An Interesting Day

Well, today was interesting.

I say that because of the general chaos that was Santiago, Chile today.

There was a march today by students demanding reform in Chilean education, principally in the form of reducing the cost of tuition and fees.  It started in Plaza Italia, where two of our campuses are, and eventually spread across the city.  Since both of our unis in Plaza Italia are en toma (see my post from yesterday if you're confused about this), we decided instead to go to USACH again.  We knew that USACH could be involved in the protests, but we decided it was probably our safest bet.  Plus, we had no work to do at the hostel, and we couldn't just sit around and do nothing!

When we got to USACH, the campus was very quiet.  There were very few people there; I think we saw fewer than 30 people the entire time we were there (about three hours).  Everyone must have been off on the march.  We thought it might pick up in the afternoon. Boy were we right.

Nearing the End :(

This post makes me sad. :(  We have two more days of on-campus ministry left, and only twelve days left in country. :( We fly back to the States on the night of July 2, arriving in Dallas the morning of July 3.  I get back to Phoenix about noon if everything goes according to schedule.  And this post, for the record, is a little more introspective than previous posts.  But please, bear with me. :)

Santiago En Paro

Hello again!

This week has been muy interesante.  I say that because...

We're on strike!  I mentioned earlier that USACH and some of the other unis we work on were on strike or close to it.  This is worse.  Now many private schools are on strike to support the demands of the public unis.  Ergo, almost 200 schools in the Santiago metropolitan region are on strike, including most of the ones we've been working on.  Some high schools, including the one by our hostel, are also on strike.