Highschools and baby care

Today, sunday the 22th of November, a story about a girl was posted in the news. She got pregnant in 2002, while she was still in highschool, and the directive board of her school considered it so scandalous that they didn't took too much time to kick her out. Madeleine (that was her name) got in touch with a lawyer that took her case and started talkig to people, going every day to the Education Ministry, demanding that she was re-intergrated to her school. After a lot of fights she was finaly let back, and her teachers where obligated to recieve her delayed papers and to let her pass her course. Madeleine's case was so known all over our country that it became a statement for the rights of teenagers mothers, and from that year by law any school can expelle students for the only reason of being pregnant, and also that they have to create special, more flexible criterions for them to be able to pass their courses in the time they have.

The story also speaks about after that year, and because of the public treatment that Madeleine's case, a lot of schools in Santiago and some in other cities have incorporated baby care centers for the teenager mothers to be able to go to class with out having to let her babies at home or away from them. I think this is a very good move forward for all women, but specially for our country, to give evey one the chance to develop them selves besides their sex.

My Faculty Facilities

Currently, my faculty facilities are a lot better than they were when my generation entered to colledge. Today there are data proyectors in every class room, and there are two more computer labs so now is a lot eazier to find a free pc to wonk on. But, not everything is that great, we still have a very deficient library, we've always needed a study and reading room that is quiet and comfortable and eaven though last winter vacations a new "study room" was innagurated, when we saw it we realized that it was only our old casino, that they now keep open in the afternoons for students to go wonr there. Besides, our careers keep growing and geowing every year, and the class rooms are starting to be too short in number, some times if we need to plan an extra class or some other activity, all the class rooms are ocupated and that makes very difficult to have good iniciatives.

I thik the first steps to deal with this situation, and what I would do if it was in my power, it would be to potenciate colective spaces, where the students, the staff and the teachers could sit and read a book or work or whatever we all need. I would build more class rooms to make shure that if more classes are needed or other activities are being proyected, they have a place to develop.

Election Day

Well... I'm not registered to vote, eaven though I've asked my self a lot of times if this is the right desition, I just can't legitimate such a corrupt sistem like the one we have. I mean, I like politics, I think it's important to get involved in what in going on with our country, but I don't think voting is the best (and eaven less the only) way to do this.

I've noticed that electoral campaings have become dirtier and dirtier over the years; politicians don't eaven care to hide their lack of moral and ethic values any more, and all the drama that we see in the campaings are clearly a lack of respect with the people that still believes in them, it's like they think we're stupid!! I don't know what qualities a president should have, but I am sure that it's not right that people that have allready done a bad job, or that have private intesest that could be beneficiated with the position, should run fot it.

When I was a child I had the idea of becoming a diplomatic, I liked the idea of traveling around the world meeting people, but a little later I realized that that job is a lot more than just talking and smiling, that you have to compromise a lot of your own to do it, so it didn't seemed a good idea after all. But now, I've thaught a lot about working in the State, and the idea of the Ministry of Work or MIDEPLAN seduce me a lot, I think those are places where an anthropologist could make a diference in hoy things are done in our contry and contribute to the lifes of people. I think in Chile the problems that need an immediate solution are the quality and the way public education is handled, social houses, work conditions, the distribution of welth and the quality of public health sistem.

Prostitution: "just another job"?

The author of the article "No trafficking? Well, there's a hell of a lot of women suffering" (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/oct/25/catherine-bennett-prostitution-trafficking) writes a very acid critique about what some british achademics have said about looking the situation of inmigrant sex workers with an "objective eye". Their supposed serious emphiric investigations concluded that prostitution, for some of the women that they interviewed is just another job, and actually one that is better that others that could provide them eaven worse life conditions in terms of salaries and working hours. According with the author, I believe that those achademics where very irresponsable at reducing a very serious international problem that ends with the lifes of thouthands of women and girls all over the world every year, to the specific conditions that a group women have had the luck to find in london. The fact of dividing sex workers between "trafficked and not-trafficked" seemed to them enough to ensure that for a great propotion of those women "the job" can be a good opportunity to have a better quality of life and to improve the lifes of their families at home; ignoring the -to my judge- most important fact that is that prostitution has one of the greatest risk to be attacked or eaven murdered between all of the activities that a person can do in the world.

