Student Protests: Rabble Rabble Rabble!

Chile has had a national "student strike" going on for about three weeks now, though I just found out about this last Thursday.  Apparently from time to time students get together, oftentimes with support and help from teachers, and march on the streets, picket outside schools, or straight up do lock-ins and force their schools to shut down.  From what I understand, this time around it started with students getting upset over the shut down of one of Santiago's smaller universities (though it may be more akin to a community college or trade school, but really I have no idea).  Point is, the way things work it seems each department votes on whether they want to support the protest, and then they decide to whether they will strike or not.  Once enough individual departments shut down (at which time students are meeting daily to draft petitions/lists of demands, and to march in the streets) the entire university freezes.  My host family's oldest daughter, who is 22 and finishing up her degree in education, hasn't had classes in around three weeks now, so she made the 17 hour commute back home to chill.  High school students followed suit, locked themselves in several of the city's biggest high schools, and people have been marching all over Santiago.  Joaquin Levin, the secretary of education, has even been punched in the face and attacked by crowds (apparently this is all very routine and business-as-usual; nothing to seek, keep it moving folks).  Though, since the tv's at home are in the parent's and sister's bedroom, and at work we rarely watch news during luch, I had absolutely no idea this was going on.  Until last Thursday that is.

Last week the high schoolers in Santiago called for a nation-wide solidarity movement, at which point students in Chiloe started to protest.  Our school is semi-private which means: a.) our school conditions are better (especially in a school small as ours with 10 student classrooms) so kids are less likely to march/skip class.  And more interestingly b.) unlike public school teachers that oftentimes openly support the students, teachers in this position are (unofficially) liable to lose their jobs if they do too much rabble-rousing or support the national strikes.  So folks here have understandably not been too vocal about it all, though it seems to me that the culture as well is such that politics/hot-button issues aren't discussed as often as in the states.

So last week the high school students arrived at school as spent the first hour or so of the day debating whether they were going to go join the local marches/demonstrations in the plaza here in Castro.  I had class with the seniors, during which we were supposed to practice for our English Show since they only have about 3 more classes with me before the performance.  In true Chile fashion, rather than maximize our 90 minutes of class time, the students lingered around the space heater while the teacher explained to me how student protests work.  I wasn't even sure if I could ask my students to work, since at the time I was under the impression that they were protesting, but still in class for whatever reason.  I may have gotten this impression when I asked my teacher why they were just standing there ten minutes into class and he said something along the lines of, "No, because....they are in a protest.  Did you know that?"  Or something.  But it turns out that they were just standing around rather than working because this is Chile, and we just happened to have protests going on elsewhere.  Point is, all's normal here but some fellow volunteers do have students striking at their schools.

One of these volunteers visited this weekend.  Monica from Chicago (she went to Stevenson High and Lake Forest College) and Sara from Connecticut.  Mauro, the English teacher, was awesome enough to let us all crash at his place while his roommates were out of town.  We spent the weekend drinking, wandering around town in the rain, and visiting the next town over, Chonchi, which I myself had not yet explored.  All three of us gringos ended up getting lots of little trinkets and handmade goods at the local artisan market (la feria) and I had that super fresh salmon again.  Pics should be up on facebook shortly.  Pictures are up.  This Friday two other gringas come visit, these ones will be staying at my place as my host mom was nice enough to offer up the spare bedroom.  Looking forward to the long weekend.  Quick anecdote to illustrate how Chile works:  Yesterday I went with my host mom and her three daughters (ages 5, 15, and 22) for haircuts.  We had an appointment at her friend's home salon at 6 pm.  She was with two other ladies and didn't get around to cutting our hair until 7:40.  No one seemed surprised or driven into a murderous rage by this, expect for me of course.  Good news: $3 hair cut.

-Paul

link to FB album:

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.935928679314.2439136.5321418&l=776a216fd2

Flamingos and Volcanoes

For whatever reason, Chiloe has penguins in the summer on the north side of the island (further from Antarctica) and flamingos in the winter (down here in the southern part of the island).  Apparently the flamingos migrate south for the winter to escape the extreme heat of the northern desert; I'm just not sure why they migrate all the way down here to the rainy, cold climate.  Anyway, yesterday I decided to make the 30 minute walk over to the lakes where the flamingos live.  It was a beautiful walk over down the one rural road we have around these parts, passing by small houses with farm animals, private stores, and even a tiny junk yard with some car scraps.  I asked around and (possibly) found the dirt path that leads to the flamingos.  However, when I got there the damn things were hundreds of feet away way off in the distance, so I figured I'd trek through the mud and see if I couldn't get a better view.  Perhaps I didn't follow the right path, either.  Either way, right on cue the winds came and blew in storm clouds.  Not two minutes after I arrived, it started to pour.  So I turned around and walked home, unsuccessfully trying to thumb a ride back.  I guess the flamingos will have to wait.

