MORE PROTESTS! But this time they are peaceful and slightly comical to me, the
gringa. I promise you that more has been going on in Santiago, sorry I'm bad at updating.
I think Allison's blog (odas.tumblr.com) describes the current protests well:
70,000 students
took to the streets on thursday, continuing the protest about the Chilean education system. 70,000! more and more universities and colegios are going on strike everyday.
also, the tomas (takeovers) that i mentioned in the last post are even more absurd and wonderful and organized than i previously realized. these are generally happening in colegios, the grade schools, and the students took over the schools for at least the duration of this week, and have been staying over inside the buildings overnight to prevent the administration from taking the buildings back over. all day long, they run workshops and educational sessions inside for their own classmates. they take the desks and chairs out of the buildings, and stick their legs through the schools’ fences or put them on the roof of the building. only students who present a valid student id card to the student guard corps at the gate can go in and out.
we walked by several tomas on the way home thursday night around 11:30, and the student guards were still at the ready, and pitching their message to everyone walking by.
there’s also supposedly a team of students who have been running around La Moneda, the government center, carrying a flag, with the goal of running constantly with the flag for some thousands of hours. the idea is: while some might say it’s impossible to reform the Ministry of Education, some might also say it’s impossible to run for 12,000 straight hours around the palace. but that we can work together to achieve the impossible.
A few additions on my part:
-I have not been going to Ingles Abre Puertas...but my students aren't in toma, they're just on your average ol' strike. While I think that the tomas show a level of sophistication and commitment that make it apparent the kids care about their education, the strike at Liceo 7 strikes me (haha, get it?) as the girls just being lazy and not caring whether they have school or not.
-My friend works at a different school, that is in toma. She didn't get the message. So she goes to the school, where a 10 year old boy stops her at the gate and says she can't go in the school. She doesn't understand, and argues. "Hold on," the boy says (though in Spanish, obvio), "I'll go get my supervisor." Much to my friend's surprise, his "supervisor" is a 13 year old girl who has taped a silver security badge to her colegio uniform.
I would love to get an inside peek of a toma, but alas, I am not a Chilean high school student.
Instead I'm stuck with a sinus infection and several exams coming up. Don't worry though--I'm on the mend after a visit to a Chilean clinic (which is a really a huge private hospital, apparently) where I was prescribed antibiotics.
NEXT WEEK: San Pedro de Atacama =)
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