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[Hollis Abdelkarim]

MartinaTatiana Sfiligoy has a peculiar job. It involves her getting visits from people who have questions about who they are and where they came from. Like in May 2003, when a man about her age, 25, showed up at her doorstep in Buenos Aires. He introduced himself as Mariano and he was visibly agitated. Tatiana invited him to sit and he started talking.

Tatiana: El hombre me dijo que, unos das antes, su madre le haba dicho que l no era su hijo biolgico y tampoco de su padre. l tambin me dijo que su padre era polica y que era un hombre muy violento.

Martina: Mariano went on, telling Tatiana that his family had no record of his birth. And that he had a recurring dream that woke him up in the middle of the night: someone calling him by a different name, Juan.

Tatiana: No era la primera vez que yo escuchaba una historia como esta. Yo trat de calmarlo y le dije que su viaje para conocer su verdadera identidad estaba empezando en ese preciso momento.

Martina: Tatiana was glad the young man had come to see her. The non-profit she worked for was called Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo, the Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo, and it had been founded to serve children whose parents had disappeared during Argentina's infamous military dictatorship. Children just like him.

Martina: Bienvenidos and welcome to the Duolingo Spanish Podcast. I'm Martina Castro. Every episode, we bring you fascinating true stories, to help you improve your Spanish listening and gain new perspectives on the world.

The storyteller will be using intermediate Spanish, and I'll be chiming in for context in English. If you miss something, you can always skip back and listen again. We also offer full transcripts at podcast.duolingo.com.

Martina: The year was 1977, and Tatiana Sfiligoy Ruarte Britos was four years old. For six months, she had been living in an orphanage, with few memories of her previous life. One afternoon, an orphanage worker came to take her to the courthouse. She was told she was going to meet her new adoptive parents.

Tatiana: Yo habl con ellos un poco, pero no hubo empata, as que decidieron no adoptarme. Despus de eso, yo estaba en una sala y, a travs de la puerta, vi a una seora con un beb en sus brazos. Inmediatamente, empec a gritar y me agit muchsimo.

Martina: There was a reason for her screams. Tatiana recognized that one-year-old baby, though she hadn't seen her in six months. It was her little sister, Mara. They had been separated and taken to different orphanages. The woman holding Mara had come to court that day to adopt her.

Tatiana: Cuando se enteraron de esto, Ins y Carlos dijeron que nos queran adoptar a las dos. El destino quiso que ese da, a esa hora, estuviramos todos en ese lugar. Ese fue el comienzo de todo. Nosotros no sabamos todos los giros que nuestra historia iba a dar.

Tatiana: Yo estaba muy feliz en mi nueva casa con mis nuevos padres, que eran muy dulces conmigo. Era una casa grande de dos pisos y con una terraza. Cuando entr, yo vi muchsimas frutas sobre la mesa. Corr a agarrar una manzana y me la com.

Martina: When Tatiana arrived at her new home, she was in rough shape. During her six months at the orphanage, she'd gotten lice in her hair and was sick to her stomach from malnutrition.

Tatiana: Cada noche, Ins y Carlos me hacan un tratamiento en el cabello y me baaban. Yo tambin recuerdo que me daban jugo de naranja todas las maanas porque as les haba dicho una doctora.

Tatiana: Ins no entenda por qu nos haban abandonado en una plaza y por qu nadie haba preguntado por nosotras. Ella estaba segura de que haba algo extrao en nuestra historia y quera saber la verdad. Su tica era admirable.

Martina: In the months and years that followed, an estimated 30,000 people were kidnapped, or secuestrados, then tortured and killed. Many of the bodies were never found, so they became known as desaparecidos, the disappeared ones.

Tatiana: Muchas de las mujeres secuestradas por los militares estaban embarazadas o tenan hijos pequeos. Esos bebs fueron robados y entregados ilegalmente a las familias relacionadas con los militares.

Martina: One year after the dictatorship began, a group of women began to protest in front of the government palace. They were the mothers of los desaparecidos, and they were determined to find out what had happened to their loved ones. Tatiana's new parents were aware of their activism.

Martina: Another group soon arose: the Abuelas, or grandmothers, of Plaza de Mayo. These women had a somewhat different mission: they were determined to find their disappeared grandchildren, who were supposedly alive, but had been taken by the military when their parents were kidnapped.

