Red Hot Chilli Chilean :)

For me to be a Chilean means to live with ideals and objectives, to try to reach personal and common well being, to be involved with current events and to participate daily in the growth of the country, to contribute to the development with conversation, discussion, culture, education and meetings, intent on constructing an equal society that does not discriminate disabilities, creeds, ideals or sexual preference. Being a Chilean means to be intent on rescuing our traditions; to be proud of our indigenous past, of our ‘folklore’, of our dances, food, games and wealth. The things that characterize us and those that we should be proud of are our happiness and the motivation to celebrate whichever thing, because everything is an excellent motive to get together with our relatives and friends to share a drink and a delicious barbeque. We have humor unique to the world, for we all are able to say something funny; we smile at ourselves and at others. We are very observant; we pay attention to every detail and then comment about them with our closest friends. We wait anxiously for every important date and especially for the month of September, because we know that we will have some free days and extra money to have many barbeques, to go to inns, to drink and eat a lot. We have a particular language that no one else in the world understands, because we do not speak Spanish, we speak Chilean…
What we should be ashamed of is that many of us are ignorant; often we do not know our own history or the motive behind our celebrations. We recognize our country only once a year or when our country plays some sport on a global level. Some people imitate other cultures. When they travel to Argentina or Mexico, they return with a different accent and a different manner of dress. Finally, we love to adopt foreign traditions.
September 11^th is a date that brutally changed the rhythm of our history and that affected everyone in some form. Although I was not born, more than ten years passed in which my family members’ lives and their social circles changed radically and left a profound mark on each of them, and obviously it has affected me and my way of seeing many things—my ideals and my interests. I think that it is extremely important because history constructs a future of a country; we have to be able to analyze and criticize the errors of the past so that they are not repeated in Chile.

Transantiago!

Personally I did not know the transport system before Transantiago, since I have only been living in this city for a year and a half. But I do remember from my visits to Santiago that the streets looked a lot more congested and disorderly, the micros were driving all over the place, not respecting the bus stops, other drivers or passengers. I also believe there had been much more delinquency, it was common that delinquents assaulted the micro drivers that should end the day with profit, and also more passengers were robbed. Santiago is one of the most contaminated cities on a global level, and one of the main causes is the daily circulation of cars. In reality the number of micros has reduced considerably, as well as the problem of traffic in the streets, thus allowing drivers to arrive to their destinations in less time. Also the infrastructure of the streets is greatly improving; now there are routes exclusive to public transportation throughout the entire city, the streets have been modernized and the conditions of the routes and bus stops have improved for the pedestrians.

It is true that when this system was first implemented, everyone was affected, that they committed grave errors of implementation, of information and of finance, but it is also true that if Santiago continued with the previous system the contamination and congestion today would be unbearable. Today the system has greatly improved the quality of the streets and micros are very good; they have incorporated more routes and more buses, and it is also more comfortable and much safer.

El Transantiago has two main problems: one is the large amount of people who use it every day, I believe one of the few solutions to this is to decentralize the country; and the other problem is that many of the daily passengers do not pay for their trip, and for this I believe that the best solution is to deliver education, culture and respect to the population.