The discordy´s mall

(Published in the printed version of ILC NEws Weekly, April 2012)

The mall of the city of Castro, on Chiloe Island, generated an ongoing controversy in the social networks. This bring me back to the my years living in Ancud and Castro, in the seventies, where I spent four amazing years of growth, in my teens.

The photograph that circulated on the Internet is misleading; it seems to be a beautiful town full of nice traditional houses, crushed under a huge mass of concrete that has no relation with the surrounding landscape. Many have cried out in indignation, Twitter has fuelled the fire, as usually happens, with ad-hoc experts in architecture, chilote heritage advocates and arbiters of good taste.

Well, turns out to Castro, I see no local opposition to the mall, and most of those who criticize or have never set foot in the city or just keep memories of a vacation spent in one of the few sunny days that occur in that area.

Chiloe is famous for myths and legends, not just traditional mythology as el trauco, la Pincoya and other fantastic creatures, but chilotes has continued developing an urban mythology, contemporary, much wider and accepted that the traditional mythology.

This mythology has successfully sold the idea of my beloved island as a typical place, with two picturesque towns and hundreds of beautiful villages amid beautiful landscapes where friendliest people in the world live in complete happiness and harmony with nature.

Pure myth: Ancud and Castro are small cities, not beauty nor picturesque, which were destroyed during the big earthquake of the sixties and from time to time there are great fires that burn whole blocks of these tepa-wooden houses. The people reconstruct them as best they can, which result into cityscape that is poor and a bit quirky.

There is a picturesque town that is Chonchi, the people of the three floors. All others are quite poor tiny villages where everyone has done their home as good as they can, as in Ancud and Castro, with the result that there are places that could hardly be described as quaint.

They're beautiful landscapes? Yes, there are many, like a sunset on the bay located on the south of the city of Castro, there is a hostel where you can see wonderful landscape. Or the sight from Fuerte San Antonio in Ancud. Or the sunset in front of the volcanoes in the Bay Quellón: Tronador, Puntiagudo, Corcovado, Melimollo, when the sun sets at about 10 pm in summer.

But the beautiful landscape has its B side, hundreds of acres logged or burned, in one of the few places where it is native forest. and especially the rain 9 or 10 months in a mouse-colored ceiling that throws buckets of water over your head, thunder and lightning, with a howling wind which prevent to keeps your nose out into the street. The smell of wet dog from Ancud still haunts to me.

People are there as elsewhere, good, normal or bad, but they are usually hard as rocks and almost as violent as the nature in which they live. I met amazing people there who where tremendously generous, but I hardly remember one kind or polite. Above all Chilotes are storytellers, fed by legends from their great-grandparents themselves have created the modern legends about the idyllic island customs.

Well, now fell into their own story. When at last a mall is build in Castro, then appeared the defenders of the environment and heritage of humanity, forgetting that the churches are –not the cities- the famous heritage. The city has no unit or urban beauty, in the place where they are building the mall, it probably will be the greatest architectural contribution of the neighbourhood.

I lived in that neighbourhood and we always laughed with my mom for the extravagant design of the houses "do it yourself," I see in the pictures is opposite to the feria, which is a ugly set of sheds.

A mall in Castro will be a great contribution to Chilotes, at least nine of the twelve months of the year it rains and you can not poke your nose or on the street without getting soaked, I have no doubt that the mall will improve the quality of life of people, especially young people who have nothing to do for much of the year. In my day we went to the bar and get drunk every day. Whish they build one one mall in Quellón and Ancud also.

The mall concept was invented to make a kind of square indoor, where one can spend hours without leaving not only shopping but eating, drinking or watching a movie. The idea is specially suited for cities of Chiloé, where most of the year can not do anything outdoors.

The myth of the tourism potential in Chiloé is not consistent with reality, in which much of the year it rains heavy, the idea of the mall seems particularly good where people do not have damn thing to do all day. Planning gurus have said that they would have built on the outskirts of the city "not to destroy the unity of the environment", however most of the people there do not use car, a mall should be at downtown or somewhere where can be reached on foot.

I read today on the plane that crashed travelling from Melinka to Chiloe Island, resulting in death for the pilot Richard Heim and his passengers. I had friends in the seventies who were sailors and risked their life in every trip through the inner gulfs. I left the island some 40 years ago and Chilotes continue creating myths and captains are still die in the channels. People are hard in Chiloé because life is also too hard. Don´t mess with them, if they have no problem with the mall we have no right to interfere.

Minning and water

(Published in the online edition of I Love Chile)

In the seventies, President Allende used to say that "Cooper is the wage of Chile". Today mining is still the blood of the Chilean economy. From the 83 billion dollars exported by Chile in 2011, 53 billion correspond to the mining. This year Antofagasta will receive 4.5 billion investment in mining projects. Most of the mining activity is concentrated in regions of Tarapaca and Antofagasta wich are one of the driest areas of the world. As mining requires a considerable amount of water to operate, many problems have arisen.

Unlike in southern Chile, where water is abundant and has practically no economic value, in the north the agriculture, industry and drinking water are competing for access to it. The lack of a clear strategy of development to every region makes this competition turn into conflicts that may become violent.

This is what is happening in southern Peru, where the conflict between mining, agriculture and drinking water has already turned into a war over water, involving politics and the economy. In Peru the situation is worse than in Chile because the water market is regulated quite discretionally by the Government. Farmers claims for preferred water supply to have their crops. These crops are usually inefficient, both technically and economically, because require lots of water for a starving economy.

How to distribute the water when it is scarce? Economy say that if a good is scarce, its price should rise to reach the point where supply and demand meets. For water economy this is, most of times, politically infeasible. In rural areas where farmers have ancestral rights over water, they demand to the Government to grant them more and more. In a way the farmers consider theirself as "the legitimate owners" of all the water they can get.

In Chile, Copiapo had this conflict, farmers technically advanced and profitable, increased their crops at a point that now the water resources are collapsed, which also threatens to large mining investments and even drinking water. In Antofagasta tap water users have been hardest hit, the Government installed a million dollars desalination plant, and they have to pay huge bills for poor quality water.

