Los Carabineros

So I was going to write about "being a cultural ambassador", as Fulbright puts it, and talk about some of the Chileans we have met so far, but something else came up which I think would be more interesting.

From our twentieth story window we can see a fair amount of the city and have witnessed some interesting things so far, including a fashion show complete with a run-way and flashing colored lights and a bike rally which stopped traffic for a half an hour while approximately 500 bikes road by. However, on Tuesday night the most interesting city-watching event transpired so far.

As we may have mentioned in an earlier post, our building is kitty-corner to the Carabineros (Chile's police) station. Around 9pm Chile time (i.e a little before dinner) we starting hearing chanting and yelling out the window. When we located the noise we discovered almost directly below us were a group of protesters, neatly surrounded by lines of Carabineros in full riot gear. Anna thought the people looked like ants from our vantage so think of them as worker and army ants respectively. I don't know what the worker ants were protesting about, but we assume they were directed at the police station itself, because the theater school next to our building where the protest was occurring seems pretty uncontroversial to me.

After a bit of minor jostling between the two groups a bus-sized vehicle followed by another, more armored vehicle with a water cannon, rolled around the corner. From the bus out popped another dozen or so army ants and as the bus rolled down the block they were quickly and neatly replaced with some of the more rowdy worker ants. It was all very efficient (makes you wonder about how they get their practice) and luckily the water cannon or any other forceful techniques were not used. Once the bus was full, it moved on down the block, presumably to another Carabinero Station and the protest subsided.

We have no idea what the issue was that was being not-so-politely discussed, so I don't really know if I should be disturbed or comforted that the Carabineros do their job so well. You can make up your own stories.

I was able to snap a few pictures from our vantage point, three of them turned out well enough despite the poor light. Check them out.

*Anna 5; **Zack 9