Pow! Bam! Smack!

Sometimes I forget where I am because I can watch House and Law and Order SVU on the tele.

But then I am ripped back to reality when:

• all the public school teachers in the country go on strike for a week
• there are puddles in the classrooms because the glass windows are shattered
• I kill an insect in the bathroom that my family assures me is not a scorpion
• men ride horses down city streets alongside cops who look disturbingly similar to green storm troopers.

I'm in Chile afterall. The TV is heavily influenced by the US but the internal problems are all Chilean. This week has been marked by massive protests and marches in Valpo by over ten thousand public school teachers from around the country. The protests were in response to the Congressional vote on a new education law, the LGE (Ley General de Educacion), which would replace the LOCE. The LOCE is a law remaining from the days of the dictatorship which supports a private, merantile system of education.

Under LOCE, the poor attend public schools, don't get an education, don't get into college and remain in the same position. The rich (all the polititians) send their kids to private schools, get into the best private universities, and continue the system.

This is Chile right? Sounds like some problems are international.

The LGE was passed but the professors don't believe that anything will change. For now, classes resume and the future is uncertain.