Strike 1, Strike 2, Strrrrrr....

This morning the students at my school went on strike.  Apparently the students tried to take over last night and the police were called and the students ran.  However, this morning the principle had a conversation with the students and let them in the school on the grounds that after our 'buenos dias' they would all sit down and have a conversation about this.  Well about 50 students, all high school aged, took over the courtyard. As I walked in to school they, and yes almost all of them are my students except the seniors. Had blocked off the door entering the courtyard.  A few maintenance people were protecting the door so no more students joined their cause.  However, I had no idea what was going on. I thought that our school was strict enough to where this wouldn't happen.  So some of my students were yelling at me 'toma', which means take.  Yes they took over the school. Took some pictures.  After an hour or two, the Carabineros came to get the students out. The students had barricaded the doors and tied the front doors down with plastic ties(i call them panduit).  Glad I brought my camera today.

Students locking arms holding down the fort.

Barricaded the door in front the teacher's lounge out to the rest of the school/courtyard.

Yes, they will probably stay overnight at the school, many brought sleeping bags and blankets.

Speech, probably telling the mob, that they are here for peaceful reasons and they shouldn't mess too much up.  In fact they did have a speech ready for the teachers in the teacher's lounge about being pacifistic and not wanting to do damage and what not.

Main door the students go through to get into the school aka courtyard(patio).

Reads: Si contaramos con todo su apoyo esto no sucederia. Meaning: If we had all of your support this would not happen. Obviously they are talking about the administration/teachers.  They don't believe the administration supports their side.

On my last post I wrote I little bit about why there is a national strike.  I asked again today. This time I got a somewhat decent answer.  The students want to lower the price of the university and/or the loans dealing with them.  It was explained to me that you pay around 1 million pesos for an education, by the time you finish your education it is near 100 million pesos.  Those numbers are hearsay, coming from a teacher, but they are protesting the government loans and the huge interest rates on them.

I did tell them that in the US, many people don't finish paying off their student loans until they are very old.  In fact, a friend of my parents is a lawyer, I think he said he finished paying off his student loans at 45.  So it cannot be much different. But in latin america if they don't like something they protest it.

A point to back that up or another protest, whichever you perfer... Have you heard about HidroAysen?

They(gobierno) play ads(commerials) on the TV on every channel I have watched since I have been here, about HidroAysen.  And this is the first time I have seen a government pay for ads on TV.

HidroAysen, Chile con energia. (with energy). As you can see the video has 1 star.

I have mixed feelings about this. However to explain, HidroAysen is going to be a huge dam in the south of Chile(near Aysen), apparently dams in general change the entire environment/habitat around the river/dam.  I guess the damn will flood a huge amount of land.  Anyway, this is what all the Chileans have been protesting. They are very 'green' in this aspect.  I see a different protest about HidroAysen every week on the news here on TV.  The other side of the story, with a dam, they can use it for renewable energy, clean energy and it can power a major portion of Chile. I have mixed feeling about this, because, yes power is good, but also we must fight to keep our nature preserved.

Another video, its in Spanish, but bear with me, it does have some video of the protests/march(marcha) against 

HidroAysen.  It is really being massively protested.

  Yes Chileans are green on the aspect of energy and nature, but perhaps they are, because they get earthquakes every other week, why would you build a dam?  On the other hand they are not green at all when it comes to plastic bags and littering.  Chileans have a huge problem with littering, they don't understand that no one will pick it up.  Granted they have government employees walking around with grippers and a huge garbage can, but there are so many stray dogs, and they don't use garbage cans for their garbage on the street.  So the stray dogs tear into the garbage and thus create more litter... 

Plastic bags, are mas or less worse, they do reuse the plastic bags for everything, for garbage, like the bathroom, but also for like sandwiches and really anything you can think of...  A quote from a fellow volunteer's blog about plastic bags:

The first time I  bought food at a grocery store in Chile it took me more or less then  30 seconds to dig through the plastic bags to find the three things I bought. After doing some heavy calculation and consulting via Skype with a few friends who are math professors, I came to this conclusion. This is still only an estimate so don't hold me to it. Two bags for every individual item. A bag for for Items that had been bagged and finally another bag to carry all the bags. I am sure they have some reasoning behind this. Maybe they don't want the bag that's carrying the bag that's bagging the bag to touch the bag of the avocado? Quantum bagging? After my first experience it might of got worse.  "You sure you don't want to triple bag that bag?" "Take some bags for the road" Every grocery store I entered I instantly had baggage! Eventually I created a game out of it. Who Could Leave The Grocery Store With The Least Bags. " I got 15 bags, how many you got?" " "16 bags, man……… they always get me with the hidden liner bag". You have to watch out for the liner bag. The liner bag is the bag they sometimes lay at the bottom of your plethora of bags to protect your bag, you know……, if something spilled it could potentially ruin your plastic bag. -Danny Lynch

I hope he doesn't mind that I posted that. But yes he explains it in a the perfect way. So they are gaining ground and losing some as well, in regards to being 'green'.

Relating this all back to the strikes, The students are supporting something they believe it, awesome! They should stand up and fight it(just like HidroAysen). However, their youth has been out of school, in the public schools for almost 3 weeks. Yes, I support the students, and I understand this is a great way to get attention for your cause, but your falling behind. You will all be at least 3 weeks late, and in respect to my school, only 2 days(I hope, today and tomorrow).  But still, that messes with all of our schedules relating to teaching material for the tests(we only get 4 hours per week with each class and that is 2, two hour class periods). So just like HidroAysen, weChile areis gaining ground and losing some, perhaps gaining a bit more on the student side, because they must make up all those hours, but who wants to go to school on Saturday?

Danny Lynch's blog:  It is pretty entertaining, I know most of you guys check this blog out at work, its another way to kill time, but his photos are absolutely beautiful, and I think is doing a great job of capturing Chile in pictures.