Student Demonstrations, Cuenca, Ecuador

Diane: Yesterday, on our way to the theatre, we witnessed 5 or 6 students stop a bus, order all the people off, and move it to block traffic. They seemed to do this without any guns or knives or fighting. Other than that, everything was quiet.

So what are the student's protesting? This is completely unclear. Two days ago, I saw some graffiti on the theatre walls about the TLC, which translates to Free Trade Treaty. Yesterday this had been painted over. And, today, there was new graffiti about CGP. I don't know what that is yet. Other than that, there have been no signs, no posters, no speeches, and no newspaper coverage.

Our Spanish teacher Raul explained that 2 days ago was a National Student Day celebration. Generally this day ends in student confrontation with the police. In addition, Ecuador's current President, Gutiérrez, promised that students would be eligible for bus discounts with a special student ID. To date, no ID cards have been issued, and now there is student discontent.

Michael, one of the English teachers at our school, who has lived here for over a year, says that this happens regularly. He feels that the primary motivation is that students don't want to do their school work. These protests are simply an excuse to skip class and go do something more exciting. To back up his viewpoint, Michael pointed out that there were virtually no student demonstrations on weekends or during school vacations, which I must admit does coincide with the times when there are no classes to skip!

Today, the protests near the theatre intensified. There was more rock-throwing and a lot more tear gas. We decided to skip this afternoon's films, after we felt the first hint of stinging in our lungs and eyes from the tear gas. We quickly backtracked until we were out of "smell's" way and spent the rest of the afternoon immersed in the internet.