Photos from the student protests and my take on the situation

these photos are great, take a look

these photos are amazing as well!


The students are protesting because they want free education. This has been going on for about 3 months now, and we have arrived in the very heart of the lucha (fight). The protest on August 4th was one of the biggest. Thousands of students came to show their support. The Chilean police - los Carabineros - were not happy. I'm not sure who started it, but in the end, students were throwing rocks at the police and the police were throwing tear gas at the students. The police also arrived in tanks that fired water from cannons at the students. Tear gas even got into the subways. 

That night some people from our group decided to meet up at our favorite hang out spot, a brewery called HBH. It is in a section of town that normally does not have any protests. One boy arrived before everyone else. When we called him to tell him we were on our way, he said that 2 seconds before, students had charged into the bar and tear gas somehow ended up in the bar and people were all rushing towards the back. Luckily - and this is the only time I'll say it's a good thing that people are allowed to smoke inside in this country - the rooms for smokers have doors so no tear gas got in there. We came a little while later and it still stung our faces to walk up to the door of the bar.

These are full on riots that are going on here in Chile. Most other countries in Latin America have free education, but that is not the case in Chile. The universities are extremely expensive. Obviously my first thought was that they aren't as expensive as the ones in the United States, but people in the United States also have a higher average salary. We also have a very good loan and scholarship system. We may not think so, but compared to Chile, we really do. It is almost impossible to get scholarships here and loans are very difficult to pay off.

I am extremely impressed that so many these students can get together and fight for a common issue. However, this is debilitating the country for the moment. Other companies are going on strike as well. Next Thursday is supposed to be a massive protest that not only includes students, but anyone who has anything to protest about. Um, so the whole country?

About 7 students have been on a hunger strike for about 2 weeks now. One of the girls was hospitalized because of this and another has put on her clothes that she would like to be buried in. She told her mother that if she starts to get sick and seem like she's dying, not to do anything. She is willing to die for this cause. A bit dramatic? But it gets the point across, I guess. And about 30 hours ago, a few students went on a thirst strike. They won't drink anything until this issue gets settled. But the human body can't last much longer than about 72 hours without water, and there's no way this is going to get settled in another 40 hours.

The situation is getting out of control.

The government obviously can't give the students what they want and the student's aren't backing down. They should understand that this isn't something that can be changed overnight. This is a problem with the entire educational institution in this country and it will take time to change it all.

Some students want entirely free education and some want it so that you pay what you can. I think the second option is the best. It makes complete sense. To me, completely free education sounds like a great idea but is also entirely unrealistic. Paying what you can is much more logical.

Another problem with this is that the students are already enrolled for this semester. They paid for it. But they are not attending classes. So they are losing their money. What about the students who are not in favor of this? Or the students who don't have the kind of money that they can just throw away on an entire semester where they don't actually learn anything? It is very unfortunate for them because the majority of the students are for this cause. They are "en paro," meaning they are on strike. And the Universities are "en toma," meaning they are taken over by the students.

Before we arrived in Chile, we were told we would be able to take classes in the two best univeresities here: Universidad de Chile and Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile. When we arrived, we were told that it would be best not to sign up for classes from Universidad de Chile because they were already fighting strong for their beliefs and many classes were already cancelled. This university is known to be very liberal. Bummer, but ok, we still had Universidad Catolica, which is a bit more conservative.

My photography class was supposed to be on Campus Oriente de Universidad Catolica, their art campus. And as we all know, art students tend to be quite liberal. So guess what happened...my photography class got cancelled. Campus Oriente is now "en toma."

Campus Oriente, Pontificia Universidad Catolica. EN TOMA

People were starting to talk about us having to go home, about this being a waste of a semester. But I disagree. This is all extremely interesting and a once in a lifetime opportunity, even if we can't actually go to the protests because they are so dangerous and we could get deported if we were caught taking part in them.

I'm excited to see how the situation plays out.