The Monsters That Terrorized My Childhood.

 During my childhood I was immerse in a very superstitious environment. Back in the south of Chile, the stories about witches, devilish creatures and monsters are very common and they are also a typical topic of the late night conversations.

I was a very brave child, though, when faced with movie monsters, things changed a bit. I still remember clrealy having been up all night, scared that some of the scariest monsters from the movies would come up the window and try to eat me.

The monster that took over my nightmares was Mr. Freddy Krugger. I used to feel really afraid of the way this character took over his victims, and just the thought of him comming into my dreams to torture me during my sleep, would prevent me and my parents along, from having a good night sleep.

Even though movie monsters were scary, the stories I used to hear about mithologic beings, deities, and situations in which the image of the catholic devil would appear, resulted even sacarier than any other fear I had.

I have strongly kept in my mind stories where the devil would take the sinners souls to hell, or disfiguring witches would cast spells of misfortune upon the locals or crop-fields. I remember actions that adults used to take to protect themselves from the devil, such as burning sugar on coal hot cinders, I remember them praying and begging God for protection and lots of other litlle nasty details that would scare the hell out of me, and wouldn't let me be at ease. Furthermore, when I saw the adults doing so, knowing that even the people who was suppossed to protect me from those frightening monsters couldn't protect themselves, I got totally anguished.

 Now that I am stepping on my 30's, I look back and have a totally different perspective of all these stories; now I consider them to be a real important part of our national folclore and identity, and guess what, instead of running away from those legends and stories, I love reading and learning them, so as to have a deeper glance into my national identity.