In Arica, where I live, there are national parks and protected areas that have prevented big mining operations, but there is strong local and external pressure -even from the Government- to remove these protections, at least partially, and install large-scale mining in the region. That would hurt all efforts to develop sustainable tourism, which is one of the main regional economic activity today.

How to allocate the water in places where it is scarce resource? It is not a simple problem, specially in a country with a very dry territory and conflicting users. There are many economic, political and social stakeholders, and a myriad of simple answers, most of them false simplification of a very complex issue. The only certainty is that the answer must be based on fine tunned technical studies, and the general economic principles that have brought prosperity to the country in the last 35 years, must be respected. Otherwise a conflict similar to South Peru is expected for our country.

Tourism in South America: six charts

Charts are a convenient way to ilustrate a point. I have been researching on tourism in my hometown, Arica, during some years and I want to show you some facts on tourism in Latin America condensed in six charts who -I think- talk better than a thousand words. Here I go:

First, let´s see how many tourist receive every country in South America (Guyanas and Surinam are excluded by their small share):

As we see, for further analysis we can eliminate also Venezuela, Bolivia and Paraguay because their small market share. Now, let´s see again, but as how much million dollars they have received from tourism:
¿Can you see it is not the same? Peru and Colombia receive more money than Chile despite they receive less tourists. This is explained by the origin of their tourists: Chile receive more visitors from the neighbor countries and those spend less, let´s see the media spend of tourist as their origin:

The lower spend of neighbor visitors is -at certain extent- compensated by their higher amount, that is way the income from tourism in Chile in % per origin of visitors is as follow:
As at the end of the day our interest is how much US$ instead ahow many visitors, it is clear that a good strategy may concentrate in improve the market share of tourists from Europe, USA, and Asia, which explain why Peru with less tourists receive more incomes. This not implies to forbid or desincentivate tourism from neighbor countries but focus the investments in the most profitable segments. If we divide the US$/tourist :
¡Chile appears in the last place!. Now, as we Chileans love rankings, the World Tourist Organization from the United Nations compiles the Touristic Competitivity Ranking based in several indicators and the results are (the lower the better):
We can note that it is not a predictive index, except in the case of Brazil who is more or less obvious. Chile, the last in US$/tourist here apprears in 3rd place, the ranking shows no correlation with tourist arrived neither with incomes.

From those six Simple graphics we can arrive to some conclusions:

1.- Some countries, due political reasons (Venezuela, Bolivia) o due their small size (Paraguay, Surinam, Guyana, Guyana Francesa) are practically out of business.

2.- Brazil and Argentina are leaders in South America, both in number of visitors as in US$ received. Those countries has a mix of vacation tourists (Mar del Plata, Rio de Janeiro) with adventurer travellers (Patagonia, Pantanal). Vacational tourism is massive and requires huge investments. The leadership is explained by the size of the economies and the abundance of natural resources and infraestructure.

3.- Peru is doing fine in tourism, probably has the best relative performance due a good strategy and the important resource of Cusco and Macchu Pichhu. Their tourism is aimed to adventurer travellers, not massive, requires comparatively small investments and the small volume make it quite sutainable. Colombia and Ecuadorare are starting with a similar strategy in the last years.

4.- Chile has a low cost strategy: massive tourism oriented to neighbor countries, wich produces lower incomes despite the comparatively higher volume of visitros. This is due a mistaken strategy, based in the model of vacational tourism following the OCDE strategies, this explain why despite the poor results Chile ranks high in competitivity index: we are successfuly implementing the wrong polities.

A final figure: for those who doubt on the importance of tourism as economic activity, in the world tourism is the fourth source of external income for countries preceded by fuels, chemical products and cars exportations. ¿And what about Chile? Incomes from tourism was US$ 1.978 millions, wich places in 5th place after minning, fruits, cellulose and salmon exports.

Classist Chileans

(Published in the online edition of I Love Chile)

Some time ago, talking with a friend -Chilean like me- about a gringo we met, he told me "he appears to be a lower class”. Well, I guess that "high class" in America is a status reserved to celebrities, oil moguls and people like that. All others are working class and if you're a plumber, electrician or professor at a university doesn´t make big difference, unless you are a criminal or a poor inmigrant.

In Chile is a bit different because your job determines sharply your social status. Some jobs are less “worthy” than others: a sergeant “worth less” than an elementary teacher. An elementary teacher “is” less than a dentist or an engineer, and so on. At the top of our social pyramid are the politicians, wealthy heirs, and, in general, all those who make lots of money doing nothing: those are our non plus ultra.

Jobs related with cleaning or serve are considered unworthy in Chile. That explain why our quality of service is so bad: we hate to serve, jobs as waiters or salespeople are considered socially inferior and underpaid. It is not just funny but quite Freudian.

Formal education in Chile is mostly a matter of status: a college degree has more value as a badge of status than as a proof of competence, no matter how great engineer you are, the important is if you graduated from an expensive university, which implies that you are coming from a “good family” and therefore trustworthy.

Even the most prominent left-wing politicians in Chile are the ones that come from "good families" (note the language again, in Chile “good” families’ means “rich” people). However, most of people in Chile is not class conscious, our classism is unconscious and automatic, most of Chileans consider ourselves as “middle class”, some more “middle” than others just as in Orwell´s farm.

Classism is not so bad as it appears., it fulfils the psychological need to consider ourselves superior to others. In Chile the social mobility is high. Chile is a country of new riches and social climbers, our classism replaces our lack of true aristocracy. Rich families in Chile seldom last more than three generations, so nobody takes too seriously the classist prejudices that we claim so often.

The good new is that racism –the other way to feel superior to others- is almost inexistent between us. Money talks in Chile and a depreciated “indio” or “cholo” may turn into a king as soon as he got a good amount of money. Respect, a “decent” job and money march together in our materialistic country.

Are we inmorals?

