Cúando despertó el dinosaurio todavía estaba allí

This entry is going to be a little bit shorter than the previous ones.

26/9/08
I’ve come to the conclusion, after making my own observations and questioning the other students on the program, that Chileans don’t believe in refrigerators. It isn’t that they don’t own refrigerators, my family here does, they just don’t believe in them. Meat doesn’t belong in the refrigerator, it stays on the counter. Sliced tomatoes doesn’t belong in the refrigerator, their proper place is the kitchen table. Left-overs don’t belong in the refrigerator, their obvious home is the microwave. Eggs? Heaven forbid that they should be put in the refrigerator. And don’t even get me started on where the milk is kept…This leaves the question, what does belong in the refrigerator? After much research and micro rides wondering whether or not I was going to die from having just eaten cereal with warm, never-been-cooled-before milk, I have decided only items that don’t necessarily need to be kept cool belong there. Unopened beverages. Maybe an occasional head of lettuce. Bread. That’s about it, though. The only possible reason I can come up with for why this is so, is that Chileans don’t believe in their refrigerating capacities…and me? Well, I don’t believe in toasters.
La Victoria is one of the most famous and largest tomas in Chile (possibly the largest). It started a little over 50 years ago, when a thousand or so people seized the land from the government. The Catholic Church, which still wields a large amount of power in Chile, intervened and convinced the government just to let them stay. Over the past 50 years, La Victoria has been the most organized toma in Chile. Pinochet repeatedly attacked it, killing and torturing many of its residents, but it has been able to persist, and today, is home for tens of thousands of people outside the Santiago area. The most remarkable thing about La Victoria, is that every single amenity they have, their houses, streets, sidewalks, electricity, and water, to name a few, the residents, not the government, have provided. All organization within the neighborhood is done by citizens. All buildings and infrastructure have been built by citizens. We spent the day there walking around with one of the community leaders. It was one of the most impressive displays of community action I have ever seen. To walk around and realize that it was mothers, fathers, sons, and daughters that built everything around me, was a testament that people can come together with no outside help and make their own lives. Obviously, even today, the neighborhood maintains such a fierce sense of community it tricks you into thinking that the people that live there are fighting for a separate country, not a place to live within their own country. We walked around in a gringo mob, thoroughly entertaining the people living there, observing the way of life. All the houses are about the size of a bedroom and have roofs only about 8 feet tall. One has to keep in mind, though, that the average family that lives in one of these houses isn’t the American family of 3 or 4, but most likely a large, extended family of 7 or 8. The one other thing to keep in mind, is that this isn’t a “special” case, La Victoria could represent any of hundreds of such communities in Chile, and a sizeable percentage of population. If you divide the population of Chile by income, the top 10% would earn 90% of the total wealth in the country – second only to Brazil in the world in terms of wealth disparity.

Graffiti here is also way cool. I don't know whether it is just cause it is in Spanish and I am able to read it, or if they just have cooler graffiti. The title of this blog is written on a wall close to my house, which translates to "When he woke up the dinosaur was still there." Supercool. Below are some images from the toma.


If I had to choose between bread and freedom, I would choose freedom to fight for bread.


[That] the 50 years are not in vain continue the fight it is in your hands


We saw a lot of this at the toma.