“Did you see that?” “What?” I pointed out the window as we left work.
Three police in full riot gear had just walked by. It was only 6:30, but all the shops had already closed hours early. The hatches were battened, metal protection covering every doorway and storefront. Near the fountain, about 15 police in full riot gear stood attentive, quietly chatting. It was eerily deserted, everyone who worked in our area had known to go home early. The few who remained rushed home before the storm.
I didn’t know there were going to be big protests today, but this morning I did notice the smell of tires burning and extra policemen stationed in pairs at strategic corners.
We met with lines of police the whole way home. They blocked our usual path and rerouted us, the red lights of one of their pockmarked armored vans illuminating the gray evening. It’s one thing to have a policeman give you a detour. It’s another to have that detour enforced with a long, stern-faced line of armor and fierce dogs. In a flash, I had the sick feeling of recognition, as if I was witnessing a ghost of the not too-distant past. People rushing to their homes before nightfall, the military in the street, the violence in the night. This is new to me, but Chile knows it well.
I’m safe, you know. I am so safe and cozy in our apartment, far above the Molotov cocktails, tear gas, and burning banks and pharmacies. We will get home early on protest nights, as if adhering to the curfew that hasn’t existed since the dictatorship. I will sit in pajamas, reading the live twitter feed of my city burning. It will just be a hassle to us, like subway construction or a traffic jam. But I know Chile is fighting for her future out there in the streets. In a place where people were afraid for a long time that they might say the wrong thing to the wrong person, now the students scream for change. They march for education, for social justice, economic equality and anarchy.
Chile has come a long way, but some nights those days don’t seem quite as far away at all.
Pelo de choclo 