(Published in the online edition of I Love Chile)

A good American fellow who lives in my town, told me that we Chileans are immoral people. Despite we claim to be Catholic –he said- we seldom go to church, we use to take commitments with no intention to fulfill them, we provide information having no idea what we are talking about, just because we are ashamed to say “I have no idea”. “You immorals!” –he told me- “are the biggest liars I've ever met in my life”. The hardest thing to accept for him is the lack of seriousness with which we Chileans use language, he said that we seems to speak just because we are unable to remain silent. He is convinced will never be able to distinguish when a Chilean is talking serious, kidding or simply is cheating him.

It's funny because I use to say or thought many of those things about Peruvians, Bolivians and Argentines. Maybe I see a mirror of my own faults in them, who knows?. However I cannot accept that Americans are as correct as they think on themselves, in my experience they lie, cheat and steal more or less same as us, but they respect some forms that in Latin countries we consider naive. Maybe it has something to do with religious puritanism.

The different approach to religion is, in my view, fundamental to understand many differences between gringos and latinos. We may be seen as a country of atheists considering the inconsistency of our actions and the catholic moral standards, but catholic religion is fundamentally different from any branch of protestants.

Catholic relation with God is a sort of permanent bargain for miracles. If God can not give us miracles it has not worth for us, our religiosity is more practical and positive. Few people in Chile think that they are obliged to go to church, our relationship with the church is relaxed, the very pious Catholics are the only who take seriously the Mass and rites. In Latin countries it is rare to find someone who actually believes that God is watching their actions and will punish him after he dies, most Catholics think that's a ridiculous superstition.

In Anglo-Saxon countries to "fear of God" is a highly prized virtue, it is almost synonymous with being a decent person, kids are raised in the fear of God in Sunday Schools, and the evangelical preachers describe in great detail the hell that awaits those who are evil. Fear is a strong motivation for gringos.

We believe in miracles instead, we see God, the Virgin and the saints as a kind of Santa Claus dispensing miracles and good luck. For miracles people are willing to make sacrifices that horrify the non-Catholics, have you ever seen people paying promises in the religious fests? Moving in their knees for long distances, they pay cash and in advance for a miracle, no need a virtuous life, with a physical sacrifice you can obtain the same.

I think those are two fundamentally different ways of looking at religion. Which of the two forms is best? individually I think that believe in miracles it is much more practical, because we can almost immediately see the results of our faith, those who fear hell and hope the heaven have to wait all their life to see if their religion was true. However, from the social point of view, the fear of God is much more useful because it forces people to behave according to rules of conduct dictated by the preachers, among others.

My personal faith is entirely based on the hope that miracles can happen. I do not care what he's going to happen after I die, but I pray every day for the things I hope to get. I got enough worries in my life to worry about what will happen to me after I die. So I prefer the religion of miracles and saints offering me the impossible, and I trust in the guardian angel caring for me. Although sometimes seems he is not doing a great job, but nobody is perfect, not even the guardian angels.

September 11 and "no al lucro"

(Published in the online edition of I Love Chile)

September 11 still divides opinion in Chile. 38 years after the coup few people knows how it was Chile in 1973, I remember well those years when I was a 18 years old Allende´s supporter. Unidad Popular was a weird attempt to turn on socialism within the democratic system, and I think that the figures who follow demonstrate why it was a failed experience, and why some of those policies may not be replicated as some people is advocating now.

The first year of the Allende government was devoted to setting prices to below production costs, duplicate salaries (teachers received a bonus equivalent to four months' salary), to increase the amount of government employees and to acelerate the agrarian reform, expelling the land owners and replacing them with peasant committees. The result was that Chile, which normally imported about 140 million dollars in food, in 1973 had to import over 700 million, leaving the state without dollars reserve and the country without food.

In early 1973 the government's economic committee reported that 34,000 small and medium business were taken over by the government, with a result similar to the agrarian reform: national production came close to disappearing. Not a single title of property was given to peasants nor ownership to workers of the business, they were used as a mean for the state to appropriate the productive system. With this combination of prices under cost, wages multiplied and productive system broke, in 1973 all goods began to disappear, we had notes: no bread, food nor anything, but all we had was lot of bills, it was the first major Inflation in Latin America.

In 1973 the economy had declined by 3.5% and the deficit of state factories was five billion dollars, equivalent to sales of copper, the main and almost only export of the country, for the past 7 years. The official inflation rate that year was 740% and the fiscal deficit was 50% of the national budget. The losses of state enterprises –at those years almost the half of national productive system- amounted to a full national budget and the Central Bank's reserves fell from 450 million to $ 3.5 million, foreign debt rose one million dollars a day. The balance of payments deficit was $ 885 million in 1973

Social housing was built by government´s CORVI, almost all health was served by the National Health Service, almost all colleges and universities was owned and administrated by the Ministry of Education. The housing deficit was huge and most of poor lived in "villas miseria" (eliminated decades ago), the infant and adult mortality was very high as well as infectious diseases, only one in ten secondary school graduates can study at universities.

“No al lucro” championed now by some leaders of students means, in practical terms, to come back to 1973 with the government in charge of more than half of national economic and teaching system. They never knew that, but still there are people who remember, we do not march nor throw stones but we are determined to prevent such huge step back.

Inequality: the standard theory

(Published in the online edition of I Love Chile)

“In Chile nowadays, despite the good macroeconomic figures, prosperity is not reaching to the people, this is because the huge inequality, one of the largest in the world where the poorest people live at the same level than African countries and the richest enjoys of European standards. People rebels against the inequality and this is the real clue of the protests”.

I had heard that for years, it is the mainstream of the progressive thinking. However I have an alternate theory, but first I must refute the standard.

Prosperity is not reaching to the people?
Most of indexes of quality of life show that Chileans, in average, are living in best standards than ever: poverty, education, life expectations are better compared with the past decades and with other Latin American countries. There is an acid test of the impact of economics on people: unemployment. The unemployment rate in Chile reached 8.1% in 2010, 1.6 points less compared to 2009, when it reached 9.7%, according to a report by the National Statistics Institute (INE). Considering that the labor force in Chile grew 7.9% and the 1.6 is additional, 428,280 new jobs were created, something considered impossible by many economists not long ago.

Certainly, nothing is enough. Like Monty Burns used to said "I would give all I have just to have a little more," but 428,280 more people employed is, from any point of view, a significant improvement . All other statistics may be debatable, but an increase in employment is a definite sign that prosperity is reaching people.

