MEMO FROM SANTIAGO

The game of the invisible hand

Long time has passed since a hand game arrived on La Legua, one of the most dangerous place on Santiago’s downtown. One side, there is the police hand that runs through streets patroling the narco families. On the other, there is the invisible hand of economic crisis.

Until now, the intangible hand’s hits were questioned scarcely by the people of this place. Even, they grow up under its caress, like mexicans under Malinche’s stigmata. However, the outrage of this global hand, a hand the most saw ingenously, has arrived without lubricant.

Mrs. Raquel has lived in Toro Zambrano Street for years, but she made an oven-house just several months ago. Mrs. Raquel is almost 80 years old and like others octogenarians of here, put the stones of this new Arcade when she came from north of Chile in the 60’s. She is small and brown skinned. Her clients always are coming. And this is why her emporium has been broading to other products. She is doing the same of her neighbouring who sells as cigarrettes as soaps from a little window. And both elude taxes.

In Legua York, thus young people called La Legua, money drops. And not for the police assault that caught 19 gangs in 2007 –gans have decided now changing narco tickets by traffic arm bills to continue with business. In the Legua Streets you can see yet Hilfilger jackets and expensive cars moving on the corners. But money drops here from summer, since sicological fist came with fireworks and mass media firecrackers.

More than other times, you can smell fried fish or hear the lottery games’ shouts through savage moon’s nights. A lot of families of Toro Zambrano cord put tables when weekends came because they need to offer dishes just for $ 2.000 (four dollars aproximated). You can see sport clubs like The Vasas of Los Copihues Street or Legua Juniors Club full of people selling dishes o playing bingos. All things work here. For example, Mr. Zenén Vargas, a drawing, saw himself with empty pockets and knocked Legua Juniors Club’s door in serching help to pay the heart surgery of his grandchild.

Thus the invisible hand controls and shapes crisis’ lifestyle. It will be transitory, La Moneda says, the Chilean Government palace. And we must accept it. Meanwhile, the Legua village market, the famous market of Jorge Caning Street, branch out over corners. There are arguments because a quarter of seller has illegal patents. All wants the best side to sell. The crisis has hit this place so hard that even the priest of Santa Cristina Church has been saying that we must save our money. “Do that, fellas, and be concerned about this”, said one Sunday.

This image is not new. Who lived the Asian Crisis in the Frei Administration or bore the economic hits of Pinochet rule, know these pictures. In La Legua, like the world, the economic crisis strengthens with eagerness the certainty of its ciclic currents. The certainty of an eternal return that just Nietszche and ours, colateral sons of his minds, believe in it undoubtedly.

Carlos Oliva

Journalist

Advertisement