Protests, Miners and Farmville

I realize I said I'd post with more frequency, and instead I let two weeks pass without a single post! In my defense it's been a fairly busy two weeks. What with acclimating to taking classes in another country and beginning my internship, blogging was placed in the back burner. But I'm back!


Anyway, Chilean students are possibly the most politically active people I have ever come across. Universidad de Chile students have been protesting for weeks now for several reasons, one of the most important being the government’s attempt at privatizing the university. So, Universidad de Chile students begin protesting so frequently and in such great numbers that classes are canceled without notice. The first time class was canceled or "huvo un paro" I showed up to class and sat there wondering "why is everyone so late?" for about 15 minutes, til one student came in and told me they were protesting so classes were canceled. The following week we had class, but students were protesting right outside my classroom while drumming and singing. They even bring whatever stray dogs tag along as they protest outdoors (Chilean stray dogs love following herds of people--they'll only cross large streets/avenues when there are people crossing). 


I've noticed something very interesting (and maybe unsurprising), though: the political activity of the university isn't stretched through every campus or school. For instance, as I mentioned in one of my facebook statuses sometime last week, I am convinced one of my campuses is warped in the 70s. Students walk around dressed like hippies of the era and have been fearlessly protesting almost everyday for about two weeks. This campus, Juan Gomez Millas, is the campus for the School of  Humanities and Philosophy (where the more leftist radical, earth/people/peace-oriented minds seem to be).  But, at another one of my campuses, where the School of Economics and Business is (where the money/businessey minds seem to be), students apparently do not protest. In fact, students from Juan Gomez Millas went en masse to the School of Economics and Business to protest there. This is obviously representative of the sort of students that are in each school, but still interesting to observe the distinct political behaviors of the students. Another very interesting thing I noticed is that while the students protest at JGM, university administration and other authorities do not harass or try to subdue them.  It is so uniform that other students and faculty of the school don't seem at all bothered, nor are they ever controlled or arrested by officials. However, when these students took to the School of Economics and Business, members of the school circled around the protesters and watched perplexed and in shock. When they took to the streets, officials arrived with tear gas and water hoses. It was fascinating to watch this contrast and learn from the complete prowess with which Chilean students handle political issues. 


Also fascinating in recent Chilean activity is the news of the trapped miners. It was remarkable to experience the joy Chileans felt when they found out that all 33 miners are alive. Can you imagine? 33 miners, ranging from 19-63 years of age, trapped for 17 days approximately 2,000 feet below ground, and then the country finds out they're alive? For Chile--a country that doesn't exactly have a strong history of wins--this is a huge, meaningful victory. There were massive crowds of people celebrating all over Santiago (and imaginably the rest of the country) as news of their touching note, "estamos bien en el refugio los 33," spread.  I've even seen huge signs with those very words hanging from windows. My host grandfather, who was also a miner, cried the night the news came out. Finding the miners gave Chile a large dose of hope, something that many Chileans lost after February's earthquake.  It's just an amazing time to be part of Chilean society - not to mention the weather is finally getting consistently nicer! 


My classes are all going fairly routinely. I enjoy all of them, but I'm still unsure of the grading system. I also feel the need to mention that while professors hand out syllabi, they are pretty useless. All they say is what a student should expect out of the class. What I want it to tell me is when exams are, what readings I should be doing, etc. But alas. For the sake of my sanity and my GPA (which there is no concept of here), hopefully I'll catch the drift of things sooner than later! 


On a quick, brighter note, I learned to dance Cueca, which is Chile's national dance (even though most Chileans don't know how to dance it). It is a very structured, difficult dance to learn, but I really enjoyed it, as it's very different from what I'm used to dancing. They mostly dance it in the month of September (Chile's big celebratory month), so I learned it at quite the opportune time :-) 


And lastly - my host family's obsession with Farmville. For those readers that are not familiar with Farmville: it is an incredibly annoying (and apparently equally addictive) game on facebook, where, from my understanding, you create your own farm and harvest your own crop. Well, all these people seem to do on the computer is play Farmville. Vehemently. Last Thursday was my host dad's birthday, so we had a small dinner party at my house with about 15 people. At one point during the night, the entire table was discussing Farmville. And I don't mean "how are those berries harvesting?" The conversation went on for so long I legitimately excused myself. 


I'll post recent pictures some time today or tomorrow!


Mirelis