The poorest people live at the same level than African countries?
Not true, this idea was stated by the Chilean economist Andres Zahler, in an article called “What country Chileans live?”. I remarked him by twitter that in Angola, the country with which he compared Chile, "more than two thirds of the 16 million inhabitants of that country live on $ 2 a day, and 4 million people survive on U.S. $ 0.75 day or less" His explanations were very poor.

People rebels against the inequality?
It is hard to believe that in a country rage against inequality, the political parties of left obtain less than 9% of the vote, and the party of extreme right is the most voted. Much harder to accept this idea as true if we consider that people elected as president to one of the wealthiest billionaries of the country. Are Chileans resented with the inequality? I guess not, Chile has been always same as unequal, under any kind of rule, we have not been an equalitarian society, ever.

An now, my alternate theory on social unrest

The double discourse
In Chile, as most of Latin America we use the double discourse in abundance. Many parents advocate for a public education, but they prefer private schools for their own Childs, even teachers of public system prefer private schools for their kids. Chileans may be very socialist and revolutionaries in discourse, but they often choose individualist and conservative choices.

The communist party
Communist Party plays a central role in protests, their political future is uncertain because, with no help from la Concertación, they are loosing their seats in congress in the elections to come. That is why they have go go out to the streets.

The vanguard

Street figthing obeys to old rules clearly recognizable, as Lenin's idea of the revolutionary vanguard, a small and well organized group to lead the process. Camila Vallejo and Jaime Gajardo, both communist militants leads the vanguard. They make alliance with useful idiots (concept attributed to Lenin) and lumpen proletariat (Marx's concept). The street figth with lumpen proletariat aims to shock to the public opinion, but they also need a good press, a role that must meet the useful idiots.

The supporters

Obviously not all protesters are communists, most of them are students and their parents, part of the 49% of Chileans who voted against Sebastian Piñera and feel happy to cause problems to a rigthist government, they are in charge of the good press and to prevent that those who want to study broke the movement.

The President

President Piñera has alientate his base trying to attract part of those 49% who voted against him with sucessive offers. He feeds the protest trying to negotiate with those who are not interested at all in the end of conflict: is the dialogue of the deaf.

And this is my theory, not a mainstream but I think it explain more reallistically the protests than the standard.

Goodbye teacher!

(Published originally in I love Chile)

Few have noticed the announcement by the minister of education about alternatives to end the school year. Two of them are well known: to study elsewhere where the schools are not on strike or to be assimilated into other schools. Both have many practical shortcomings, but the third, which encourages students to take final exams as independent students, is revolutionary and can give a tremendous boost to home schooling in Chile.

The ministry of education started the website, Yo Estudio, with content for students to prepare for their final exams by themselves; this option has always existed, but has never been supported, directly or indirectly, by any government. This is the first time in our history that a government explicitly supports home study and independent examinations, not merely passively but actively by delivering online content for students to prepare for their exams.

Many will look askance at this initiative and will think that the future academic performance of those students will be less than those who go into the classroom; it remains to be seen, especially when comparing results with the municipal education. It could be a big surprise.

Chile pioneered many revolutionary ideas in the eighties: pension reform; flat taxes; new mining and water rights, and so on. This is the first really good idea to be implemented that I have seen in thirty years. I hope the protests of the municipal schools will continue indefinitely as it would lead to a massive number of students moving away from dependence on poor teachers and take over for themselves for the first time in their education. I think the massive support for homeschooling could make a Copernican shift in the Chilean educational system.

What about universities? Well, for many of the old professors all they do with their computer is read e-mail. They are unlikely to develop distance learning content, because they come to lectures with yellowed pieces of paper from the era in which they studied. But if there is a corporate policy from universities to support distance learning many courses could be saved. It seems clear to me that neither the rectors nor the professors from state universities would like the idea. They chose the path of least resistance and maximum gain many years ago, and there is nothing for them out of this.

When I went to study at the University of Tarapaca, in 1978, they had just removed a pedagogical experiment that proved disastrous in the teaching of engineering, called the "Keller Plan" or system of personalized instruction, where instruction is divided into modules with goals to achieve, similar to the current skills education.

In the Keller Plan students were not going to classes, but rather, received huge piles of notes and exercise guides to learn on their own with the help of assistant instructors. When students felt safe they asked to take the exam. Keller popularized his system with a book entitled “Goodbye Teacher!” Well, the title says it all.

The Keller Plan failed due to poor implementation: in the late seventies there were not even photocopiers and paper notes were mimeographed, while computers or internet were the stuff of science fiction. The professors had no experience in preparing the material properly, and "study notes" were mere copies of the textbook where, in engineering, are characterized by murky language that is difficult to understand without help from someone who knows.

And what of the students? As they were not obliged to attend classes, and they were asked when they felt ready to take exams, they simply spent their time at parties and drinking, never feeling ready to take any damn test. I do not remember having met a single mate who approved a course with the Keller Plan, during the only year the experiment was implemented.

Many might think that now the same thing will happen and set an example that shows the poor results so far of distance learning. I do not agree. First of all the technology that exists today to learn is light years ahead from that of those years. With the Internet we have at a click the world's most comprehensive libraries. The dream of the Library of Alexandria today is a reality. Any place with an Internet connection has more resources and content than the best library ever. Also the Internet is readily available, at least in most of Chile.

Preparing the courses is not a big deal now that the Internet is full of courses from the most prestigious universities in the world. The teacher now has only to find, choose, cut and paste. Prepare classes today is easier than ever before because not even the greatest sage has more knowledge than what is now available online.

And again the students: are they as devoted to parties and drinking as in my good-old-days? Perhaps at first, because they have been trained like monkeys in standard classrooms, forced to listen silently to their boring teachers from their early childhood, and never being asked to think on their own.

Also we have to realize that children today are already accustomed to learning on their own. Every day there are more kids in Chile learning to read and write in English if only to communicate and participate in forums or chat with their fellows in that language. I'm pretty sure that, at least in the learning of English, the prospect of getting to say goodbye to the teacher it is accomplished.

