American exchange students join in on the Chilean education protests

Today, class included going to a march for more accessible and higher quality education. Considering that we have been studying the Chilean education system and the demands of the student movement, it fit perfectly into our curriculum. The biggest fault in the Chilean education system is that it is highly privatized (in theme with the rest of Chile) and it reflects/strengthens the class structure. Similar to the US, students who are from middle or high class families have the opportunity to attend high performing public schools or private schools while everyone else is left hanging. However, in Chile, public schools have less resources while the federal government takes less responsibility for the performance of the schools. The students here are fed up. They have decided to take over their schools (both universities and high schools) until the government responds. Some student are taking part in hunger strikes to show their passion.

The students, along with the support of professors and other sectors of the country, are asking for universal education through university. Their specific demands include more accountability from the federal government, a new system to train professors, greater financial support, and removal of the credit system many students use to finance their education. In reality, the students have made 21 requests, but many of them are vague in nature.

Here is an article on the protests if you want more information.
This article shows a lot of images of innocent people being tear gassed, but I don't want anyone to worry. I have only felt tear gas from a distance and there are ways to attend protests and avoid the violence that often occurs near the end.

Honestly, watching the events here has made us American students question why the streets of cities in the United States are filled with enraged students. Our system has many of the same problems, along with some of our own, and yet people sit idly by. The California public university systems are charging students more and more every couple of months while directing less resources towards each student. And yet, there is little to no response. Why is the youth of Chile more willing to stand up and fight? They have been arrested and tear gassed and continue to rally in the streets.

Today was an awesome experience. The passion of the students was obvious and they were joined by people of all generations and walks of life. It was incredible to see 12-year-olds fighting for the future of their country. I don't even know if there are many American 12-year-olds willing to dedicate a significant part of their day to a social cause.

I love seeing people like this at student marches. It's not like their education will get cheaper or not, they just realize how crucial education is in a society.

Us gringos showing our support!

The scene:

Some of my favorite signs:

I am one lucky girl. This weekend is fiestas patrias (independence day), which means that I get a four day weekend. I am not complaining and I think I have made very good use of my days off so far.

Truly, my weekend began earlier this week with some preparation. By which I mean, learning the Cuaca! (The national dance of Chile). We had an entire lesson on it on Thursday and it has proven helpful.

Then I really got the weekend going with some Chilean wine tasting on Friday and it was magnificent.

Picture an amazingly beautiful vineyard in the middle of Chilean wine country where everything is cheaper and it's legal for 20-year-olds to drink. Let's just say, it was delightful.

To top it all off, we had some lovely conversation. And Lauren decided she is getting married there, so looks like I'll be able to go back :)

Yesterday, I went exploring the cerros of Valparaiso. Noah, Rory and I decided to hike up to see Pablo Neruda's house and lucky for us the walk up there is a museum in itself.

After climbing the hills of Valparaiso, we went and found yourselves a futbol game in an oceanside stadium. It was complete with military men everywhere, considering that futbol games can get a little out of hand in Latin America. We thought we showed up on time, but during what we thought was half time, everyone started to leave. After a lot of uncertainty, we realized we had gotten there an hour during half time. So, it had felt like the beginning of the game when it was really half way done.

Then, my day continued with a authentic fiestas patrias street festival. I ended up helping mi mama's friend with her food stand. Basically, I had to be on top of my game because people were in great need of there guacamole, mayonnaise, and ketchup covered hot dogs and it was my job to get it to them while getting them the right change. It was quite something. I made friends with these really cute old women too and made time to do some dancing with mi mama.

Today, with no previous knowledge, I ended up going to a family party with mi mama. Obviously my Spanish needs some more work because I thought we were going back to the street fair and then we got on a bus... and it was the same bus that we took to Con Con (a town to the north where her family lives), so I thought we were going there... and then we got off in Vina del Mar and walked for a while. This whole time, I had no idea where we were going and I had told friends that I could meet up with them later so in my head I kept altering what I was planning to tell them. Everything worked out better than fine. We ate and drank delicious meat and Chilean wine for hours. Mi mama's best friend is awesome so we talked for hours.

Here is mi mama and I. You can see Leo, my brother, in the background.

Now, I am off to go meet Maya for some Dieziocho festivities!

Museo de Derechos Humanos

My class visited el Museo de Derechos Humanos (Museum of Human Rights) today in Santiago. It was a very sobering experience that was difficult to reflect on in Spanish. Basically, dictator Pinochet caused chaos and pain throughout his 17 years in power (1973-1990) and his legacy continues to hurt Chile. Despite the extensive number of people killed, disappeared, and tortured, many Chileans continue to pretend the atrocities were meager and justified by Chile's greater evolution. In this way, Pinochet continues to cripple Chile, although he has been dead for almost 5 years. Similarly, Pinochet basically wrote Chile's new constitution and was allowed to become a lifelong Senator of Chile even after Chile's supposed transition to Democracy. Thus, many politically-active Chileans still consider the government one of Pinochet. For this reason, Chile has been blocked from true and significant progress and many Chileans have given up hope. They consider all presidents to be the same, in large part because the work only within the framework of what Pinochet's constitution allows them too.

