The Hitchhiker's Guide to Chile

            That time I ended up gazing at a Chilean valley from the back of a pickup truck had begun earlier that day with a pessimistic political discussion with an artist.  He asked me why I was in Chile and I explained that I was studying political and economic issues in Santiago, comparing them to Beijing, China.  He chuckled and asked me what I had found.  I assured him the Chilean politics were not as bad as he might think.  That sustainable agriculture seemed a distinct possibility.  That changes in the Constitution would lead to more freedom of expression.  That the Internet can bring people together to solve problems in labor rights.  That the energy cuts due to lack of resources is helping save the planet.  He shook his head and asked me if I was drunk.

            I hadn't been drinking.  I woke up early, used all the hot water in our eight-person hostel room, lingered with my friends over breakfast, and walked to the bus station.  This artist was the first inhabitant I met in Pisco Elqui, a town nestled in the Elqui Valley where the production of the grape brandy pisco takes place.  We heard that even in the winter, the valley had exquisite views.  No one informed us that what we thought was a nuisance in travel, two hours sitting in a small bus from La Serena to Pisco Elqui, was a cheap tour of natural wonders.  We saw the sights we came to see before we had even arrived.

            "I'm not drunk...yet," I clarified.  "Where can I try pisco?"

            The artist directed me up the hill and to the left to a distillery.  I bought a copper bracelet from him in gratitude.  Gathering my friends from watching a fire juggler and his circus troupe practicing in the plaza, we started the climb.

            After turning the corner we encountered the same views as from the bus ride: evidence of Chile's agricultural economy.  The shadows from low hanging clouds moved quickly over the swatches of vineyards, potato farms, and guava orchards.  Patches of green and orange persevered despite the cold and windy winter.  The mountain ahead had a snowy cap.  The road we walked cut through a crumbly brown mountain dotted with cacti.

            We waved our thumb at any passing car, hoping to speed up our journey so we could catch the bus back in time.  A pickup truck with two men and a cactus slowed down.  We shoved the cactus in a corner and hopped on, giggling at our success.  They stopped in front of Los Niscos Distillery ten minutes later, wishing us well and scolding us for trampling their cactus.  They were going to plant it and now they couldn't.  But quickly they shrugged and slammed the truck door closed.

            "Buy cherry liqueur instead of pisco," they recommended.  "And good luck finding a way back."

            After passing the entrance to the distillery, a teenager warned us of pisco's sting, inviting us to go to the rodeo with her and her father instead.

            "What about cherry liqueur?" I asked.  She dismissed the drink with a swish of her hand, beckoning us to follow her.

            We stayed with the family all afternoon, meeting the teenager's grandmother after the rodeo at an artisanal market, where of course I ate my fill of the free homemade chocolate and warm bread offered.  When night fell, the driver brought us blankets as we shivered on the journey back.  They were not interested in our stories nor did they want to tell us theirs.  They seemed surprised by how surprised we felt by their generosity, shaking their heads whenever we offered to repay them.  Reciprocal relationships seem integral to any society--my perplexity prevented me from fully enjoying the rest of the ride.  Instead of analyzing, perhaps I should have had some of Pisco's pisco.

On the Outskirts of A Protest

            I am a complacent American.  By reading the daily newspaper and contemporary literature, listening to National Public Radio, and observing the hundreds of people I pass by, I know suffering exists in the United States.  My country is burdened by unemployment, malnutrition, poor education quality, education disparity, unsupportive welfare, natural disasters of increased severity due to climate change, stringent immigration policies, and more.  I could find others who believe in my political views and shout into a megaphone.  I could wear ridiculous costumes and harass pedestrians.  I could stop traffic. 

            But I haven't.

            In Santiago, a well-publicized labor union protest barred us from accessing the Diego Portales University campus where we attended our lectures as part of the Columbia Global Scholars Program.  The day's events of presentations by my professor Dr. Pablo Pinto about the politics of investment, economic actors, and interest groups, along with a guest lecture by a sociology professor on natural disasters and development, were all cancelled.  The alternative seemed obvious: go to the event that ruined our plans and observe the protest.

            After spending the morning nearby at the opulent La Moneda, the Chilean equivalent of the White House, we walked from downtown to the adjacent neighborhood.  Throngs of people were gathering but no one had moved.  Some stood in the empty street, spray painting white bedsheets and carefully applying glitter to cardboard signs.

            Drummers began sounding a steady beat, too fast for a march.  A short man in his fifties began hopping to the beat, gesturing emphatically and shouting over the drums.  I approached him to listen to his thoughts on labor rights and minimum wage.  "I am drunk," he was yelling, over and over again.  I laughed and shuffled my feet to the beat.