There are things that seem bad but over time can achieve good results. The student strike may be the beginning of the true solution to many of the problems with education in Chile, and perhaps the teachers, without realizing it, are digging their own graves. I hope so. We will have to wait to see what happens.

Ollanta In A Nutshell

Ollanta Humala took office as the President of Peru in the middle of a cloud of doubts felt not only by his country fellow citizens, but by the international community as well; less than two years ago, he was a hard-line leftist. Now, one of the most important questions is if he will become an ally of Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez and, if he does, how far will he align to Chavez’ internationalism. Some time ago, he declared that the only way he would visit the Chilean city of Arica –on the other side of the border between Peru and Chile, would be only if he were riding a tank, making a reference to his desire to invade and reclaim Arica, the city that Peru lost to Chile in the 1879 War.

In 2008, while I was visiting Mazuko -a remote town in the Peruvian Amazon- a group of Humala’s supporters showed up in town wearing clothes that looked a lot like military uniforms. They gathered in public places calling attention to their nationalistic vision and selling “The Ollanta”, a self promoting newspaper. Although attendance to their public meetings was minimal, they told me they had been travelling through small and isolated villages for years.

The family of Ollanta Humala is quite unique, even under Peru’s standards, where the bizarre is normal. His father, Isaac, leads an ethno-national movement, graphically represented by symbols disturbingly similar to those of the Nazis. His brother, Antauro, attempted two coup d´etats, and is now in jail for the death of a policeman during the last coup d’etat. Currently, the Supreme Court is studying an appeal to commute his 25 years sentence for house arrest.

The arrival of Humala to the presidency of Peru follows the traditional and famous unpredictability of that country, where “nothing is impossible”, as a famous Peruvian saying goes. An example of this unpredictability was his dramatic conversion from a left-nationalist into a moderate social democrat just a few months before the presidential election; this allowed him to become the president. All of this is known history; what is yet more important is to be able to predict Humala’s actions in order to anticipate what kind of president will he be, as well as the results for the Peruvian economy and its international relations.

Inside Peru, Humala faces strong pressure to raise taxes to big corporations, and to increase public spending. This pressure will add up creating an intricate problem-mesh that will become more dense and difficult to solve as it grows in size, in the long term. However, from a political perspective, the same circumstance may benefit him on a day-to-day basis because he was elected under the premise of distribute the wealth to the poor taking money from corporations, this is a mandatory obligation he has to fullfill. (Necesitas explicar el porque dices la ultima frase –en rojo- porque no se puede afirmar una generalidad, en un paper, sin explicar la razon).

Currenty, Peru is one of the fastest growing economies in the world, and perhaps is better suited than most to withstand a time of crisis due its rich natural resources as gold, whose demand increases in time of crisis and coca crops who are fairly is independent on world economic situation. Even in worst situations as the late 80s terrorism crisis, informal economy in Peru has remained strong and healty. (lo mismo que mas arriba, necesitas citar numeros o algo que concrete tu idea, en forma breve).. But the Peruvian electorate is fickle and demanding, and to maintain his popularity, Humala will be obliged to approve policies that will curb down investment and impoverish the country’s treasury.

With Ollanta the formal economy probably will slow, but much of the wealth of Peru is informal, as the production of gold and cocaine, two products that can withstand any financial crash, which independence on large investors and immune to any government policies .

In My view, the Ollanta Humala is an ambitious, intelligent, adaptable and very realistic guy. I do not think he held rigid principles, nor a fanatic willing to perish himself for a cause. He has always behaved strategic driven by objectives instead principles, that is how he became President. Its main objective is power, and he will do everything necessary to maintain its domestic popularity to sustain his own power. That is why I guess he likely will maintain a distant relationship with Chavez, if it perceives too involved can hurt his political image. He will almost certainly buy weapons and equipment for the Peruvian Armed Forces, in large quantities, because Peru is rather weak nowadays. It is also almost certain that frictions and hostile statements occur frequently between Peruvian and Chilean officers, because that brings profit to any politician in Peru and Ollanta Peruvian will need lots of popularity. However as he is a realistic politician, the most likely is that all dissolves only in bitter statements, war or skirmish is virtually impossible in the region.

I think that great times are coming for Peru, mostly for the informal economy and probably the official figures for growth and foreign investment will slow down and things will worse for big corporations compared with the years past. Anyway in Peru, “everything is possible” as is one of the more difficult places to make predictions in the world.

Why Students and Teachers are Striking in Chile

(Published originally at http://brophyworld.com)

In 1981, Chile changed the educational system, big time. This structural reform was aimed at decentralization, more competition, ending entry barriers and cost efficiency. Teachers were no longer civil servants of the Ministry of Education. Municipal education bureaus were created for primary and secondary schools, which had to compete with private schools receiving the same government grants for each student served. It also opened the possibility of creating new private universities with few requirements and state universities had to compete with them under conditions of self-financing.

The system gave interesting results, but was far from perfect, because some of the designed institutions barely met the efficiency requirements that they were expected to achieve. The biggest failure was municipal education because municipalities have been chronically inefficient in managing primary and high schools. Every year they lost enrollment, compared with private subsidized schools that are also free. When a school looks dirty, dilapidated with broken glass, and on strike, it will most likely be administered by a municipality.

Nevertheless, the reform also brought great advantages over the old system centralized in the Ministry of Education. In 1981 there were 8 universities in Chile and only 2 out of 10 secondary school graduates could enter university. There are now 179 higher education institutions: 59 universities, 43 professional institutes and 77 technical training centers, and 5 out of 10 graduates now entering middle school to a university. The old dream of “college for all”, the revolutionary slogan in 1967, was fulfilled in the most unexpected way: the private way.

After the military rule, during the 18 years of center-left governments, Chile did not attempt to change the reforms introduced in 1981. On the contrary, the system of subsidies was strengthened, and although they closed the door to the creation of new private colleges, they maintained the principle of self-funded state universities that compete on equal terms with private ones.

