The bullhorn flattens but elevates the voice of an angry protestor. His revolutionary rhetoric flits constantly like a small bird around the Plaza de Armas. He is not visible to me from our hostel terrace. He is not going to stop, and he is not a single person. As Columbus Day, a national holiday here that seems to receive as much positive press as an illegal hanging would in Alabama, draws close, the Mapuche people come out to show the strength of their numbers. Pharmacy workers wail on their plastic trumpets and bang on drums, not working. And the Iglesia Metropolitana teems with salvation seekers, grabbing for grace at the feet of Jesus, shelling out their last monedas for a better life to come.
No, not everyone here wants or needs more. In fact many people seem quite plump and happy here. Men and women in business suits sit in quieter, cleaner, and brighter parts of town, sipping an afternoon coffee, wine or beer. Teenagers lay in the shaded grass of the park on Cerro Santa Lucia, kissing and flirting until their antsy hearts are swollen. And even in the Plaza de Armas, little girls with their abuelitas throw old bread to chriping pigeons. Heck, the wii sells on every commercial street corner, and workmen, as I write, plant trees along the busy Avenida Merced.
But looking down on the Plaza de Armas, the central square where dictator Pinochet held public executions up until the early 90´s, one can see an obvious transition taking place here in Santiago. The vioce of a not yet at peace public rolls beneath the palms in the square, while the spring sun tries to beat back the smog of an overpopulated South American city.
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