Huelga!

The people living in the neighborhoods close to our school today held a strike, or huelga.  A huelga here means tires are burned in the streets to shut things down in the affected areas and keep cars from passing through.  The group of protesters gathered discourages people from trying to cross through on foot, too.  This morning it began just after some of the staff had arrived but before the morning rush of students.  We waited around for a while to tell students that classes were cancelled, and then we had a free day.  Feliz Dia de Huelga, everyone!

That's our silver car there with the taillights on, a nice safe distance from the action.  The kids got to sit in there quite a while while the adults were deciding whether or not to cancel school.  The guys up and to the left are SWAT police who happened to be nearby and who were asked by our school to open the street (just because we found them pulled over on a nearby street.  They did push the burning tires into the ditches on either side of the street, but at that point school was cancelled, and once the SWAT teams left the fires resumed in the streets.  We don't know yet about tomorrow.