Be thankful you are not a miner in bolivia
Trip Start
Apr 14, 2004
1
18
25
Trip End
Jul 27, 2004
Potosi,
Bolivia
Sunday, July 18, 2004
wanting nuthing more for the next day but to sleep in, we (still me and the ingrids) were abrubtly woken up at around 8:30 by a tour agent who was trying to sell us a tOur to the salt mines leaving in an hour...at first it was quite frustrating to have been woken up, but it turned out to be a good thing, because we found out that the next day was sunday and the mines wouldnt be operating...so after a rushed preparation, we were on our way to stock up on coca leaves(not cocaine, just the leaves), potable rubbing alcohol (this shit was 95 or 96%, and drinkable!?!), cigarettes, and last but not least, dynamite...now mom, dad, u may be asking yourselves, ¨what is my pure, innocent, naive, angelic-like son, doing buying such items??¨...i can truthfully answer that they are the preferred gifts that the miners expect to receive when you come to visit them in their hell-holes...after making our purchases, we were suited up in bright yellow outfits and hard hats for the adventure...like we didnt stick out enuff as white gringoes in this country, we had to walk around town in bright yellow outfits...might as well of stuck a flashing red light on our heads and blared a siren!!!
now i can understand the chewing of the coca leaves, as it supresses your tiredness and appetite, as well as makes it easier to work at altitude...(i have also become quite fond of the analgesic effects it produces in your mouth as well)...the alcohol, i could understand for after work, but half of the miners were completely toasted during their work day...and why it needs to be so strong is beyond me, but i guess when u work in that type of situation, u will do anything to make it seem better...but on top of all the bad gases, asbestos, and silicosis producing compounds that you are exposed to underground, why would you also want to smoke filterless cigs all day???apparently they believe that underground, this trinity of substances, protects them from the illnesses that they all inevitaby die from within 10 to 20 years...the dynamite is obvious, they need it for their mining, and we needed it as well for plain old touristy fun...i like explosions...
they make countless offerings of the substances to their underground devil monuments...they call him tio jorge (uncle george), and he is their deity underground...however, when they are above ground they praise jesus as a result of the spanish conquest...a very interesting duality in their belief system...however, once u have spent some time underground, you can appreciate how they must believe they are working in hell, because these working conditions are absolutely horrible...and to make it even worse, the wages are even more horrible...a rookie miner makes the equivalent of about $3/day to do more hard labour than most people would dream of...all this plus more awaits them, as in exchange for all their suffering and underpaid labour, they also get the bonus of an average life expectancy of 15 years from the day they start working in the mines...im not guaranteeing anything, but i think the next time i am complaining about the work i am doing, i might be able to look back upon this and use it for a little motivation and proper perspective...u really hafta see it to believe it...
after a few jibes at my height (in comparison with the local miners, i am an absolute giant) we spent a few hours being lead around thru small tunnels, and even smaller crawl spaces, viewing the various idols to mother earth and tio jorge...we also were expected to make offerings to them at each stop, lest we offend them, and curse the silver line...
i think that having girls in the mine, is a cruel form of torutre for the miners, becuase many of them were sure interested in taking pics with them, and had ¨the look¨in their eyes...im sure the copious amounts of alcohol they were under the influence of, didnt help the situation either...
in retrospect i was quite glad for the hard hat, because before we would leave the mine, i must have smacked my head at least a few dozen times...at the end of the tour, i was able to roll up the materials for one of the dynamite packages, and we watched from a distance the effects of the explosion...quite a bit louder than i had expected...but fun as hell...
upon returning to town, we were taken to the factory where the silver and tin was taken out of the rock...it was explained to us how they only have the equipment and technology to get a purity of 4 or 5 ¨somethings¨, but after it is cheaply sold to one of the rich nations of the world, the joy of capitalism takes over, and the purity is increased a few thousand times...and then sold for much more money, none of which ever benefits the poor bastards who basically give their lives up to extract it for a few morsels of food for their family...
a side note: i was pleased to learn from the silver mine tour, that canada is one of the best countries for selling silver to, but we are still far away from paying the ¨real¨ costs of the minerals...
upon returning to the hotel, we saw a taxi arrive with our aussie friends from our jungle/pampas trip, and so we spent one more evening at the local watering hole recounting the week previous since we had last said goodbye...that is one of the great things about traveling (usually, unless u r trying to avoid someone)-- u can say goodbye to some friends u have made, thinking u may never see them again, and a week or a month later, you run into them again...during the evening , we met a bolivian dude who is studying political science, so i spent the night involved in an interesting conversation about the state of this country, and the effects of all the international involvement...not that there arent a few positives being done, just that there are so many misdirected aims, as well as the blatant international (mainly US) interference...but i will not get into that here...
my fingers and eyes are sore,so that will be the end of this one...
