UFBA Law Students on Strike

Just to give you a quick update on some news in Salvador:

UFBA Law Students on Strike

The link is in Portuguese, but basically it tells you that the law students at my university (Universidade Federal da Bahia) are on strike. Not because of the rising tuition rates (which are 0$ because it is a government funded state university), but because of the failing infrastructure. I think they have complete reason to be on strike (and not just the law students, I would support a strike if the rest of the faculties decided to strike as well). The Polytechnical school isn't as bad, as it's a newer building, but in some of the faculties it's pitiful. The bathrooms are ... not always hygienic. It's strange, but in most of them the toilet paper is outside of the stall, so in the bathroom, for the five stalls, there is one big roll of toilet paper that everyone takes a piece of before going into the stall. I have no idea why they don't just put toilet paper in each stall, because it just means that we run out of toilet paper more often. The other thing is that the toilets don't always flush, and as I've said previously, we can't put toilet paper down the toilet, it has to go into the garbage next to the toilet, which of course adds to the unpleasant smell in the bathrooms. Another issue is the lack of soap - not all bathrooms have it - which is why I have a constant supply of sanitizer on hand.

Other issues: electricity (lights don't always work), there are cracks everywhere in the walls, lack of water in certain buildings on certain days). At least most of my classes have air conditioning (most, but not all).

In the commentaries of the articles, some people said that it was an embarrassment for the students to be on strike, while one student said that they had to strike before the ceilings fall down, and another said God bless these students! At least things are moving in the right direction (I hope) as Tuesday they will negotiate with representatives of the university.