Marching band performance, po

Wednesday is May 21st, which is an important holiday dealing with a battle, Iquique, and, as one Chilean explained it to me, "cuando Arturo Prat murió, po." Because he was a really tough waeon. This is about all I've gathered about the specific reasons for the holiday.

There are however lots of interesting goings on related to May 21st that can be understood without even the least shred of Spanish. For instance, yesterday, all of the student marching bands from the city (perhaps region?) took to the streets for an entire day of parading. I am still kicking myself for not having had a camera with me. Imagine a ten year old trying to march, look serious, and play a harp twice the size of himself all at once. It was fabulous, and it just kept going. An all day affair. Most of the streets were blocked off. Plaza Anibal Pinto, which is the plaza closest to my house, was a madhouse. Since this blog has been photo-deficient for some time now, just for diversion's sake I'll throw in some pictures of the plaza on a normal day:

And here it is with some students putting on a dance performance:

So, that general scene, filled with an army of children with drums. I was pretty fascinated by the whole thing. It spread literally throughout the city, from the port down past the center of town. The chilean who was accompanying me did not seem to understand why I kept stopping to stare at the parades, as it's just what happens every year at this time, but for me it was absolutely surreal.

There is also a major naval parade that takes place on Wednesday itself. There is a good amount of animal rights grafiti around (of which I unfortunately have no pictures) pertaining to this holiday, because apparently all of the stray dogs are rounded up to prevent them from mussing up the parade. I have heard conflicting reports as to what happens to the dogs. Most people have told me that they kill them, some that they are spirited off to some other location and left there, and some that they simply "detain" them, so to speak, until after the parade. I'm somewhat skeptical of the canine cleansing theory. First of all, there are plenty of old grandpa dogs in my neighborhood. If all of the dogs were wiped out once a year, it would stand to reason that the only dogs in town would be quite young. Secondly, there are just so many of them that I cannot imagine that every stray dog I have met was born during the course of this year. Finally, though, based on what little I know of Chilean politics and allocation of funds, it seems a bit absurd to me that there could be some massive secret budget set aside for the euthanization of stray dogs. So, what happens to the dogs, in my super expert opinion? This I don't know. Ex-carcel? (see post from previous month RE: eerie former-prison-cum-empty-art-space).

Anyhow on Wednesday I will be sure to remember my camera so that I can provide you with pictures that are actually relevant to the topic I'm writing about. (what an idea!)