Chile está en paro

Well, at least I can say that Chile is never boring. Right now we're in paro, which means that all of the students in Chile right now are on strike and refuse to go to school. Sounds pretty good, but it's screwing everything up for me and it's a little scary at the same time. All of the students are having violent riots all over the country--mainly in Santiago--and they're going around breaking into stores and stealing all of the merchandise--and by the way, I have no idea how any of this is going to solve the problem. Meanwhile, the carabineros (the beloved Chilean police again) are going around beating the students and bystanders with clubs and shields. And there are these trucks that always travel in twos--one of them sprays people with a fire hose while the other one gasses them--and they're going around trying to calm the crowd. So far, more than a thousand people have been detained, and they've shipped some of them off to Uruguay for some reason. It reminds me of a warzone right now, especially watching the news. Last night they showed a bunch of people that had been stabbed with knives and then people threw huge rocks at them and they were all bloody and gross. And a lot of the schools now are in toma, which means that the students basically took over the school and won't let anybody in, and they blocked all the doors and gates with chairs and desks and hung protest banners all around the outside. So yeah, I think I'm about ready to come back home now... So, I haven't been in school for the past two weeks, which has been nice but at the same time it's frustrating because I wanted to travel all during July when we were supposed to be out of school, but now we have to use that time to make up all the classtime we're missing, and I may not get to go now. But if all goes well, I'll be in Easter Island either next weekend or the first week in July. Anyways, just thought I'd keep you all informed on the latest news from Chile. If you want to know more, I'm sure you can probably see us on TV somewhere :) Chau!