Education Protests in Santiago

Although I'm not 100% sure we have an accurate understanding of the education protests in Santiago, it seems that the protests are because of inequality in education between the lower/middle and upper class. This picture is from a school next door to our apartment in Santiago. If you look close, or click on the photo to get a better view, all the student's desks and chairs are stuck in the fence of the school. Kids stopped going to this, and many other, public schools around the beginning of June 2011, and they haven't been back yet! There are daily parades and protests in Santiago and some of the smaller towns. They say that for every 10 upper class students that get into the good colleges, only one lower or middle class students gets in. This isn't because of lack of intelligence, but lack of education. Even in the public schools, which are open to all, education is not as standardized as it is in the US. The students in the poorer neighborhoods get a worse education, and therefore can't pass the entrance exams to get into the good colleges (as easily). So, they are protesting this inequality, which seems totally legitimate. If you have seen anything in the world news about this you probably also so videos of looters, etc. Really, we lived there very close to the protests for 5 months....the looting is minimal. And, it is not the protesters that do it. They know they have to be peaceful. But, other persons who like to cause problems get into the crowds and do it sometimes. Anyhow, I'm still not totally clear on the inequality, or if all their protest requests are legitimate, but I'm sure that some or most of it is. It is interesting to watch and occasionally get to talk to a local about. We have a student right now who hopes to graduate from college this Fall but isn't sure if he will or not...depending on if the strike ends in time or not. Viva Chile!!

This is not the Peace Corps.

So we have moved about 6 hours north up the coast from Santiago to a small town called La Serena. Cherith did a great job of finding us work as English teachers in La Serena. Basically, once we learned that we couldn't do another semester at our school in Santiago we started considered all our options. Cherith made many inquiries at schools in smaller towns up the coast from Santiago. In mid-July we decided we'd try to just move to La Serena and see if we could find work. Then one of schools she had contacted said that they would have part-time work for us.  And then a few days later they told us that they got their grant money so that they could hire us full-time. So we left for La Serena on July 23rd.

We spent a week living in a really nice hostel close to el centro (downtown) in La Serena while we looked for a place. We also did two weeks of intensive spanish at a little spanish school. This really cute older couple have the school in historic building in el centro. This was really good for our spanish.

La Serena is Chile's second oldest city. It was originally founded in 1544. A few years later it was destroyed by the natives and most of the inhabitants killed.  The city was re-established in 1549 by a Spaniard named Francisco de Aguirre. (His name is all over everything.) They are celebrating the 467th anniversary of the founding of the town this month.

Though it's very old it isn't very big. La Serena has a population under 200,000 and it sits right on the coast of the Pacific ocean. To say that we are happy about our move is an understatement. La Serena has no smog, it's much smaller and it's warmer than Santiago.  And to our great surprise we found (and can afford) an apartment on the beach! Our new apartment is bigger than our apartment in Santiago and it costs less! Basically, the center of La Serena sits up on hill above the beach and in the 1980's they began developing a restaurant, hotel and condo zone along the beach for use during the summer months. And this is why we can afford to live here…it's the off season. Come mid-December, summer in the southern hemisphere, these places rent daily at rates that 3 days would be higher than we are paying monthly.

So more big news to follow. I just wanted to get this much posted because we haven't posted in so long. We just got our internet hooked up in our new place so stayed tuned...

Update on Plans

Just a brief update....we finish our semester at the college, DuocUC, this week (July 8th). Because the Peace Corp told us their appropriations were cut and we cannot go to Africa until Jan/Feb/Mar of 2012, we are hoping to stay in Chile until then, at least. But, we cannot work at DuocUC again because there was a deadline that we missed intentionally because we were supposed to be doing the Peace Corp in September. Once the Peace Corp informed us of the changes in our date it was too late to keep our jobs at DuocUC. But, no fear! We have a plan. We have a potential job in a town called La Serena, which is smaller and north up the coast from Santiago. This job is dependent on receipt of a grant. If the school gets the grant they applied for, then we have a job in La Serena. If they don't get the grant then we don't have a job in La Serena. We will know something by mid to end July. If La Serena doesn't work out then we plan to stay in Santiago and will look for jobs here. Actually, since we finish our current job this week, we are going to go ahead and start looking for work here in Santiago. It seems we should be able to get work here. We also plan to move apartments at the end of July, so will start that hunt next week, too. Our current apartment is very nice but it is more expensive than we planned, especially as we are finding out that hot water and electric are very expensive and other costs in this building are making the bills higher than we were told they would be. So, that's the update....as we look for jobs and a new apartment in the next few weeks we'll also probably take a couple little weekend trips to see a few more parts of Chile and celebrate having taught a whole semester at a college in Santiago, Chile!! Thank God for getting us this far. It's been a challenge but very amazing and fun, too.

