The other day I sat on a bench reading a book and a man came up and sat down right next to me when clearly there were other benches available. He read his paper and didn’t even concern himself with me. My first instinctual feeling was this is my bench. My other instinctual feeling was to get up and move, but I stopped myself because that kind of thing is normal here and so it probably should be. It’s not like I was threatened or harmed. But, for a second I felt that “invasion of space” feeling that people don’t seem to feel here.
And it makes me feel that I have a lot of negativity inside me and I’m just wondering where it all came from and how I learned to feel this way in the US? Any why?
I observe people standing in long lines in stores waiting for the checkout counter and no one seems to complain, no one appears angry. This would be a totally different scene in the US. Any amount of waiting I ever experienced in line at the grocery store in the US usually amounted in a great deal of negative energy directed at the cashier. I don’t feel it here from anyone. Actually, I usually feel like the only person with a crumpled face trying to see what is going on up ahead in line. I feel anxious, but no one around me seems to be.
But then the other side of the mellowness I feel from people here is that I seem to be ever attracting myself to places where sudden protests break out.
A few days ago I sat in the park at La Moneda, outside of the Presidential Palace when suddenly police politely asked everyone to leave. Heading towards the metro, I saw two tanks ride by. When I turned the corner for the metro, a wall of police appeared along with hundreds of screaming people. Thankfully, I made it down in the metro just as the police where closing it off. Two days after that, I was walking though the park on my way to work and had another encounter with angry young people throwing rocks at tanks and people getting sprayed with water cannons by the police. There have been so many protests lately because the government is supporting a hydrogen electric project that would literally tear up Patagonia and run power lines through 2,000 miles of farmland to give more energy to Santiago. No one wants the project to happen, but it has already been approved. Because of the protests, the police have been using tear gas to clear the crowd.
Upon telling my friend Roxana, about almost getting tear gassed in the park, her casual response was “girl, you ain’t lived in Chile until you do,” and she speaks from experience of having been tear gassed at last year’s Independence Day celebration in El Centro in September. Apparently, the night was ending and the police needed everyone to leave. I guess that is the best way to make a crowd disperse.
Lastly, I am now down an Ipod. My solution for a much calmer ride on the metro has been taken away from me and coincidentally while I was riding the metro. Over a week ago, on yet another suffocating metro ride someone unzipped my bag when I was not looking and swiped my Ipod. I swear, I hate that metro. I had so many fantasies of finding the person and punching their head. So, now I can no longer listen to “All you need is Love,” while riding the thing, but like my friend in the States said, maybe all I need is a gas mask instead.