Criminal Laws

Ok... This topic is very, very hard to discuss, specially if you have to write an opinion in less than an hour and a half. Lets see... I don't really have a strong possition about capital law, on one hand there is the most popular opinion (the "ilustrated and civilized" one), that you commonly appeal to; the one that says that nobody has the right to decide if an other human being should live or die, that every one has the right to rehabilitate and that to sentence someone to deth is against the universal values or human rights.

But on the other hand, if you imagine that some day, somebody could take someone you love from you for any reason, or destroy the lifes of many people commiting hideus acts that can't be justified by anyone... the first argument starts to sound a little empty. I don't think that capital laws could reduce criminality here or any where alse: they haven't in the past and they won't do it now, but I wonder: should society spend resources that could go to health, education and social programs in mantaining people that have caused nothing more than damage and pain to others? But again, I'am thinking in extreme cases of murderers, violators and dictators; I don't think that capital law is a solution to anything, I just think that in very specific cases it could do less damage than a life sentence.

I think that if criminality rates are going up it's because of the way of life we are forced to live, where the mayority of people get excluded from the "good life" and then get punished for it, and if we want to stop that rates continue to rise we should think about how to eliminate this problem from it's roots, and not to think that prision is an answer to anything. I have to accept that I have never been a "victim of crime", not in a direct way... a couple of times my cellphone has being stoled, but I didn't realise so it wasn't traumatic. Maybe if that was different my opinion would be to...

What to do and where to go in Santiago

Any foreign or tourist that visits Santiago, can't miss the next five places or activities, if he or she wants to know the real good things that our city has to offer:

1. Eat a "sopaipilla" in a cart on the streat. This can be a little dangerous if you have a weak stomach, and specially if you are european or northamerican, but I can ashure you that is an experience that you won't regret: sopaipillas are round, kind of like bread doughs made of pumpkin, then fried. The carts offer a variety of sauces and dips to put on your sopaipilla, like "pebre" (onion, tomato, garlic and chile), mustard, ketchup and others.

2. Take a walk in the Forestal Park. In the middle of Santiago you will find a large park that goes by the Mapocho river, its great if you want to relax and spend a quiet afternoon. If you go on sundays you'll find a huge flea market where you can find from clothes to movies, food, music and handcrafts, and also you will see a lot of people just hanging arround talking, making music and dancing... it's a lot like a circus.

3. Get on a public bus. If you haven't heard of Transantiago, beware... You'll have to buy a bip card and charche it with money in the subway or in a "bip point", then go to the next bus stop arround 19:00 and get ready for the adventure, no mater where you go, jut remember the number of it. I won't say anything alse or I would ruin the sorprice, But trust me, you'll laugh about it later.

4. Go to the San Cristobal hill. It's near Plaza Italia, so you won't get lost looking for it, when you get there you can choose between walking up (it's a long way, so take comfortable shoes and clothes), or taking a taxi or the troley. Then, get down by "teleférico".

5. If you want to gou out at night, I have to recomend the Bellavista Neiborhood. There you will find a lot of different places to sit and have a drink, eat great food or eaven dance all night long. You can't miss it.

Transantiago: before and after

So, about Transantiago... I think that first I should clear up that I'm not from Santiago so I don't really have an opinion about the old system; I used to come a lot in vacations to visit my sister, but whenever we moved in the city we did it by subway, there were very few occations when we had to take buses and I don't remember any special at all about them except that they were a lot bigger than the ones in Antofagasta...

I came to live in Santiago in 2007; the same year that Transantiago started to function full time, and it was a chaos: no one knew what bus to take to go to work, to school or to the university, the frequency of the buses was totaly random and they were always full. The only good thing was that everybody was so lost that no one could know that I was from another city... I blended in just fine. I should probably say as well that I haven't suffered the worst of it, all the long lines of people waiting, and the "tuna can" trips that we could see on the news; I live in the center of the town so I'm always going against the traffic: when people are trying to get in the center I'm leaving it, and at the end of the day when everyone alse is tying to get out I'm going in the contrare direcction.

Any way, the system has improved a lot since 2007, the frequencies have become more regular and fast and a some of the routes that where missng in some places of the city now have being added. I think people in charge should worry about adding more routs and changing the busses for others, stronger ones that can go through the town with out literally falling apart.