Cansado

Things are winding.

Thursdays are for protesting. Normally we have a big march and then 40-80 encapuchados, kids with their faces covered, stick around trading rocks for tear gas all afternoon. This happens every Thursday as regular as violent clockwork. Things are winding down though. Today, for the first time in a long while, we only had a march. It was pretty anemic at that. I passed them on the bridge on my way home from downtown. They had a couple of kids with a trumpet and a snare drum who seemed like the only ones serious about sticking it to the man. Everyone else just looked bored.

It's been a long lack of semester.

On Tuesday the students of my univserity will vote on whether or not to end the strike and start the second semester. A lot of schools across the country are having similar votes. Many are already back in the classroom.

I've finally got all of my paperwork in order to replace my stolen passport. I have to go to Santiago for an interview at the embassy. It's a ten hour bus ride, but I'll get to visit some old friends in Santiago, so on the whole it's a plus. I'll go down to the bus station tomorrow to look for tickets. It's kind of nice not having many responsibilities and being able to just get on a bus and go anywhere in the country on any given weekend. On the other hand, I'm running low on cash.

Something is messed up with the photo uploading mechanism. I took some pictures today of a high school that's still in toma. I'll try to post them tomorrow.

Also, here's the Economist's take: http://www.economist.com/node/21534785.