Wednesday, August 29, 2007 Santiago turned War Zone

Wednesday, August 29, 2007 Santiago turned War Zone

So today was one of the most interesting days I’ve ever seen in Santiago. I woke up nice and tranquila, then went to campus early to “study”. All day yesterday and this morning I’d been hearing things about a supposed manifestacion de trabajadores (Worker’s Protest) that was going to happen today. We’d gotten emails from our program directors telling us to avoid Alameda, the street only 3 blocks from my house and to not travel in Santiago Centro (where I live) in the afternoon. They even canceled classes at the University of Chile. When I heard manifestacion, I imagined a bunch of people marching with signs and yelling. I figured we shouldn’t travel because certain streets would be shut down for the march and the police would be monitoring everything. While I was studying, I got a few more emails saying that La Católica had canceled classes from 4:30 on, which got me out of my Biblia class and my Pobreza class in the evening.
I went to my Doctrina Social class, then mass, where I met up with Christian. He asked me how I was getting home after class and offered to drive me, using a route around the manifestacion. I told him not to worry, that I was going to meet up with some girl friends before going home and that in fact, I kind of wanted to go check it out since its so close to my house. When I saw the look on his face when I said this, I realized this manifestacion was a lot more intense than I had thought. He explained to me that the police don’t care who you are (observer or protester) and that they go pescando (fishing), which means they grab the girls by their ponytails and throw them in the prison buses. So I got the idea and assured him that I wouldn’t go near, then headed to take my test.
Before the test the professor said she would like to say a prayer for peace in our city and also in our hearts and minds. We said the are father together, then she handed out the tests, which I basically failed. We’ll see, but it was over a lot of stuff they didn’t tell us to study. But I think a lot of the Chileans felt the same way, so hopefully it won’t be that bad.
After the test I went to Calli’s house to meet up with our girlfriends to plan our next trips. While we were hanging out, Calli, Samantha and Kristen all told their stories of the day, which included having tear bombs thrown near them, having to run away from swarms of people and police, etc. They said they never felt like they were in actual danger, but that it was pretty crazy. Anyway, we had a powwow to figure out what we are going to do for our days off. We have September 17-19, Monday thru Wednesday (which means an entire week for me) off for the Fiestas Patrias, the Chilean independence days. We decided we are going to take a bus to Puerto Montt, 12 hours south of Santiago for the first half, then come back to Santiago for the Fiestas Patrias, then we are going 7 hours north to La Serena. It should be an awesome week and a great way to see more of Chile.
I took the metro home around 6 to get back before dark. When I got of the metro (on Alameda, the supposedly dangerous street) there was practically no one around. All the shops were closed and none of the street vendors where out. I walked home quickly, expecting to see a bomb being dropped or something at any moment. I guess basically the entire city shut down and everyone went home early. Olga was glad to see me home and for the first time since I come here, she told me that I was not allowed to leave the house tonight. I told her I wasn’t planning to, so we spent the night relaxing and watching the news. It was incredible to see footage of the actual protest since I’d only heard about it so far.
It was definitely not like I’d imagined, but more like what I picture a war zone. There were people running around throwing Molotov cocktails and attacking police, police beating people, high pressure water hoses, tear bombs, the works. And all of this was happening about 7 blocks from my house, where I walk all the time. In other parts of the city they had set tires on fire in the streets and huge sections of road were shut down. Over 50 people were injured, including 33 police and one senator (a leftist senator that was protesting), and over 670 people were arrested. Check out the news link if you want to read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070830/wl_afp/chiledemo_070830171057
I still don’t understand exactly what the purpose was, but I know it was a protest about workers rights (salary, unemployment, etc.). Anyway, part of me would have liked to see it in person, but most of me was just fine watching on the news. It was pretty exciting and amazing to see what can happen when a lot of people get really pissed off and decide to do something about it. One thing I did notice was that the police didn’t have any guns. I guess that means it might be a little more chaotic, but at least no one died. I went to bed late after pretending to do homework but really just talking to Trev and relaxing.