Oh buddy am I exhausted. I was right in my assumption we wouldn’t be resting much with our time in Chile. Every moment is jam-packed with awesomeness.

Yesterday morning we got up early to meet everyone who is part of Start-Up Chile for a picture with the Chilean Minister of Economy. I guess I should take this moment to explain a little of what I am doing down here.

The Chilean Government decided to enhance innovation, the economy and global network that they would sponsor people from around the world to move to Chile to start companies. So a friend of mine I know from Tech, Chris Quintero, followed the whole process last year during their first year of doing this, he fell in love and invited another friend of ours Andrew Foote to join him in starting a business in Chile. The 3 of us know each other best through Engineers without Boarders and have all worked in Cameroon together. We have the same passions to change the world and love for traveling. We were discussing the possibility of applying for this program at Rocky Mountain Pizza over a couple pitchers of beer when a friend of mine, Sean Kolk, walked up and started drinking with us. I know Sean via a road trip a couple years ago to Mexico. Sean was just about to graduate in International Affairs and Marketing from GT and was looking for the next great adventure in his life. The 4 of us decided that we should totes go for it and Andrew invited a friend, Nick Van Vilet, he knew from Emory to join us on this crazy adventure. The 5 of us began brainstorming on what we could possibly do for a business in Chile, after much talking and debating it was decided that our best idea with the skill we had was to go with the project that I have been working on with GTRI for the past year- a solar latrine. The sanitation crisis world wide was something already near and dear to the 5 of our hearts and we decided we should make a business that seeks to do something about it. Sanivation is what we call ourselves- innovation for sanitation (get it?) check us out at Sanivation.com.

Ergo, me and 4 boys are here in Santiago Chile under an initial grant from the Government program Start-Up Chile. We aren’t exactly sure what all we will be doing, where we will be living for what will happen, but we do know we are going to learn a lot, make a lot of awesome memories and meet a ton of great people. So we are pumped to be here.

So yesterday was our first time meeting any other Start-Up Chile people. We met at the largest newspaper headquarters of Chile and got a really cool tour. I spent most of the time just getting to know the other people here in the program. There are about 200 of us from everywhere in the world. Everyone speaks English, about half speak good Spanish. It was interesting hearing everyone’s background and what company they were going to start here in Chile.

From there we headed back to the hostal to start doing some work and discussion time with the team. Then we decided since we were hungry, we would make a quick stop at a fast food café right next to our hostal… this proved to be an interesting adventure.

So in Chile, a lot of things that we would have just done ourselves or by machine in the Sates are instead done by other people for their full time job. Like gas, there is a station attendant who pumps it for you. Or in a fast food case, you order your food at the desk and she gives you a ticket depending on where you are you take that ticket somewhere else to show someone to order your food, and then take that ticket to someone else who verifies the tickets and passes you your food. Interesting huh? Well at this café we got our little tickets and had NO IDEA what to do next. We wandered around like idiots for a while and tried to ask people, but no one knew what we were trying to ask. There was an escalator upstairs which looked like it had extra seating, so we went up and got stuck in a cafeteria line- with no exit! Only the escalator going up behind us. So we had to push our way through the line, and follow the really confusing exit signs which lead way to the back of the building and exited to a random ally a block away form where the café was. We were so confused. We got back to the restaurant and kept asking people to no avail. Finally we just sat down at a table and next thing we knew a waiter came to our table and took our tickets and our drink orders and then shortly delivered our food to the table. We felt extremely Gringo (Chilean slang for American).

After that adventure we met up with the Hong Kong kids and the Chilean couch surfers again at the largest market in the area- Market Vega. It was so interesting to walk through the market, it had almost anything you could want all sold at little booths under this covered area. All kinds of produce, meat, drinks, house supplies, dog food, clothes – everything. In the very middle was an eating area where we were served amazing home made 4 course meal for WAY cheep. So good. The fried fish might have been the best I ever had, and got to try my first local beer, also delicious. From there we went on another walking tour. Claudia, a native Santiago girl studying anthropology and archeology did an amazing job explaining the history of the place. We went to 500 year old cathedrals, some old museums, congress, the Mondia (equivalent of the white house) she showed us damages still from specific bombings or riots or the earthquakes, she explained past governments and movements and how they affected current day Chile. And every where we looked riot police were preparing for the next days excitement.

All of the university students and teachers in Santiago have been on a “Paro”, Strike, for the past couple months. They are speaking out against having to pay for university when all public universities were originally established as completely free and are so in most neighboring countries. I was amazing when I found out that Chilean students pay about $7,000 USD a year for their education, as compared with myself who paid about $30,000 USD a year. Was this really worth such a large protest? They seemed to think so. All the universities have been “taken over” by the students. Each like a headquarters’ of a rebellion where tons of students camp out day and night and plan their protest. The buildings are covered in hand made signs and many have desks and chairs jammed in the gates in a visual representation of what was going on. How incredible that students could rally like that by the thousands around the city for a cause. I don’t know if Georgia Tech could have ever rallied like that, but as I was told, protesting here is a way of life. Its how all members of society get their point across. Well today, July 14^th was the big day, a large protest had been scheduled right at the Mondia and police were preparing for it. Fences were up, riot gear was on and tanks holding ammunition of tear gas and water canyons were out and in the ready. Through out the day we could hear the protest out on the plaza and could watch on TV as police retaliated when protest turned violent. We decided to stay far from any of the protest. Tear gas was launched and water canyons used when students started fires int he streets.

We left that group about 7pm to meet Travis and some other El Oasis kids for a free symphony concert. Then it was off to an awesome coffee shop to just sit and chat for a couple hours. It was very nice. After that Travis took us to Universidad de Chile, one of the main spots of the student protest. After showing our student IDs they let us in. It was just like a rebel base, or a barricade feeling. Planning going on everywhere, big white boards about what was planed for the upcoming day, signs being made, and even chant rehearsal. Again we commented about how hard it would be to ever get tech students to attempt such an adventure.

For there we headed back to the Hostal with every intention of going to bed to get some sleep in preparation for the early morning we had today. But alas, upon arrival to the Hostal there was a large group outside on the balcony drinking whine, dancing, and thoroughly enjoying themselves. I and Sean, in our unstoppable social nature, could not pass up that opportunity and went outside to join the group. We again met people from all over and practiced our Spanish some more. And the most unexpected fantastic surprise happened- I met the local women’s rugby club coach! Honestly! His name is Sebastian and his club practices on Mondays and Wednesdays not too far from here and I was invited to join them right away, guess what I am going to do Monday night? So pumped. I had been planning on going to bed soon at that point, but was convinced instead to join the group out dancing, and I can not say no to that. And oh what a night. 1^st off no one gets to the clubs before 1am, 2^nd club plays the most wonderful assortment of music from reggaton to classic rock to rap to hard core metal to local Chilean, 3^rd Latino boys are incredible dancers, 4^th Latino boys love blond haired Americans. Basically saying I didn’t stop dancing all night and had the time of my life. So much fun just dancing and singing the night away. So many times I just cracked up laughing when I started thinking about this was my new home. Wow.