As I recall, since the return to democracy in 1990, each year there have been two major strikes in Chile: the public employees and students are as predictable as rain in winter. Strikes are sometimes stronger and sometimes weaker, but it is rare to spend a year without two strikes. Behind the strikes of students is always the claim to re-nationalize education, which is in the corporate interest of the teachers who want to go back to being public servants. It also eliminates competition from private education that is killing them. Students are only the instruments, as they are always ready to go on strike for any reason as long as they miss classes. It is a well established Chilean tradition.

Full education coverage has succeeded with primary 99.7% enrollment and 87.7% secondary education enrollment. However, It has had the paradoxical effect that completing secondary education now is not valuable for finding a job. Several studies have shown that there is little advantage to having a high school diploma. In the future, as university education comes to the masses, it is likely that professional qualifications will also start to lose value.

The problem comes when politicians began to assert the theory that if education was a tool to improve income, making it general could achieve greater social equality. This concept of egalitarian education led to higher levels of demand, and now to have a professional degree does not distinguish someone for their expertise. Education as a tool for egalitarianism is a contradiction since it does not take into account that people educate to differentiate themselves from others, not to be equal to them.

In Chile today, almost all our young people have completed secondary education and this does not qualify them at all to earn a living. Almost half are admitted to college, and as the demands are relatively low, many leave with diplomas, but without special skills needed to make a living. They also have to pay or borrow for a quite expensive education because of waste in state universities or the race for the prestigious private schools. Having finally obtained a diploma, this doesn’t make any difference because everyone gets one, even stupid people. If we add all these conditions, plus the corporate interests of the teachers, who dream of going back to being public servants not having to compete with more efficient private teachers, explains why each year, with the same regularity as the rainfall, Chile has a student and teachers strike.

From Arica to Santiago overland

I just take a long long ride, driving from Arica, my town, to Santiago , 2050 Km. away down south.

Two and half days driving, two days in Santiago and then come back to Arica, It was crazy but I had made the same trip many times ago so It was not so hard to me. If you want to see some of our crazy geography and my adventures clic here to see the pics I made along my trip.

North of Chile is not a "nice" place, as a typical touristic expects. It is incredilbly dry, arid, wild and desolate. Humans fell dwarf in front of the huge nature. There are small mining tonws and many ghost towns along the way to Antofagasta, then miles and miles of "nada" just desert and desolation up Copiapó. Then landscape turns gradually green and thing are at a human scale again. There is a shocking contrast between the giant desierto and the civilized Zona Central

Kabloom!

Bombings on London's transport system filled news media around the world passing time after time the same images and similar comments. In practical terms, this huge media coverage just help to terror purposes. I bet that in London has died more than 40 peoople in a day due traffic accidents, if they would have paid the same media coverage, surely people would be much more carefully driving. But bombings sell, and serve to political purposes also.

So that is the way on the public opinion, feed by TV and pollitically correct comments, develop an irrational fear, starting from the most coward and most impresionable people. Terror aims to cowards, those that are easily shocked and impressed with the image of death or suffering and media coverage is special to spread fear and insecurity among those people.

The goal of terror actions is mostly psicological, even the biggest strikes are neglictible compared with any conventional military attack but it is aimed to spread the fear among the cowards. There is no need bravery to plant some bombs, explode them remotely and then run, it is an action made by and aimed to cowards, but I think that british people is not easily amedrented, propably the effect will be oposed than those the terrorist wished.

Anyway all we must die some day and, if I could choose I surely prefer to die in a blasting instead of a long, dirty and expemsive illnes. In my view is a nice way to die, maybe that is why the bombings do not impress nor scare me, nothing at all.

The trap of a confortable life

Time ago I met a guy which I met in the eigthies, when I was poor. He rented a bigger room than mine and worked as mailman, I remember him about my age, married with a big woman and his finances was far better than mine; paycheck assured every month with no problem to finance room and food, much more than I obtained with sporadic jobs (when I can get one).

Well, the fact is that he recognized me inmediatly, for me was hard to recognize him, he seemed a very old man with holes instead of front theets, he explained me that he was working as junior, cleaning and carrying cases in a shipment office. He was very impressed to see me driving my own car and I cannot convince him that I was not into drug traffiking, for him it was no other logical explanation for Mr. "zero pesos" that he met in the eigthies now had a car to drive, and a truck also.

This made me think how lucky -at least in fiancial terms- I was since those hard times, It is true that I live now with few money but my economic progress was amazing: years ago no one gave a cent for my future, my natural place in this word was -with luck- to be a mailman or a junior same as my friend, working hard like a trained monkey for a couple of bucks every month. Now I see all those people which I lived in the eighties and all of them are in the same misery as before.

I was thinking that if I would followed the commonsense to look for security today I woud be the same, or worse, than they. Thanks God I never considered look for security.

So, if some young people who is starting his own figth for existence is reading that I will give him this good advice for free: never look for a confortable life, this is the worst trap. If you like take it, if not leave it.

To live with style

I was reading the Steve Jobs speech to Stanford graduates, thinking that surely those words will be very popular in the future. Every certain time an impressive speech or piece of writing appears amazing people and remaining as inspiration for years to come.

This happened with Churchill speechs, the Macarthur farewell, Luther King, Lincoln and many others in the past. Now Steve Jobs with simple and clear words talked to graduates about his own story, his shinning times and cloudly times.

As most of motivational adress Jobs told a lot of obvious things, so obvious that we rarely are aware of them: the importance to do which we like most, to be able to stand up after the fall, how important may sometimes become some insignificat things as calligraph, and the onminous reality of our death.

But besides to be a good piece of text, which I liked most of the speech was the fact that Jobs itself cannot be considered as a winner in the traditional sense. He does a lot of bad moves and mistakes, under his first ruling Apple was close to bankrupt and most of his long term strategy finally was far from good.

Compared with Gates, Steve Jobs achievements are not so impressing, however he has always exited the imagination of people and has harvested consistently a lot enthusiatic followers. Steve Jobs is a happy guy with a great ability to transmit enthusiasm. He is a real champion despite the fact that Bill Gates has defeated him, same as Muhammad Ali was still the champion after Foreman made it bit the dust after broking his jaw.

So ¿what is my moral?, I think that the achievemnts are not the esential, any asshole with a little luck -or some skill- may obtain a big achievement, but to live with style and be consistent with your own beliefs is a very different matter. Not any asshole can do that, no way.

