs NT and finally from 1986 with the Kiama Municipal Council in NSW until my retirement in 2012.

I married in 1979 and after having two sons I divorced in 1998. I married Cindy in 2010 and I am now also a very proud grandfather of a beautiful little girl.

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