 

 

I know this isn't the best picture. But, its a good memory for us this week. We were out for a walk making the best of the sunshine in order to stay warm (see former post on staying warm). This random ledge was warm from the sun and we sat here until the sun passed over and warmed us through. It was awesome!

Our first Chilean soccer game. Yes, they are CRAZY about soccer here. We're starting to understand the obsession a little better.

Wild Dogs with "Coats"

In previous posts you've heard us talk about and show pictures of all the wild dogs here. Well, here are a few of them. The guy above is wearing a winter "coat". It is just hilarious and cute....the locals put coats or neck scarfs on these dogs. Not all of them have them but every day I pass a dog with something like this or some kind of scarf on to keep them warm since it is winter here. The picture immediately below is one of the dogs with a neck scarf on, and then there is another with a red "coat" on. These dogs have no owners. They just live on the street.We want to adopt them all.....!

 

 

"Bio-Bio"

So, "Bio-Bio" is Santiago's massively, monstrously, gigantically huge ....um what might we call it?....flea market...? Of sorts? Anyhow, it goes for so many blocks we never found the end of it. And, I think you can buy just about anything there....legal or illegal. So, our friend Rodrigo took us there last weekend to help us with an "illegal" purchase. It was quite a hoot. Basically, Rich was upgrading our laptop and was trying to figure out how to do it and it became quite a complicated process, including a completely erased hard drive (intentionally). We kept trying to get something we needed from the Mac stores here but they didn't have it because some new version is coming out so they no longer had the item we needed. But, Rodrigo was quite sure we could get a ripped version of what we needed at "Bio-Bio" and he was right! It took a little looking around for the secret person that was selling it (because it was illegal), but we finally left with a ripped off version of a Mac disk that we needed. It still took a little more fenangelling (if that is really a word), but Rich in all his computer wisdom successfully got our computer upgraded and running even better than before. I am so impressed. Here are some photos from Bio Bio. It's just crazy there!! But really fun.

 

Rodrigo is the guy in the lower right corner. This is the aisle we found the disk in.

One of the hundreds of aisles.

Yes, you are correct, that is a gun for sale (to the left is a hand gun)...or a few of them, amidst the other variety of items.

Walking around...

We had lunch at one of the mom and pop vendors. We're getting used to this Chilean food....see below some very typical food.

Instead of chips and salsa, or bread with butter or vinegar and oil, this is what you get in Chile as the free-bee on  your table. You get it at EVERY restaruant...I think only once we got nothing. It is simple slices of white bread, with a bowl of salsa (called "pebre"). You dip the bread in the salsa and eat it! It's a little wierd at first, but we're really into the pebre. It's spicy and good.

I can't remember what they call this, but in English terms this is pot roast with mashed potatoes and rice. Also, there is a tomato and onion "Chilean" salad (it's just tomatoes and onion but they call it "Enselada Chilena"....it grows on you).

This is called "Consuelo" but is basically just a brothy soup with large chunks of meat, potato, corn, sweet potato, and rice in it. It's really good!

Some more of my students....

So, today was my last class!! So hard to believe. Rich's last class was yesterday. I really enjoyed my students and this experience has even made me think that I might like to be a teacher in the US. Seriously. I never thought I would say that. But, it is valuable and rewarding work. Here are some of my other classes and students that I didn't post in an earlier post.....

Beginner English - mixture of careers....sound engineering, advertising, culinary arts.

Beginner English....also a mixture of careers such as advertising, culinary arts, and sound engineering.

Beginner English.....these kids are all culinary arts students.

Eco-Tourism Exhibition Day

 

Eco-tourism students: Sebastian, Nicole, and Nadia

One of the majors on our campus is Eco-tourism. Chile is a very diverse land, having everything from the driest desert in the world to some of the biggest mountains in the world, to Patagonia, and hundreds of miles of beaches, ocean, and islands. I have one class of Eco-tourism students and they invited me to their native Chilean indian "exhibition" today. Basically, they had booths and you could visit each booth to learn about a different native indian tribe from Chile. They dressed up like some of the tribes, had native food and herbal drinks, etc. It was actually very interesting....I just wish I could have understood ALL of it, but my Spanish skills limited me a bit. Anyhow, the eco-tourism students learn all about their country so they can tell others about it, they learn English so they can guide English speaking tourists, they learn all kinds of outdoor activities such as hiking, camping, kayaking, horseback riding, etc so they can work for these types of tour companies. Today was their exhibition of their knowledge of their native culture. Have a look!

One of the tribe's dress....maybe this was just for special occasions.

Again - I think the outfit in the middle was just for special occasions.

This tree grows pine nuts - way bigger than the ones we eat in the US. And, they are really good! I tried one!