Anarquists?

Twice a week now myself and a few of the other gringos in my program have a private literature class with our teacher. Her office has a great view from the sixth floor of a building at that bottom of a hill on the University of Playa Ancha campus. The other day we were sitting in class discussing the life and works of Gabriella Mistral when the secretary entered the class.

"Pardon the interruption, but a group of anarquists have entered the U and we need to evacuate immediately."

Anarquists? I thought. That's a new one. As we were packing up our bags laughing about the ridiculousness of our situation I looked out the window. There, in the middle of the street, students with bandanas covering their faces were breaking branches off of trees and lining them in the streets, sort of like garnish on a fine plate of ham. While these students were working, others where collecting rocks from the construction site near by and arranging their amo as school children pile up snowballs in anticipation of a battle. Then I noticed the thick black cloud of smoke coming from somewhere up the hill. "Moltav coctails?" I asked the professor.

"No, they're probably just burning tires," she said.

We left the building as the anarquists began throwing rocks at another group of students. We all got into the professor's red Suzuki station wagon and drove around the campus. On the other side of the soccer field we saw the large truck tire burning in the middle of the street. A few Carabinieros stood by, watching the scene as black, thick smoke swirled into the sky, undoutbably making many Vermonter environmentalists cry.

The professor took us to a small park near the beach about two minutes drive from la UPLA. There we sat down and continued talking about Mistral as if nothing had happened. After about ten minutes of discussion I started to notice a strange feeling in my face. My cheeks and nose started to burn and my eyes began to water. Looking around I noticed that the others were in the same discomfort. Evidently, more Caribinieros had arrived. Tear gas choked the campus and spread to our park via the wind. Hurriedly we got into the professor's car, rolled up the windows and left Playa Ancha for cleaner air.