Politically incorrect

I´m aware that may be not pollitically correct to say that, but what is the idea behind Creative Commons licences? Okay, I understand that people who earn their living writing may be afraid to be copied their valuable work, but It seems to me hilarious that blogs like mine and yours claim for a sort of "license". Maybe bestsellers like Tom Clancy or Isabel Allende may be interested to "protect" (and I doubt they can do it) their writings, there are extreme cases like J. P. Salinger, if you even write his name you are in danger to be sued, however every Salinger book that I had read, I had obtaines in the web, illegally, of course.

So what is the purpose to claim certain "rigths" on the trivialities that we write daily in blogs? I think that those ideas only strenght among common people the ideology from the big editorials and entertainment industry: that people has sort of natural rigths on every single thing that they can write, or sing or whatever.

But the Internet spirit has been always opposite, freedom to copy for masses, even being illegal. I said at first, may sound pollitically incorrect to endorse something ilegal, but is the reality. Slavery was also legal in the past and when we live under dictatorship here in Chile, we experienced many unfair or stupid laws, may we obbey blindly even stupid laws?.

The strongest support of any law is the punish: without trials and jails very few laws would survive and, as long as technology allow to broke laws with no practical consecuences, people will begin to disrespect them. Frankly speaking I had no guilt sentiment infracting copyrigth laws. So, acording with this idea I wrote my own:

"Not so Creative and Uncommon License

The contents of this weblog are not protected under any kind of licence, so please fell free to copy (just as I does) anything you wish. However in sake of basic good manners I kindly advise you to mention the source, if not you are exposed to receive the old curse from my gipsy ancestors, you surely will catch AIDS and may every tooth will fall apart from your mounth!"

Which I added to my blogs to unprotect them from any of my hipotetical copyrigths<

Karma NOW!

For those who love mechanics (like I do) surely will understand my feelings when I heard the big crunch in the rear axle of my truck followed by onminous sounds of iron pieces falling apart as long as I acelerated, the dices are trowed I say to myself, and continued driving up to my home with the axis noising as close to explode.

So, me and my neighbor who is a skilled mechanic openned the case to see what had happened, well: the morons who adapted a new rear axis left loose the nuts which support the assamblage so they crashed. "Cheap things cost a lot" states a popular saying, it is true. You can find very cheap labour here, but you must be very luky to find the rigth man. So I am almost one month with the truck broken and praising will not have the need to tow my trailer!

To move myself meantime I find a "new" (second hand really) rear axis I had to invoke the Gods of mechanics and repaired my old and stroked Mitsubishi Colt 81, which now runs nice except I have no papers for this car , hope no policeman stop me because I will have to give a lot of explanations.

Anyway, I love mechanic works so I will got some fun making the fixes, but anyway I wish the stupid mechanic which left loose the bolts loose their theets, one by one, same as my truck, I demand for karma now!

I feel the earth move under my feets

A strong 7.8 Richter earthquake shacked our city, the neighbor Iquique and several small towns lost in the middle of Desierto de Atacama, it was pretty deep (about 100 km.) so their effect was mild in both cities, however catastrofic in the villages near the epicentre, with 80 to 90 percent houses falled down.

I feel sad about Huara, a small village with clay houses where I used to stop frecuently when I traveled trough the desert between Arica and Iquique, I had developed a sort of romance with this tiny town since time ago, when my truck broked in the middle of nowere and I was oblied to spend a couple of days there while the fixing process was made (nedless to say, towing broken cars is the biggest buz in Huara: in the middle of desert you will barely bargain prices). Those days I discovered the way of life of people living in a tiny, sunny and bored town year after year, I made some friends there and -as I said before- I tried to stop there everytime I can. I cannot remember better siestas in my life other than I slepp in the cementery, near the town, in the most impressing silence.

Well, most of Huara has falled down, nothing to do except to remember how lovely it was. Anyway this quake is not the big one which we are waiting for since 1877, but it serves us to be prepared in a sort of excercise, when el grande comes we will be accustomed.

You liar, you! (mentiroso nomás)

Not long ago I was chatting with Tilman Mager my german friend, and he told me about his dissapointment with a guy which rarely honored their words: the guy said to Tilman "okay, see you then, tomorrow at 6 PM" and the next day nothing happens, "well, today at noon without fail" and again nothing. Tilman claimed how often people here in Arica say "A" and then do "B", he feel that as a disrespect, even an insult, which make loss time and money and difficult to make any kind of deal here.

Otherwise we are always a little shocked about the excesive literally from gringos, their lack of understanding on the understatement, which sometimes appears to us like a sort of rudeness, they seems unable to catch those ironic jokes, so popular between us, when we say the opposite that we meant.

I remembered many years ago when I used to work with Casio Computer and my japanese counteparts drove us mad with their flagrant "lies", when I finally was in Tokio and meet face to face to the japanesse executives I ask them directly "why you guys tell "yes" to all my askings and then you made the more convenience for yourself, doesn´t have you honor? ¿why do you speak so much about honor and loyalty and then shamelessy lie us?" and one of my japanese friends ask me "the problem my friend is that you, chileans are too uneducated; as long as you are my friend, when you ask me for something I never been so rude to say you "no", I always ask "yes" but this doesn´t mean "yes, I will do all your wishes", but "yes, I understand what you are asking me and I will take into account your point". At a first sigth this appeared insane and even rampant hipocresy to me, well, as time goes on this served me a lot to understand and negotiate with such people, it was simply their way to understand the courtesy.

Now many years has passed and I realize that we are similary liers and hypocrital to the eyes of gringos: we barely express our desagree openly, and many times prefer say "yes" and then simply do the most convenient for us as. Incredible but until I chat with Tilman I never realized before that we behave same like my japs friends.

Stray dogs (quiltros callejeros)

Stray dogs are everywere in Arica, same as in the most of latin american small to middle cities and tourists watch them with mixed feelings of pity, curiosity and fear. I simpathize with them, like most of people here wich feed and take some casual care on them. Unlike their well-feed-and-stressed home counterparts (domestic pets) they are free and independent like cats, go around with other colleages (union makes strong) and usually ingnore to people as people ignores them.

