It is so tranquil in our little apartment. We have lived here since January, 2014 and all our needs are fulfilled. It’s heat efficient and tight as a ship. We are enclosed together like notes in a sealed glass bottle, bobbing along in the dark ocean. We have a bedroom, an office, and a bathroom fan that sometimes rattles. We have a red, white, and black woven rug with Mapuche patterns. Thick curtains keep out the cold, custom made by a bodega owner for our antiquated curtain track system. In the same big space as the living room, we have what we call our “kitchen for one.” After a comical few months we learned to gracefully use the tiny space simultaneously, our spatial awareness merged, the four-armed Ganesh of cooking and dish-washing.
This is not a bad place to ride out any chaos that might come our way.
Exactly forty-one years ago, Chile experienced a military coup. The dictatorship lasted 17 years, until 1990, and was marked by terrible human rights violations. I suggest taking time to watch a documentary or two about it if you don’t already know what went down. It is heavy stuff, but important. I think most people don’t realize that the US installed a dictatorship in Chile that murdered and tortured thousands of people. Since it happened so recently, it still affects attitudes and daily life. The generations who lived through it are almost all still alive. Tonight and tomorrow night there will likely be riots to commemorate the anniversary of the coup.
Protests are fairly common here. Chilean labor protests tend to be god-awful noisy (drum lines, vuvuzelas, megaphones, whistles, horns) but peaceful. As they blow their whistles and beat their drums*, I wish them all the success in the world… and soon! Occasionally there are human rights or Mapuche pride marches, and those sometimes end with broken windows, graffiti, burning ATMs, and riot gear.
But the protests tonight and tomorrow are different. We will not venture out of the house in the evening unless there’s an emergency. Restaurants won’t deliver food. Businesses will close and take measures to avoid damage. Tomorrow I’ll leave work early to get whatever groceries we’ll need for dinner before the city shuts down.
During this time, military personnel line the streets fully armed, especially in the poor neighborhoods. Hundreds get arrested or injured and a few years back an officer was killed. Protesters throw chains in the transformers and the power invariably goes out. Cars are burned on the street and the air is thick with the smell of smoldering tires. People even throw rocks at the armored police trucks. I thought that was largely symbolic, but the other day I saw one of the trucks covered in hundreds of dents. It was pot marked from a cloud of rocks as thick as machine gun fire, probably accumulated over the years. I imagine you’d have to have a pretty good arm to make such deep holes in the thick armor. Chileans should get these guys playing baseball.
This year has been unusually violent for Chile. We don’t know why, but it seems the anarchist movement is gaining momentum since we’ve been here. It has been present for a long time, punctuating the years with violent reminders of their cause, but lately there has been more damage. Two days ago a bomb went off in a metro station, wounding seven. Yesterday a bomb went off in a supermarket in Viña, wounding one. Since they happened this week, they are thought to be connected to the September 11th protests. Yet, they are just two bombs of several, including one that burned the thick wooden door of a nearby church. In total, this year thirty bombs have been planted but a lot of them failed to detonate. There have been injuries but thankfully no fatalities. With the uptick in bombing, I wonder if this year’s protests will be more intense.
The Chilean people suffered terrible injustices and still face terrible economic inequality. The indigenous Mapuche people are still fighting for their land and rights after hundreds of years. These are not easy problems to solve, but are probably impossible to solve with violence. Even though the turmoil scares me, I am hopeful that Chile will be better for it someday and will emerge reforged by fires of burning tires. If the storm rages outside, we’ll be cozy here with our books and our candles, our tablets fully charged, our thick curtains drawn to keep in the warmth and peace.
*Amazingly, street dogs seem to be completely immune to this noise and can be frequently seen sleeping in front of the labor protests, unaffected just a few feet away. I have to cross the street or cover my ears from the extremely loud whistles, horns, and drums. I am totally baffled by the fact that dogs decide to sleep near these very loud events.
Pelo de choclo 