I found out yesterday that two friends volunteering way up north will be coming down here at the end of the month, and my host mom is cool with them crashing here.  Looking forward to have a few American friends for a weekend.  Also, a volcano few hours north of here on the mainland started to erupt a week ago.  Huge columns of smoke and ash have been covering the sky; the ash has even made its way all the way over to Bueno Aires, Argentina.  Yet, since a few years back a volcano much closer to here erupted and buried an entire village (after it was evacuated), people here don't seem phased.  They tell me that eruption was so powerful that, though the town is about 60 miles away from here on the mainland, you could see a mushroom cloud of ash for three weeks.

My school has been "working" on an English Show for a few months now; it's basically a talent show put on in English.  I was told that this year the principal didn't want any singing and instead wanted a lot of dialogue.  So we decided each grade would write some short sketch or brief play.  However, both English teachers and I are new to the school, the kids couldn't make up their minds on what they wanted to do, and classes are interrupted weekly by assemblies, parades, etc.  So we're basically three weeks away and nobody has done anything.  And I'm terrified to ask about the English Show because each time it's brought up, I lose ground.  For example, at the beginning of the semester the principal told us it would be July 1st, in the Centro Cultural in town, and it would be in the evening.  So two weeks ago I asked if a time was confirmed with the Centro Cultural, and my teacher told me that it would possibly be at around 2 or 3 pm.  I reminded him that we couldn't do that because the parents would still be at work on a Friday afternoon.  So earlier this week I asked if we had established an exact hour, and I was told that we were no longer sure it would be in the Centro Cultural.  I waited a few days, and asked again about it this Friday.  Now we are no longer sure of the date.  I'm basically dreading this whole thing.

But on the bright side, we're exactly a month away from three weeks of winter vacation!  In that time, I'll be working one week in Santiago as a counselor for the EOD program's winter camps, then I'll have about 5 free days, and then my mom flies in for ten.  Though I imagined Santiago as being sunny and warm year-round because it's 15 hours north of here, but apparently I was wrong.  They say it's freezing up there too, so my mom and I will hopefully be traveling up further north to La Serena (which is where my gringo friends are teaching now).

Today we have a fund-raiser at school, with bingo and dancing.  After that I'm planning on doing into town with a few folks to catch a blues show.  A well-known band from Valparaiso is playing, and one of their opening bands is the band of one of my students.  So that should be fun.  It started raining Monday and they say it won't quit til September.  We do, however, get short breaks every now and then, and ironically the sun even comes out sometimes as its raining.  However, I feel it'll become more gray and rainy in the coming months.

One last note on the rain, the storm was so bad the entire island lost power.  That's like three city of populations with about 30,000 and dozens of smaller towns, all without power for the day.  Apparently this is a common thing here; we've already lost power at school two or three times.  Obviously the entire day is wasted and teachers serve as mere baby-sitters.  Hopefully my trip up north will get me out of the cold rain for a bit, but as the north had recent flooding, I ain't holding my breath.  For now, looking forward to the blues show and spending another weekend watching movies.

-Paul

Thanksgiving Dinner

Last night I had the good fortune of dining at La Embajada de Gringolandia. That is, the house of a family from Boston that lives just down the road from my school.  The mother, Lisa, has been working at another Castro school through the same English Opens Doors program since last August; the dad, Mike, who works in a lab doing neuro-sciency complex things, got the okay to work from home for a year while living here; and their two kids, 6-year-old Roberto and 2-year-old Gabby, go to local schools/preschools here in town.  Since they've been here since last year, they will be leaving Castro at the end of the month.

As they won't be here in November, they invited me over to have a Thanksgiving meal yesterday.  I get out of school at 1 on Fridays, so I wandered over to their place and spent the afternoon running errands in town with them and keeping the kids out of their hair as they prepared dinner.  We were joined for dinner by Roberto's play date and the boy's mom.  The food was amazing: delicious chicken (in lieu of turkey), stuffing with chestnuts, baked potatoes and veggies, and for desert we had Mike's squash pie and a rhubarb pastry my host mom happened to have baked earlier this week.  Between the chilly weather and the American-style food, it genuinely felt like a November weekend.  All that was missing was a Detroit Lions game.

Click here for pictures from the dinner (and pictures of my host family).

I'm finally uploading other albums from the last few weeks Facebook this weekend, here are the links:

A few weeks back I went to Puerto Montt for a meeting with my program.  I spent the next day at the family home of Julio, my co-regional coordinator for the program.  The house is in a countryside village near the town of Maullin.  For a recap on the delicious home-made everything they fed me, check out the third paragraph of this post.

Here are the pics from Julio's house.

Here are the pics from the Navy Day Parade mentioned in the last post.

Soon I'll blog about the curanto you see in the Thanksgiving album, as well as some more a general thoughts on life in Chile.  For now, since its dark, gloomy, and rainy out (after a week of just beautiful weather), I'll be rotting away in bed watching Denzel Washington flicks.

-Paul