Some stray belong to specific places, in the beach where my trailer is parked, there are 3 strays, all of them mixed: one sort of siberyan (called "lobo"), other undefined mixed and the last is so weird that barely looks like a dog, has strange spots in their backs like a hyena. In the neighbor beach "El Laucho" used to live a stray whose passion was follow cars barking loudly to weels, first it loose one leg but never learn and up the last summer continues running and barking with their 3 legs, surely was cerashed because I have not see it since long time.

Other strays make strategic alliance with their human counterparts, beggers, wich sometimes are followed with an escort of 4 or 5 stray dogs, once again applies "union makes strong" and they share amicabily the fruits of public charity. From time to time public healt authorities start campaign of erradication trowing poisoned bait, obviously those campaigns are very unpopular and people wich work on this is usually received with stones in the poorest neigborhoods.

I feel sympatetic about strays and their love for freedom, they are oblied to develop sophisticated social skills to survive, the agressive or anthipatic ones tend to die young, and they seldom mess anybody, just want to live their life in peace, just like me.

Just someone to blame (alguien debe tener la culpa)

Here in Arica we are from the first row looking to the bolivian crisis. I see amazed the tons of rampant ignorance, demagogy and cheap rethoric used by politician and journalists to explain it. I think that one of the worst errors from the analysis is the racistic approach or their equivalent, the fight of classes approach.

The canonic explanation about Bolivia is that the country has an high percentage of quechua and aimara population, they are uneducated, easily cheated by populist leaders and -opposite to the "white" majority in the oriente they are living in starving during centuries, so, the riots and social unrest are just an expression of ancestral revindications which exploded since the Hugo Banzer rule.

This view is absolutly untrue; the quechua and aimara population tends to be underestimated due racist perjudices but they are in general extremely clever and hard workers, those cultures has a milenary background and extraordinary plasticity wich has allowed survived well and healty up to this modern times. Indeed in Bolivia those "coyas" (generic name to meant indians) are taking the economic power, specially in commerce and industry, since a long time, which provokes the long rivality with "cambas" (name of the wither people from orient provinces such as Santqa Cruz and Cochabamba). The big economic differences between La Paz and other altiplanic departments and the orientals as Santa Cruz and Cochabamba lies principally in the exceptional richness on natural resources of the oriente several orders of magnitude bigger than the famelic resources in the high plateau. However in the oriental provinces the big money is in hand of collas (indians) except for ancient aristocracies and new riches due drug traffic.

The traditional explanation is a fake told not only abroad, but also in the own Bolivia where the white upper classes are fiercing racists and full of anger against collas, and it is very useful also to cover the real reason of the actual crisis, which is pollitically incorrect to mention: the erradication of the coca crops during Banzers rule.

Bolivia is a big country with few people, about 8 million souls so any economic shock on some hundred of thousands people can be desvastating for the entire country. The former president Victor Paz Estenssoro, whose legacy of prosperity and stability lasted a record of over 15 years, which is a long time for bolivian standards, was rigth when not consent to the ask of USA goverment to eliminate the coca crops, he knows their people good enough to foreseen the social debacle which would follow this action. So, during those prosperity years the coca crops was absolutly legal and gives to farmers an estimate of US$ 600 million a year, free of taxes wich feed a long chain of industries and commerce not only in Bolivia but beyond, the free zone in Iquique (Chile) boomed based in those millions and also another millions bucks from Peru.

Not only the farmers but also a huge chain of people in many other activities made their living around the coca dollars; salesmen, transportists, importers, and industries of all kind was running with those money. I was in Bolivia several times in late 80s, when I run an import export in the free zone and the country was growing, prosperous and socially ordered. Never heard any claim against chileans or transnationals, people was busy earning his living and the country was steadily improving.

Just imagine if any of you folks was running during many years a profitable and legal crop in your farm, then, overnigth goverment declared that your cultive is illegal and fill your farm with poison wich makes impossible any other cultive in a soil wich per see only grows coca. ¿What all those people does?, ¿and their families and all the chain of people which used to earn their with related business?. At first they react with stupor, frozed, then they begun to leave their farms going to La Paz in search of a new starting. ¿Where they settle down? in El Alto which booming with hundred of thousands of people with nothing to do. Those people raise Evo Morales and Mamani to the power, those are decided to anything because they loose all, those are blocking roads and ask for "go out all the politicians"

It is not strange that those people was cheated by populist leaders, it is not the ignorance the reason they are mad against chileans, transnationals and they demand for gas expropiation despite this will surely bring more poverty. It is simply the stored anger for people who has lost their way of life overnigth, they uded to be prosperous and now they had nothing at all, they need someone to blame, that´s all.

Facts and fictions (verdades y mentiras)

Well, you will surely note that english is not my mother tongue and as long as I write this just to train my skills, you probably will find absurd sintax, words mispelled, and lot of things not easy to understand. My regrets in advance.

The place where I live (Arica, in the north border of Chile) is cheap, sunny all over the year and bored, I guess that there are similar places all over the world but I haven´t seen any yet and, in practrical terms, I consider it one of the best place in the world to live. I mention my hometown because It seem to me true that the town model the people ¿haven´t you ever seen a typical newyorker, so different from a guy from San Diego, a person from London different to other from Liverpool? people from Arica are also different from someone from -lets say- Santiago, we are lazy, slow, bon vivants and easy, certainly there are some few renegades, hard workers and so, but they usually don´t stand to live here for long and after a time they leave. So a sort of natural selection decants the laziness and the love for far niente in the city.

As long as I earn my life writing (not literature, sad to say, but investment projets; sort of bastard child of fiction) I spend main part of each day seated in front of my laptop, loosely surfing google (where I obtain 90% of my material for work) and writing trivia in some of my websites or in Usenet, which helps me to improve my redaction skills in spanish. This is of course the perfect excuse to disguise the lot of fun which I obtain doing almost nothing every day.

Well, well, well, I was able to write 3 complete parragraphs in english, not bad to be the first time, now I think I may take a rest, see you soon!