It started off another usual day in December in the city of Santiago. Eighty degree weather, sunshine, the annoying metro, and English courses downtown.
I'm teaching my classes noticing attendance is down and realizing that a big soccer game is in the works. It's all well and fine until my Chilean brother sends me a text with the news that Colo Colo won the game.
Now, soccer fanatics are rather intense in this land of latin america, but to make matters worse, Colo Colo is perhaps holder of the most violent fanatics around. And of course these fanatics congregate downtown to "celebrate".
"Celebrating" involves drinking and stealing. It tends to also include driving around with flags out the window, or for those without cars but more friends, storming onto a bus and demanding the driver take them where they order.
It's 10:00 and best friend, Sara, and I walk out of class down the main street towards the metro. Groups of fanatics run around screaming and one of those big, iron police vans is parked with plenty of officers holding batons.
Conveniently, a bus stops to let off some passengers and Colo Colo fans hop on back. I watch as a policeman drags one of them off and spanks him with the baton. Perhaps that shouldn't have made me laugh, but public spankings are rather sparse in the states!
I make it to the metro, which feels like a safe zone. I'm three trains away from home and the only risky part now should be the seven minute walk from the station to home. Sara and I are making our first line transfer when we walk onto the platform and I wonder why everyone sounds so sick.
People all around are sneezing, coughing, and breathing into their clothes. I think to myself, "Great, not only is there violence, but perhaps we'll get sick, too." I ask Sara, "Why is everyone sneezing?" Two steps further, it hits me.
My eyes turn five shades of red, I start to cough, and I'm praying that train gets here pronto. My throat and nose feels like they have pepper burning inside. Sara can't stop laughing at me, and when we board the train she comments how interesting it is that this is normal for people of Santiago. "Is tear gas really that normal, you think?" Her response, "Well, I'm sure they didn't have to ask why everyone was sneezing!"
I texted my Chilean brother from the metro so he would meet me there and walk me home. I therefore had a narrator of the events around me. "Up there is where fanatics congregate to grab purses from people riding the bus when it stops." Fantastic, I thought.
The good news: that healthy dose of fear that I seemed to be lacking before my travels here has now kicked-in just fine, and who doesn't want to experience tear gas at least once in their life?!
