Between 1980 and 2000, Peru experienced a prolonged and deadly period of extreme violence, the worst in the country’s modern history. Remembered by some as an internal armed conflict and by others as a war on terror, the events mainly centered around the fighting between the Maoist armed insurgent group Shining Path and the coercive forces of the Peruvian state. Other armed groups were also active during this time, including rural self-defense forces known as Rondas Campesinas and the Cuban-inspired guerilla group MRTA (Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement). Although much smaller than the Shining Path, MRTA played a significant role in the violence that ensued. In July 2001, a Truth and Reconciliation Commission was established to investigate the abuses that occurred during the last two decades. The Commission found that all sides had committed systematic human rights violations, resulting in an estimated 70.000 deaths and disappearances. Shining Path was found to be responsible for 54% of these, agents of the state for 44.5%, and the MRTA, for the remaining 1.5% (CVR 2008, 435-438). Thousands of Peruvians were also declared victims of illegal detentions, sexual violence, torture, and massive displacement. Most of the affected belonged to marginalised sectors of society, such as indigenous peoples and rural communities, who suffered from poverty. Today, the events remain an uncomfortable and painful memory for many, and the narratives surrounding the events often conflict and contradict each other. The government's lack of concerted effort has further complicated the ability to forge a collective memory that might help reconcile Peruvian society and avoid the repetition of the past tragedies.

I was five years old when my father gifted me a wooden toy tractor. My father was a young man who was committed to the social struggle—this and his Christian convictions led him to join the MRTA. As part of his militancy, he made several trips to different countries in Latin America and Europe. It was on one of these trips, in Germany, that he found the wooden tractor and bought it for me.

I don't remember the day he gave it to me, but I know that the toy stayed with me in Lima until, at some point, I decided to take it to Chimbote, where my grandparents lived and with whom I spent my summer holidays. I remember playing with it in the garden, filling a platform behind the tractor with soil—a part of the toy that is now lost. I remember being on my knees pushing the tractor back and forth.

In 1993, I was nine years old and my father and his new partner were awaiting the birth of my brother. By then, my father used to divide his time between his militancy and his fatherhood, until on April 17 at around 4 p.m., he was arbitrarily captured, tortured for hours and finally killed by members of the Peruvian police. My brother was born four days later.

After his death, as time went by, I stopped playing with the tractor. However, every time I arrived at my grandparents' house, I would instinctively look for it. I now feel, as I write these lines, that it was a way of feeling that everything I had experienced with my father was real; the tractor was a material confirmation that my memories about him were real. After I finished high school, my trips to Chimbote became less frequent, but every time I went back I looked for the tractor, as usual. Perhaps, since my visits were more sporadic, my grandparents started putting it in more and more hidden places, trying to minimise the presence of an object that reminded them of the death of my father, whom they loved very much. Finally, the toy ended up in a plastic bag on top of the wardrobe in my grandparents' room.

The arrival of my children brought the memory of the tractor to the present. But not only that, it made me feel again the need to have it close to me, even to give it to my children, so that I could tell them that it had been a gift from my father. At first I wanted to give it to them and watch them play with it. I felt it was a nice way for them to feel their grandfather, not only through my stories and the pictures I showed them, but thanks to the tractor they could somehow play with their grandfather, or at least I imagined it that way.

In January 2022, after almost three years of not going to Peru because of the pandemic, I traveled there with my partner and my children—aged one and four at the time. When we arrived in Chimbote, I looked for the tractor and gave it to my children. I tried to tell them how meaningful it was to me, but they just wanted to play with it. For a few minutes I enjoyed that moment, it was as if I went back in time and could picture myself playing with the tractor. I felt again the emotions of joy and peace that I had always felt when I was in Chimbote. But that feeling did not last long. When I saw my son running with it, sitting on it, throwing it, in short, playing as any child of his age would do, I became anxious: What if the only toy that my father gave me and that I still have to this day broke? As soon as I was able to distract my son with another toy, I put the tractor away.

I didn't hesitate long and decided to bring the tractor to Belgium, where I live today. However, now I have many doubts about what I want to do with it. What changes by having the object? What has changed now that it is with me every day? What changes by seeing it and not touching it, by it being hidden? What changes if I put it in a central space? Do I want to give it that centrality?

Sometimes I feel like I should give it to my children so that they can play with it. I still haven’t done so and I don't know if I will ever do.