May 5, 2008

It was our first day in Chile actually doing things and it was an interesting one. The day started off with us going to the University of Santa Maria to attend some lectures on Chilean culture and geography. The campus itself was actually very nice. I imagine in the warmer seasons it’s probably stunning with the gardening. It is definitely much different from Pitt. It turns out the students on campus are kind of in a feud with the local bus transit over rising prices in student fares. There was a large congregation of students at the university to discuss their next move on the issue but I’ll have more on this later. Later on after the lectures, the students provided us with a Salsa lesson which was a lot of fun. While we were salsa-ing away in a far away classroom, the students of Viña del Mar took the streets in a riot to protest the rising bus fares. It may not seem like a huge deal, but the bus companies are only raising the fares for students who depend on the service to get to class each day. The university does not use dormitories like the ones in the United States. Apparently the situation was not safe at all for us to be in and the police were not letting anyone in our out of the area. When we eventually did get clearance out of the area we had to literally run through to the exit and pass through a barricade of police fully dressed in riot gear. The air was thick with the smell of pepper spray and your nose was actually burned from it. The students leading our trip were very good in making it clear that this was not a normal thing for the police to come into the university and that Chilean people would not normally act this way, but this was an extreme situation. Everyone understood however, and it did not bring down our group morale in the least bit. When we got back to the hotel, our Chilean student hosts showed us a delicious sandwich place that is extremely popular with the locals. I will admit, the sandwich was pretty awesome, especially for 5 dollars. After that we went to our first bar in Chile. They kindly bought us all a drink and we generally had a fun time together. I'm really pleased with the students that are 'hosting' us here at Chile. They are extremely down to earth and easy to talk to. I'm learning a lot from them and hope they learn a little from me as well.