Click on this picture to see more. I´m glad that I have not seen, in La Serena, any of the Nazi graffiti that I saw in Iquique. We did see a flier for an anti-fascism event in La Serena, and we decided to go.
Flyer for the Antifascist festival, against repression, domination, machismo, racism and sexism, held at El Chirimoyo.
El Chirimoyo, www.elchirimoyo.cl.nu, is a group of people who occupied an abandoned house in La Serena three years ago. Now, nine people live there, comunally. They have a garden, they cook together, they have a weight room and music room, and a pre-university. (In Chile, the schools don´t sufficiently prepare students for the college entrance exam. Rich students can go to an expensive pre-university where they will be prepared for this exam, but poor students don´t have this option and therefore sometimes can´t pass the exam and can´t go to college. El Chirimoyo´s pre-university is free for the people).
El Chirimoyo is very clean and open. They have a people´s library, a very clen yard with a garden and an outdoor oven, a stage, benches and chirimoyo trees. They let us walk around and take some pictures. Click for more.
They have been in the house for three years, and they have running water, gas and electricity. This is the second house that the group has occupied.
The anti-fascist event started with a discussion about human rights. There were about 12 to 15 people sitting in a circle. Most, but not all, younger than I am. They talked about human rights issues that they have identified, such as police profiling and brutality, religious freedm in schols, the low minimum wage, the insufficient social welfare system, inequality in schools (large class sizes and poor instruction in poorer schools, assigning students to tracks so that they can´t go to college, uncomfortable school uniforms for girls, college entrance based on a standardized test that students are not prepared to pass). Someone commented that when we talk about human rights we often think about the horrible things that happened in Chile in the 1970s, under Pinochet, and we think that torture is the only human rights abuse, but that there are many other human rights abuses that continue to happen, such as the above-mentioned problems and also what the U.S. is doing in Iraq.
What impressed me most was that this group of young Chileans was talking about all of the same issues that we struggle with in the United States. The conversation probably could have taken place in any country in the world. We all want the same basic human rights.
After the discussion, a lawyer came and spoke about people´s rights in terms of police, during an arrest, the requirement to show your ID, and rights related to search. The next speaker spoke about anarchism.
Later we went to the tocata, where a punk band played. We had a chance to talk to some of the people we had seen during the day, and to look at fliers and zines. A few of the things we learned:
Mapuche political prisoners are on a hunger strike since Oct. 10. They are fighting for the release of the Mapuche (indigenous from the Temuco area) political prisoners and for the demilitarization of conflict zones. From what I understand, the Mapuche political prisoners are in jail because they tried to reclaim their land, which has been taken from them. They protest because the state protects the interests of the rich businesses such as mining and forestry and hydroelectric plants, while a 17-yr-old Mapuche boy was killed by police while helping to reclaim his community´s land. The Mapuche political prisoners are on a liquid hunger strike.
Abortion is illegal in Chile, and there are more than 200,000 illegal abortions every year, many under horrible conditions. You can be put in jail for having an abortion. We wonder whether it will be possible to get a safe abortion in the U.S. by the time we return.
You can make the Spanish language less sexist by using @ or x or = in place of the o or a in order to remove gender from words like compañeros or compañeras (which become compañer@s or companerxs or companer=s).
My good friend Orlando asked me to ask people in Chile what they think of George Bush. Well the truth is that I am happy to be on a whole separate continent from George at the moment, but I did ask one person, a young man who was staying at our boarding house. He told me that he thinks that Bush is not very intelligent. In fact, he is stupid. And he has a lot of power, and that is a dangerous thing. The truth, he said, is that George is like a monkey. I guess the caricature artist who drew the below picture would agree:
In other news, I rented a bike and went for a beautiful bike ride down the coast to the town of Coquimbo. We took a tour to the Humbolt Penguin Reserve, on a nearby island where we saw penguins, sea lions, cormoran, a tiny sea otter (nutria), pelicans and other species of birds. We saw wild guanaco, the ancestors of the domesticated llama and alpaca, on the way. And we had a wonderful guide named Felipe, who we have run into by accident twice during the past two days! We went to a play, The Misunderstanding, by Camus. The play was free! We went to a cultural festival in La Serena, and we took a day trip to the sunny Elqui Valley. I´ll post pictures of these activities on Flickr.
We said goodbye to the French family who shared our boarding house with us for over a week. We became fast friends with their children, and I miss the giggling in the morning!
We will stay in La Serena for a couple more days, when we will go to Santiago to visit my United World College friend Olga, who lives there and is about to have a baby! Then we will head south to meet several friends in Temuco, to start our tour of the Lake District. We miss all our friends and family at home, and hope you are well!
1 comment:
To Kimi Kimi and Gary:
Albert Camus The Misunderstanding ( I am not familiar with the play but do l know about Camus) is the perfect play to be showing in a country that has military zones and political prisoner in prison for trying to reclaim their land.
Your trip has become historically significant. Why? Because i was just at Trinity House, the house was established by Dorothy Days Catholic Workers Movement, and I mention the politics that you wrote about to them and they were very interested. I gave them a hundred dollars to encourage them.
Do the people interact? Do they act like they enjoy life? Do they have animated conversations. Do they gesticulate and laugh and in general are open people. Do their conversations sound like they have a good grip on life?
First the beautiful countries then the politics. Then a description of the social manners of the people make for a complete picture of you travels.
Camus held a independent left-wing position based on the ideals of justice and truth and the belief that all political action must have a solid moral basis and that is the philosophy of Dorothy day and the socialist.
Thank you for your supportive letter. It gets lonely when your a critic. Theres a lot of rejection and negative reaction and you have to be sure of your position. We Shall Overcome Some Day.
Love and peace Orlando
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