Student Protests on Calle Condell, Valparaíso

Thursday, May 8th

Students from various universities marched down Calle Condell, I suppose to Parque Italia or Parque O’Higgins*, dressed in black. There were also elementary school children and high school aged youth marching in the protest. They woke me out of bed, I went to the balcony of our apartment to watch hundreds of students chanting cheers and banging drums while they waved flags like “Business on Strike!”, “Nursing on Strike!” and …”Physical Therapy!”, “Psychology!”, until nearly all of the majors of whichever given university were represented. My roommate Gustav also awoke because of the noise and came to see the commotion. I soon realized that the black outfits represented the “death of education”. There was for awhile in the central building for PUCV a huge coffin with a Spanish equivalent of R.I.P. underneath the words Educación.

It wasn’t the first time that I have seen protesters block Condell, an important street and thoroughfare used to reach the even bigger and longer Calle Pedro Montt, Avenida Colon, and others.

Click on the below image to see more pictures of this and other events related to the recent student protests in Valparaíso.

*These parks are located along Calle Pedro Montt, a main avenue in Valparaíso, and are used for concerts, assemblies and social activities in addition to housing several well known street markets.