Tatiana: Ins no era parte de ninguna organizacin poltica, pero saba lo que estaba pasando en el pas. De hecho, ella tena un compaero de trabajo que haba desaparecido. Nadie saba adnde los llevaban ni qu les pasaba, pero la gente saba que algo estaba sucediendo. Por esta razn, Ins y Carlos tenan dudas sobre nuestro origen.

Martina: Ins went back to the courthouse where she had adopted the girls three times and she asked to speak with the judge, el juez. She told him that she suspected her daughters could have something to do with the desaparecidos and their missing children.

Martina: The priest, or sacerdote, worked with young activists and he knew very well that the children of desaparecidos were being illegally turned over to military families. While Tatiana and Mara's adoptions were technically legal because they went through the courts, their story still didn't add up.

Tatiana: Dos aos despus de que fuimos adoptadas por Ins y Carlos, el sacerdote le envi una carta annima a las Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo. l no le dijo nada a nadie, pero Ins no se molest. Estbamos cerca de tener una explicacin sobre nuestra situacin.

Martina: The priest sent the letter because he assumed there was probably a family out there looking for the girls. He was sure to be very precise providing all the details of the case.

Martina: It turns out that Tatiana and her sister, Mara, have the same mother but a different father. That's why three grandmothers claimed them, not just two. The grandmothers went to court with photos of the girls and said they knew they had been adopted.

Martina: As soon as they arrived at the courthouse, or el juzgado, Ins, Carlos, Tatiana, and Mara sat down in a small room. A few minutes later, the three grandmothers came in. Tatiana got nervous, even though she had no idea what was happening.

Tatiana: Ya estaba mucho ms tranquila. Volv a verlas y reconoc a mis dos abuelas y a la abuela de Mara. No entenda bien qu estaba pasando, pero saba que tena otra familia. Las abuelas lloraban y nos abrazaban. Yo estaba confundida, pero contenta.

Martina: Tatiana and Mara became the first disappeared grandchildren to be recovered by the Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo. Their new family learned that Tatiana's biological parents were named Mirta Graciela Britos and Oscar Ruarte Prez. Oscar had been kidnapped in 1976, followed by Graciela, a year later.

Tatiana: Nuestras abuelas no tenan ninguna informacin sobre ellos. Estaban desaparecidos. Los buscaban desesperadamente, igual que a nosotras. Ellas pensaban que Mara y yo habamos desaparecido con nuestra madre.

Martina: As they learned more about the girls' story, Ins and Carlos had mixed feelings. On the one hand, they were happy for them to be reunited with their family, but at the same time, they were scared of losing them. The girls had been with them for two years already.

Martina: Once the grandmothers showed the original birth certificates to prove that the girls really were their granddaughters, the judge decided to put the girls on a visiting schedule so they could see their grandmothers every other week.

Tatiana: Me gustaba verlas. Yo comparta ms tiempo con mi abuela paterna porque ella vena a mi casa y se quedaba dos o tres meses. Nosotras a veces salamos juntas, pero, casi siempre, nos quedbamos en casa hablando y compartiendo.

Martina: Tatiana and Mara's situation was special. In the majority of cases, children were stolen by military families, so they had no knowledge of their biological families. But since Carlos and Ins were civilians who adopted the girls legally, Tatiana and Mara's story was documented. This meant the girls could have a relationship with their grandmothers, even if it wasn't easy at first.

Martina: For many years, Tatiana didn't have the courage to tell her friends the truth about her story. So on her 10th birthday, her grandmothers, together with Ins and Carlos, arranged for the president of the Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo to go to Tatiana's school and tell her story.

Martina: In 1983, Argentina began to transition back to democracy. People started to talk more openly and passionately about los desaparecidos, the stolen babies, and the Madres and Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo.

Tatiana: Pero yo crec como cualquier otra adolescente. Visitaba a mis abuelas biolgicas a menudo. Nosotras desarrollamos una relacin muy linda. Ellas me hablaban de cuando mis padres eran pequeos. Sin embargo, nunca hablbamos de cmo haban desaparecido. Yo no estaba lista para saberlo.

Martina: When she finished high school, Tatiana enrolled in college to study biology. She also started a course in theater. As a young girl, Ins and Carlos had taken her to the theater a lot, and as a teenager she often went with her girlfriends.

Martina: Seeing her parents' names in that newspaper changed something for Tatiana. For the first time, she wanted to know who her parents had been. Tatiana had recently started therapy, and in one session, like a flash, a memory came to her.

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