Soap Box

Protesters burning a church.  A church!!!

Alright, I know I'm not Chilean.  I know that my perspective is different.  I know that perhaps I have no right to be weighing in on this situation, but as I was forced to live through it (and am being forced to endure a less intense version of it at all times) I am going to comment on the national strike that occurred yesterday and the day before here in Chile.

For three months the students of this country have been "en paro", meaning on strike.  They haven't been attending any classes for three months.  Some of them even took desks and chairs from inside the school to barricade the gates of the schools so that they cannot be entered.   From what I can tell, and I have spoken with several Chileans on the matter, what they want is free education.  We're talking FREE.  As in, no tax hikes, no tuition, entirely government funded, FREE education.   Sure, it sounds like a great idea.  I am all for everyone being able to study wherever they want for as long as they want, and maybe, someday in the future we'll figure out how to do it, but the fact of the matter is that the government and public institutions of a country of millions cannot just upturn themselves and change everything about their policies in a matter of months.  It just doesn't work like that.  And that is exactly what they want and what they expect.

The students also want higher quality education which having both worked and studied in a Chilean high schools, universities and private institutions I can completely understand.  The quality of education here is nothing like what we offer in the US.  Last year I attended the best university in Chile and one of the best in South America and I found my workload was minimal, that I was hardly expected to attend class, that often when I did attend I was turned away because the department was striking about something and that in the end I took away perfect grades having done what I felt was about 10% of the work it would take to get the same grades at my home institution.  Higher quality education is a welcome proposition in any country.  It can always be better.

So, alright, the students here want affordable and high quality education.  Why then, Melanie, are you standing on your soap box with a maniacal look in your eye holding a hairbrush like a microphone?

Because they are tearing this damn city apart.

The last two days all of Chile had to endure not only barricades in their transportation systems and massive marches and protests throughout the country, it had to endure fires in the streets, rocks and molotov cocktails being thrown at buses and into store windows, churches being burned, gunfire and tear gas.  The city's resources in terms of police and fire departments were taxed to the maximum all by people who want the government to just hand them a big pile of money???  Stores were looted by workers on strike over unfair conditions.  Does anyone else recognize the painful irony there?  And who is this all affecting?  Sebastian Piñera, the president of Chile, is sitting comfortably in his office in La Moneda while the people the protesters really hurt are their neighbors, co-workers and friends.

People here have the right to protest.  They have the right to be pissed off.  They have the right to stand up for what they believe in.  But where does anyone get off behaving like this?  I know that the whole movement isn't comprised of violent people, and a number of people who believe in the cause have been recorded as saying that they are ashamed by the way some of their compatriots have been acting.  My heart goes out to them.  My heart goes out to anyone who feels downtrodden by their government, who can't afford a decent education, who works in unsafe and unfair conditions.  My heart will never go out to someone who is stupid enough to believe that the answer to all of that is to set a church on fire.

"Violence in the hands of the people isn't violence, it's justice!"

Lady, you must be out yo' damn mind. 

Paro Nacional (National Strike)

I haven't been outside to see how this is going, but this is the current situation in Chile:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/20110823/lt-chile-demonstrations/

Vacation (All I ever wanted)

Church in Valle del Elqui

 So, I finally made it to vacation!  After 16 weeks of work with one 3-day weekend, I arrived at the 6-week paid vacation I'd been looking forward to since day 1. All my grades were entered, all the nonsense with all my students was taken care of (for the most part) and I was ready to party, sleep and travel.  The first four weeks were spent mostly hanging out with friends, trolling around the city, eating good food and catching up on my zzz's.  I was thrilled to not have to wake up before 7am every day. 

The final 2 weeks of vacation was extra special because my friends Megan, Chris and Katie flew all the way from California to visit me.  When you live as far away as I do it's very special when people take the time and money out to see you so I was determined to make their trip worth it.  They arrived late on the 23rd (Katie early on the 24th) and after spending a day in Santiago, where we were inhibited by terrible weather, we set off on the first leg of our adventure to La Serena.

La Serena is a town about 6 hours north of Santiago on the coast.  The town itself is relatively small and quiet.  It's on a lovely beach and we actually enjoyed some good weather.  One of the attractions in the surrounding area is a place called Valle del Elqui, a beautiful region with mountains and desert where they cultivate grapes to make pisco, Chile's favorite liquor.  We took a 2 hour bus ride through the beautiful terrain to Pisco del Elqui, where the Gabriel Mistral factory is located.  It was the most charming little town surrounded on all sides by snow-capped mountains and rich brown earth.

View of Pisco del Elqui

The main attraction of this tiny little town is the pisco factory and being three kids from Napa and one from Santa Maria it's hard to resist a tour of a drink dispensary that uses grapes.  For 6,000 CLP we got a tour, two tastings, a free glass and a free drink.  The tour was lovely, we were the only ones in the whole place.  They gave the tour in Spanish so I played translator.  Pisco, it turns out, is distilled wine.  Who knew?

Old delivery wagon

At the end of the tour we tasted two different kinds of pisco in the cellar.  Pisco is typically served with Coca Cola but we tried it straight.  It actually wasn't bad, it's a pretty smooth liquor that is reminiscent of whiskey because it's aged in barrels and has that kind of wood-y taste to it.

