Globetrotters: # 112 - Manifestaciones en Santiago

Arriving at the capital, we could clearly feel that the city was in upheaval. There were many cancellations at the hostels and some shops were closed. Nevertheless, people still went on with their normal lives and jobs, as well as they could. They went to work, opened their shops, went out for food and drinks with friends. And they tried to make the city as attractive as possible for the tourists.

However, every day around 5 or 6 pm, just about when people finish work, big crowds would gather at Plaza Italia. One day, at that time, we were there too. From a safe distance we saw people taking over the streets, blocking them completely with trash bins or small fire barricades and regulated the traffic between cars and pedestrians since the traffic lights were not working. We even saw families with children, food carts and people selling beers or bandanas. It was nice to see how people were collaborating. Young girls held their banners with their messages together, a group of young people dressed in reflective orange were offering first aid and people with spray bottles of clean water, helped protesters rinse their burning eyes.

After a couple of hours of peaceful demonstrations, the police came to scatter the protesters away. Big uproars started when the tanks came spraying some sort of acidic liquid at the demonstrators. Even though we were only at the very edge of the demonstration we didn't have a choice but start running as well as everybody else, fleeing from the tear gas. We were surprised at how fast the general vibe changed. Feeling safe in a side street everybody took a break and a deep breath until we saw armed black figures coming towards us. Everybody started running again and we didn't bother to look back to see what the shooting sounds were behind us. Five minutes later we were back in the hostel.

Above all, we found it impressive that so many people get mobilised on a daily basis over such a long period of time using their voice and power as citizens to take action and speak up for themselves.