Thursday, April 24, 2008

La Marcha



Politcal activism is something we take for granted in the United States. We all know that we have the right to protest and that is just dandy. When we have a problem with legislation we write to our Representatives and Senators in Washington. Sometimes, a vocal minority actually goes down to D.C. and marches, as has occured in the past few years in protest to the war in Iraq. The Chileans, however, take protesting very seriously.


On Tuesday I went to class as normal and when I showed up there was a mass of people standing outside of the main building on campus, La Casa Central. I walked up to the doors and found a wall of desks and chairs blocking the entrance. I asked a student what was going on and he informed me that one of the majors at the school had started a "Toma." (The verb tomar means to take). Literally, they had taken the building in protest of recent government legislation to raise the student bus fair about 100% in an effort to assist the struggling public school systems. This was just the last straw for the students as the government has also been threatening to privatize UPLA. Also, there has been a strong student movement since I have been down here to have a public school at the same caliber as the expensive private schools in Chile. All this has lead to "paros" or strikes in a few of the majors, thus, I only had one class this week.



Today was a nation-wide day of protest for the students and naturally I couldn't resist a little jaunt with my camera right into the thick of it all. The National Congress is located here in Valparaiso and today there was a giant march, of all the college and high school students in the city down the main avenue, Pedro Montt. The students marched from one end of town to the Congressional building, blocking off the entire street. At the Congress the Caribinieros (Police) waited with riot gear and some crowd control equipment as seen below.



Those intimidating, green, military-esque vehicles blocked the road to the congress. The one to the left is known as a Guanaco. The truck is loaded with water that smells like sewage and has a high pressurized super soaker on top.



At first the March was peaceful, people where chanting, clapping, even sitting down in the street as they waited. They had submitted a letter to Congress earlier that day with all of their wishes and concerns and where waiting for a response. I was accompanied by a friend from my Philosophy class, Lizardo, and he was able to fill me in on everything going on. All of a sudden a group of people to our right began to throw rocks and bottles at the Carabinieros. Lizardo informed me that these were all the high school students. None of the college aged kids where looking for violence and they shouted and booed the agitators. The kids continued to throw rocks and Lizardo and I were surprised by the restraint the Carabinieros showed. When the kids broke down the barrior and threw a barrage of rocks, glass, and wood they got the reaction they were waiting for. The trucks revved their engines and moved quickly at the assailants. The Guanaco shot the shit water in the direction of the crowd and a mass stampede ensued as the Carabinieros chased after the aggressors, arresting a few and ultimately breaking up what was once a peaceful protest.


We hung around for a bit afterwards and watched as kids continued to mess with the police. I saw one of the my more worse behaved students from the Colegio pick up a piece of sidewalk and smash it on the road into smaller pieces for ammo.



This is the second day that I have seen a violent clash between citizens and police. Yesterday I witnessed a group of protestors throwing eggs and rocks at the Municipality building. They were protesting the construction of a proposed mall here in Valpo. It was broken up when a Guanaco rolled in and sprayed the protestors, followed by Carabinieros wrestling people into a paddywagon. This country faced serious repression under the dictatorship of Pinochet. Some people suffered tremendously, some benefitted, some disapeared, and some died. Political activism was a crime and taken very seriously. Today it is still taken very seriously and these students are going to fight until someone listens. Unfortunately, in every large protest there are going to be people who are only there to start trouble. To a sixteen year old, angry teenager there is nothing more beautiful than a rock in a cop's face. Some high school students will have a story to tell tomorrow, other's will be in prison. Unfortunately they did nothing to achieve the goals of the protest and ultimately tarnished the goals of the student majority.

Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Coast to Coast to Coast to Coast

As April draws to a close I am ashamed at my lack of posts. This is not due to a lack of activity, on the contrary, the month did not dissapoint. A few weeks ago I was under the impression that my schedule was pretty set in stone. Monday and Tuesday I would wake up early and head over to the school down the street to teach English. Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday I would trek across town to La UPLA and sit in class, trying to pay attention. I have a hard enough time paying attention to classes back at Midd but during a lecture in Spanish it is impossible not to let the mind wander to things that I can actually understand without an Espanol-Ingles dicionario.