            The crowd grew.  Suddenly, without a signal, everyone began moving out the plaza and up the adjacent boulevard.  The Central Worker's Union merged with streams of students protesting Chile's most contentious topic, free education.  The groups united in their frustration and passion for change.  As the plaza drained of pedestrians, I nervously joined the crowd.  I had a copy of my passport in my bag and I considered myself a decent sprinter.

            Here's the thing about protests: they start off boring.  Everyone walks very slowly because no street can support hundreds of people walking comfortably.  The catchy chants blur into a cacophony.  One goal forks into a pandemonium voicing discontent.  No one leads yet everyone follows. 

            We soon diverged from the crowd, getting lunch in a local produce market and watching the protest from the television news.  I felt like a fraud.  I hid from the police and ate soup while Chileans fought for higher minimum wage so they could survive.  For Chilean workers, the possibility to change economic policy outweighed their risk of arrest.

            From a distance, I watched teenagers smashing traffic lights.  I heard the pops of tear gas canisters.  I smelled the acrid smoke of a public bus that had been lit on fire.  I felt the wind shift as the Chilean police zoomed past on matching green motorcycles to quell the unrest.             

            I boarded the metro and the chaos faded.

            Chileans not only have a high awareness of their country's socioeconomic problems but also an awareness of its policies and how to implement reforms.  They have concrete ideas for change, rather than just a vague desire for a better future.  Chile's minimum wage is 193,000 pesos and the cost of higher education puts many families into debt.  Protests last year helped pass a bill in the Senate that increased minimum wage by six percent.  The Chileans march in the streets so frequently because their government might listen.

            I listened that afternoon.  Had I been able to attend class, I would have listened in lecture.  But at the protest, I really listened. 

            And then I left.

A Vegan's Visit to Agrosuper

             A chain of gutted pigs moves along a conveyor belt supported from the ceiling, swaying from the sudden stops and starts of machinery.  Watery blood from the gaping hole in the pigs' stomachs drips down their back legs, forming a red stream into a nearby floor drain.  The carcasses had just been cleaned, hairy bristles glistening in the fluorescent factory lights, but the animals seemed filthy to me.  I averted my eyes by looking down at my shoes, which I had just wrapped in white plastic.  They were already maroon.

            The Agrosuper factory tour guide had spared me the gruesome aspects of the Chilean pork industry, using an animated powerpoint to explain the slaughterhouse procedures starting from a truck full of pigs to the multiple sanitation measures used in their slaughter.  The animals have a relaxing two hour hot shower before being humanely gassed and passed through a series of steps that make them less and less animal.  By the time they are gutted and hung on the conveyor belt by their front legs, they are pork.

            During the factory presentation that morning, my tour guide assured us that the pigs did not suffer.  They did not bleed until after death and they were not cut up until after they had bled.  The tour guide happily gave statistics about the chemistry of the toxic gas and the water temperatures of each washing.  Eight thousand two hundred pigs are slaughtered per day.  No evidence proved that the pigs did not suffer.  How does one determine the pain levels of a sentient creature that cannot communicate with us?

            In the presentation room I donned a plastic hairnet, long buttoned jacket, and galoshes.  I scoured my hands with hot water and stepped on an electric-powered scrub at the threshold to the production rooms.  Soothed by the scent of soap and comforted by the clean attire, I was unprepared for what confronted me in the next room.

            Rows of stacked conveyor belts compartmentalize the pork products.  Heads roll by at eye level.  Above them are slabs of red meat with varying amounts of white fat.  In another part of the main room, ears pass by at a rapid speed since that part of the pig is not as valuable as others.  Hooves move at a similar pace.  A select group of women handle the most prized cuts, each one color checked to meet Asian market standards before the meat passes onwards.

            Agrosuper exports sixty percent of their meat, with seventy percent of that going to Asia.  Even though the Chileans do not enjoy most of the pork processed in the factory, the workers I pass seem connected to their product.  Everyone greets me amiably as they handle stretch hoses, cleave pig parts, or separate the impure meats from the conveyor belt.  Men whiz by in small cars, lifting packages and transporting them to other areas.  The women make jokes and analyze the newest fashion trends with each other while scrutinizing pork chops.

            "You look so sad," my tour guide remarks, touching my shoulder.

            "I'm okay," I assure her.  The face mask hides my tears and labored breathing.  When I clutch at my ribcage, it is because I feel nauseated.  It is not from the drop in temperature, colder than the winter wind outside to preserve the meat.

            After the tour, the tour guide passes out baseball caps with the slogan "Agrosuper Alimenta," Agrosuper feeds.  I keep it to remind myself how I witnessed my nightmare and walked out of it, hands raw from washing them three times in a futile attempt to forget the shreds of discarded skin and crinkly fat, and the constant rolling of pork parts.