Although I am still a novice to this topic, I think it is essential that Chileans educate themselves and each other about the terror that occurred. They must understand the faults of the past in order to move on to the promise of the future. At the same time, Americans must also understand the significant role of the US government in supporting the military dictatorship in Chile. We are a large part of why the coup happened in the first place and our promotion of human rights abuses did not stop there. It is our job to keep our government accountable so that suffering is kept at a minimum.

I am looking forward to learning more about the past, present, and future of Chile. So far, I have found the politics intriguing but also depressing.

My View

So my house has an awesome view of the ocean and Valparaiso. Here it is:

Also, I had my Spanish test to see which level I should be in. We begin class tomorrow, but things are still pretty relaxed here.

I am having a bit of a struggle narrowing down my options for independent research at the end of the trip. I don't have to know exactly what I want to study now, but I would like to have a better idea. Originally, I wanted to study the future of women in Chilean politics. That is still a very good option but everywhere I turn there seems to be interesting things to study. For example, the education protests here are really interesting. Basically, the students and teachers are asking for cheeper education and overall reform to make education more accessible. Most of the local universities are shut down for the protests and it's really relevant to current politics and my life as a student. I am still in exploration mode but let me know if you have any ideas. I am new to this research thing.

I am moved in (Kind of)

I will try to make this post a little more comprehensive. I am currently sitting on my couch in my new house. I will have more pictures of the house soon, but for now, let me just say that this house is awesome. There are so many colors and it has such character. Here is a picture of my super adorable room.

Also, we have an awesome rooftop patio where I can sit on the roof and do basically whatever I want. Mostly, I plan on soaking in some sun, appreciating the wonderful view of the ocean, watching the world go by, and reading up there.

I have already gone of two walks around my new neighborhood with my host mom, Paulina. I live in a super artistic area where there are homemade crafts and street art everywhere. One of these days, I will need to really document the wonderful street art. Mi Mama has a craft store near by our house so she really fits into the scene here. She is friends with a lot of the artists in town, and a bunch of other people too. The second walk we went on was with her friend that has a one-year-old daughter. I also have a 16-year-old host brother named Leo. I think I will probably spend more time with Paulina from what she said but we get along very well so there is nothing wrong with that. I have to admit I was a little nervous to meet my new fam and move into a new place, but I am really happy with the results. No more nervousness, expect maybe about figuring out my way around this town with incredibly curvy streets and a public transportation system I don't understand yet.

Last night I met my host cousin too, Florencia Paz. All the American students met up with a younger member of their new family in a local bar and then we hung out in a huge group for a long time. It was a really fun experience but it was also a little overwhelming. There were so many people and we were all speaking in Spanish over each other. My host cousin speaks pretty good English so she was kind of bummed that I spoke Spanish and wanted to practice it more. She is 21 and studying architecture, which I know plenty about. Basically, we had no lack of things to talk about.

After that, we stayed out and explored a little more. There is a pretty good chance that we stayed out dancing till 3am... Basically, Maya's host brother is a boss and works at one of the most hoppin' clubs in town. Thus, the huge group of us didn't have to wait in the huge line and went straight into to a rockin' party. There is also a small chance that I had a dance-off with a mime on a short stage...

The other thing I want to mention is how beautiful the beach is here. Some of us gringas sat on the beach for a while yesterday in the late afternoon and it was gorgeous. It was only a ten minute walk from our hotel.

Orientation

We have been kept very busy with orientation activities, but I will try to give a quick update. Basically, we have done a lot of going over the rest of our program. In the session we just got out of, they went over our Spanish classes and the volunteer work that we are going to do with some Mapuche, a Chilean indigenous tribe. Although sometimes the overviews of these programs are repetitive, but they get me excited for the rest of the semester too.

We spend a lot of time with our Academic Directors, Choqui, Danko, and Sergio. Danko is really nice but also a big fan of talking for hours and hours. He usually starts out with something relevant and then that somehow leads into something related to communist movements in Latin America. All of the program leaders love their job and have been doing this for a long time, so they know what they are doing.

My program has 24 students and 6 of us are from Oxy, so we are a little overpowering, but I think we have done a good job of integrating. All the people are really passionate and glad to be here. A lot of us have very similar interests because of the program's focus. Still, it is so nice to have some of favorite Oxy people with me. Maya Kumar (Ku Ku Mai Mai)and I went on an awesome walk on the beach yesterday. We really needed to share some summer stories so it was a worthy use of our time.

I need to go eat lunch now, but I will try to add more soon. And some pictures! I think another Oxy person, Lauren Wemple, will have some pictures of our excursion last night at a Karaoke bar.