Santiago, Chile – Jeannette Avila takes out a white handkerchief atop Cerro Chena, a hill overlooking Chile’s capital, Santiago. Waving it up and down, she begins to dance to the music of Chile’s national dance.

“La cueca” is normally performed with a partner, but Avila is dancing alone

The photographs of Chilean political prisoners who were forcibly disappeared decades ago and whose remains have never been found are laid out at her feet. Among them is Avila’s grandfather, whose face and name are emblazoned on her T-shirt.

“My grandfather, Roberto Avila, was a railroad worker and a protestant pastor, and we know that he was executed here with others,” Avila told Al Jazeera during a memorial two weeks ago to the more than 100 people who are believed to have been killed in this spot in the 1970s and 1980s.