This was all upset on a normal Tuesday when Sage, another student here from Midd, explained to us that the following week would be the week of Mechones, a week celebrating the first year students. She informed us that there would be no classes after 11 A.M. each day and that she planned on traveling. With this my mind began to wander. If I left Thursday after my last class I could have ten days before my next class. My own personal spring break was thus formulated and set into action. Two days later Molly and I sat on an overnight bus peircing the Andes at death-defying speeds; cheap wine and steak ahead of us, Valparaiso behind us.




We spent two days in Mendoza and sampled the fruits of the region. One day we rented bicycles and cruised through the vineyards, stopping to take tours and sample wines. At the last vineyard someone took Molly's bike and switched it for a bike with a flat tire. The ride back was long and unbearably uncomfortable as I felt every pothole and rock under the bare metal rim in my crotch. As I was peddling and sweating profusely I heard someone yell, "Go home Jacky" as a Moped cruised by. It took quite a while of confusion until I finally realized that he had not confused me for his thin female cousin but had recognized me for the patriotic, red-blooded, live free or die, American that I am. I wish I had been able to inform him that in reality I support the Mets.

We arrived in Buenos Aires on Sunday morning and spent the day walking through the San Telmo Antiques Market, a giant gathering of mimes, clowns, artisans, antiquers, tourists, Tango bands and dancers, and more people trying to sell mate gourds than there are monedas in Argentina. To explain this simile: there are no coins in Argentina and thus Molly and I spent the week hording as many as we could get our greedy American hands on. I've been told it is because the metal is worth more than the actual value of the coins so people take them to Paraguay and sell them. In reality, nobody knows. In spite of this, Argentina now lacks more pesos. Booya.

We spent the week taking advantage of the economically unstable country, fueled by copious amounts of dead animal, wine, and mate. We met up with other Midd students and went out in style. On Monday night we went to La Bomba, an excellent weekly concert of a large percussion band. They played for two hours as the crowd rejoiced over music and the two dollar-a-liter beer.
We went to the zoo on Wednesday with Forrest. I love animals, even if they are in cages and presumably miserable, so I had a great time. That night we also noticed a strange scent in the air as we left a bar around two in the morning with Pujan and Will. It smelled like smoke; how strange.


The next day we went to El Tigre in the delta region north along the coast of the Rio del Plata,
the largest river in the world. We took the public transportation, a sick old wooden boat, to one of the islands where I ate more steak and we walked into a field of spiders that were probably raised by Hagrid and grew up eating intruding wizards in the Forbidden Forest.


When we returned to the city we could barely see anything through the thick smoke that had blanketed Buenos Aires. It turns out that the farmers in the delta are protesting the price at which the government was planning to buy their crops. In Argentina products are exported through the government, the idea being that the farmers will receive a fair price and the government can take a nice little treat for itself. This year however, when the price the government set was lower than normal, massive protests ensued. At first the farmers blocked all the roads into Buenos Aires and then they began burning all their fields, literally suffocating the country's capital. By the end of our week it was miserable outside. I felt like I was in a seedy bar the entire time; I never saw the sun, my eyes were watering, and my throat felt like an ashtray. I was actually excited to get on the 24 hour bus on Sunday and get the hell out of Malas Aires for the cloudy, dreary skies that were waiting for me here on the other coast in Valparaiso.

Wednesday, April 2, 2008

Dead bodies smell funny

Last weekend I went to Santiago to stay with Sergio again. The weekend was full of great activities such as climbing, eating meat, seeing dead bodies dissected and placed in silly positions, watching Catholics drink at ten in the morning at a religious parade on Sunday, and more climbing.

To clarify some of that.

Rest assured the dead bodies were in a controlled environment. The Bodies Exhibit is in Santiago for the next few months and I could not pass up the opportunity to see a complete circulatory system outside of a body and fetuses (what is the plural of fetus? Is it like cactus: feti?) in jars. At first I was wondering where someone could find so many bodies to play with but then I realized that they were all Asian and it probably isn't that hard to find a plethora of unclaimed bodies in China.

On Sunday we went to the Quazi Moto parade near Sergio's house to see some caballos (horses), Santi's favorite animal and word. The parade happens every year after Easter and traditionally it was the day that the Catholic priests brought all the money down from the local churches to the main casa del Dios. All the huascos, or cowboys, would come out and escort the Priests, protecting them from robbers, along their journey. Today the priests don't really need to worry about robbers, just drunk guys on their horses.