Storage/Tasting room

New dog friend in the square

 

 

 

On the beach in La Serena

The next day we decided to explore the town of La Serena a little bit.  We walked down to the beach by a lighthouse and had lunch.  Katie painted a water color and gave it to a local boy who was admiring it the whole time she painted.  We had some local Chilean delicacies (I always insist on eating seafood in the coastal towns because it's amazing) and admired the ocean for a while.  We also met a cool dog who let us play fetch with him a few times before deciding he'd rather eat the rock than chase it.

Katie, me, Meg, dog

La Serena kind of reminds me of Charleston, South Carolina, minus the excruciating heat and humidity.  We were in a really cute part of town with cobblestone streets and pretty buildings. 

Near our hostel in La Serena

For Katie's birthday, the 28th, we wanted to check out another one of the attractions in the surrounding area.  There is a place called Punta de Choros from which you can take a fishing boat to two separate islands.  One is called Isla de Choros and it's a wildlife preserve and the other is called Isla Damas.  We really had no idea what we were getting ourselves into.  We took a van to this tiny little fishing village where they loaded us up with life jackets and giant waterproof ponchos, which turned out to be entirely necessary.  Then they walked us to the end of a dock where we found a tiny fishing boat crashing against the dock in the waves and informed us that this was our mode of transportation.  It took almost half an hour to load everyone into the boat because they had to wait intervals to allow the water to calm down to the point where it was safe.  Finally when we were all in the boat we set off for an hour journey in which somehow Megan and I would be the only ones completely soaked by the ocean spray.  It seems that we chose the wrong seats.

This is my fisherman/serial murderer look

The first island, Isla Choros, being a wildlife preserve, was not available for us to walk around on.  Instead the captain skillfully guided the boat around the island allowing us to see cormorants, sea lions and penguins.  It was a beautiful and dramatic landscape but I was so afraid of my camera falling overboard that I didn't take any pictures.  We were going to venture to the far side of the island to look for dolphins but the captain deemed the waters too treacherous so we turned back to go to Isla Damas where we were allowed to get out and take pictures.  It was a beautiful little island.

The dock at Isla Damas

Waves at Isla Damas

The ride back to shore was a little better.  They fashioned a tarp to the side of the boat to act as a barricade so we didn't get soaked again.  Part of the price we paid for the tour included lunch.  Mine was called paila marina, a seafood stew not for the faint of heart and only for the most avid seafood lovers.  It was delicious, even if I didn't know what half the food in it was.

We were exhausted from our day at sea but the next day we wanted to explore the little fishing village of Coquimbo to the south.  We could actually see the town from La Serena and it was only about a 30 minute drive down the coast.  There wasn't much to do there, but we had a nice walk along the beach and took in some pretty spectacular views.

Coquimbo

Coquimbo

After five days in La Serena we made our way back to Santiago where we stayed for about four days.  I showed them around some of my favorite parts of the city, including Cerro Santa Lucia.  It rained the previous nice so we had a lovely, smog free view of the snowy Andes.  Santiago can be a big ugly city but after it rains it is so spectacular.

Santiago from the top of the hill

Our last destinations were the coastal towns of Valparaiso, Viña del Mar, Reñaca and Con-Con.  My good friend, Lindsey, lives in Viña and graciously offered her house to us as a place to stay.  The day we left for Viña, however, we were almost stopped in our tracks by the biggest protest I have ever seen in Santiago.  The students here have been on strike for weeks now demanding free public education and it is starting to come to a head.  The morning we were to set out for the coast I left my apartment to find the streets full of students and police officers.  I live in what my friend referred to as "the eye of the hurricane" when it comes to demonstrations and protests because I live about 5 blocks from the most popular rendez-vous point.  I made it almost all the way to the hostel they were staying at without incident when this happened :http://vimeo.com/27375313
You can see me scurrying across the street about 14 seconds in right before a tear gas bomb is let off to my right.   I made it to their hostel but we were trapped inside for about an hour trying to allow some of the tear gas in the air to burn off.  Once traffic started moving in front of the hostel we rushed out to grab a cab and enjoyed a front row seat to the destruction throughout the city.  Tear gas, water cannons, students throwing rocks and lighting fires, it was a display of true chaos.  There is hardly a single wall in Santiago now without graffiti alluding to free education.  


Thankfully the bus terminal was well out of harms way and given the circumstances we were all to glad to be rid of Santiago.  We heard from one of the hostel workers that these protests were just the high school students and by night the college students would start up and it was expected to be extremely dangerous.  My roommate even called me and sent me a panicked text message later that night asking where I was and if I was safe.  Apparently she arrived to our street to find several fires burning and no sign of her gringa roommate.  


Viña and Valpo are always a treat.  We also went to have my favorite seafood empanadas in Con-Con.  In Valpo we took the oldest funicular in the city up to the top of one of the hills and spent some time in artisan shops and looking around at the street art that Valpo is famous for.

Lindsey and me admiring the street art

We also saw the movie "Horrible Bosses" which I highly recommend.  After two days on the coast we had to get back to Santiago again to see Katie on her way, but not before she tried one of my favorite Chilean dishes "chorrillana" (fries, meat, sausage, eggs, onions, heaven) and also made a few last minute souvenir purchases.  That night we went out so Megan and Chris could get a taste of Chilean nightlife and the next day they spent the day packing and I spent the day cooking.  It's amazing how vacation can be so exhausting.  But it was worth it.

Now I'm back to school with a much more favorable schedule than last semester and two classes of teachers.  It doesn't hurt that I've got 6 months of experience under my belt either making this semester look like a piece of cake compared to the last.  Here we go!