heckit's blog: Potosi, Bolivia

May 17, 2009

Walk
Breakfast: Portal del Almanecer: warm place for breakfast
10:10 depart Uyuni
3:30 arrive Potosí
Hostel
Walk
Dinner w/ Nicolas & Elisa de Toulouse

May 18, 2009

Walk
Mine Tour
Tea
Templo San Francisco
6:00 pm depart Potosí
9:00 pm arrive Sucre

I was hesitant to visit the mines of Potosi after reading about their existence in the Museum of the American Indian in Washington DC; it spoke of how the indigenous worked as slaves in a dangerous job. I imagined images from Sebastião Salgado, whose famous black and white documentary photographs depict of men and children working a mine; they look like they are in one of the levels of hell in Dante’s Inferno. I was also concerned about a voyeuristic presentation of human beings who are working in despicable conditions. But when so many fellow travelers mentioned the impact of the place, I decided to go.

Miners’ market

A former miner, Antonio, guided Lucia, a young Spanish student, and me to the mines at Cerro de Plata. He presented the entire enterprise of the miners and their work with great respect and dignity.

We first stopped at the market for an education on the implements used by the miners. The most important is the dried coca leaves, which have been used since pre-Colombian times. A handful is taken and stuffed one by one into their mouths. The large wads of coca are evident in the miners as they pass. It is usually taken with lejía, made of the ashes of quinoa plants that activate the coca ingredients. The chewing of coca leaves stimulates energy and staves off hunger, thirst, and pain. It also serves as a rudimentary filter, as the particulates that float in the mines is caught by the wad of wet coca leaves. Cigarettes are used or they are offered to Tío, the god of the mine. Alcohol (97%), quema pechos, is also purchased for consumption and offered to Pachamama, Mother Earth. Dynamite, made of glycerin, is also available. It helps the miners break down the stone and earth to get at the minerals. Because a stick of dynamite costs the same as a daily wage, it is often broken up into three pieces to make its purchase as cost effective as possible. It is mixed with ammonia-nitrate (a fertilizer) which is as effective as one stick of dynamite. The wick, la metcha, is about 2 feet long covered in plastic (to keep the wick lit in the humid and wet conditions). The wick lasts about seven minutes before it detonates the explosive. The miners must light it and then seek shelter in holes in the tunnels. There are gaseosas, soda pop, which the miners drink after a long day’s work. We purchased coca leaves, dynamite, and a 2 liter of soda for Bs 40 bolivianos ($ 5.75) to offer to the miners. The average daily wage of miner is Bs 35-40 ($ 6.00), so purchasing this is expensive for them. We also picked up rechargeable head lamps (one of which leaked on my pants and ruined them).

We got to the miners “workshop” building, where we put on a protection jacket, pants, boots and a helmet. We should have had a face mask and goggles, but the miners themselves only wear a helmet, a head lamp, and boots, and not much else.

Women and children

Outside the mines, there were woman and children who were breaking up raw material brought up from the mine. The women who work the mines have high rates of eye disease from the air-borne silicates released when the stones are broken. Children, as young as 12 years old, work to support their families. In some cases, their fathers have died from working in the mine and they do their part to support the family. It is a vicious circle where the children of miners become miners themselves and so on. There is a high rate of teen pregnancy and mining is the only way young men can support a family.

The mines

We crawled into the mines. It was like leaving the life of light and air to enter the claustrophobic world of darkness and tunnels. In some areas, you can walk upright, but in many (if you are 6 foot), you are crouching, crawling, and scrambling along the sides of the tunnels. In some places, the tunnels are wet and muddy, but most areas are cool and dark. In one particular place where material was being hauled up from 200 meters below, the place was hot and humid. I have never witness work more arduous and dangerous.

The principal minerals mined are zinc and tin and smaller amounts of copper, lead and silver. The minerals are evident as you walk through the tunnels. Light gray—silver. Brown—zinc. Dark gray—lead. Orange—copper. The quartz veins leach out asbestos fibers, which cause lung cancer in the men. The labor involves chipping and hammering away at rock and earth in hopes of finding a rich vein of ore. The men cart material on a wheelbarrow from one place to another or they shovel material into large receptacles to be raised to higher levels. The miners work from four to eight hours a day. The miners indicate with black spray that a tunnel is safe; red paint if it is not. They also block up a passage way with rocks once a mine has been depleted.

There are noxious gases that infiltrate the tunnels Carbonate lamps and canaries used to be used to indicate high levels of the deadly gases. Sometimes acid puddles on the tunnel floor and when it is stepped into, gases are released. The miner has little time to leave before he is knocked out.

History

The entire mine operation was under the control of the Bolivian government until 1985, when there was the collapse of the price of metals. From then on, the mining cooperatives took over. There are over 100 mining cooperatives on Cerro de la Plata. The miners pay a membership to the cooperative and mining royalties to the Bolivian government. Sometimes they are lucky and strike a rich vein; sometimes, they are not. There is a mining engineer who reviews the mines on a weekly basis to make sure one excavation doesn’t interfere or collapse on another. This mountain has been continuously mined since pre-Colombian times and greatly so in colonial times, so you can imagine the number of holes it must have.

El Tío

During the Spanish colonization, the indigenous were coerced to work the mine. Francisco de Toledo, the Viceroy of Peru, required that every indigenous had to provide one year of service, but on the condition that 125 lbs of silver were produced weekly. I am told that some 8 million lives perished mining Cerro de Plata. The mines were also used as prisons; the Quechua worked in abject conditions in the mine, sometimes shackled with chains and blocks. When an indigenous was lost or died, the Spanish would say that the Devil had taken him because he did not work well enough. In the minds of the indigenous, God, saints, and angels dominated the world of light, but the world of the mines, the darkness, and the infra-world was the domain of the Devil (Tío). Tío became a god to whom the indigenous asked for protection. They converted the Devil (Evil one) into someone good—someone who would protect them in the tunnels.

The Tíos are made of the same earth as what is excavated. It is a three-foot figure with horns, limbs and an a prominent erect penis. The miners offer coca leaves and alcohol to Tío on his head, his eyes (to see), on his shoulders (for work), on his feet and on his penis (for fertility). When alcohol is offered, it is first offered to Pachamama, then to Tío and then it is drunk.

Women are not allowed in the mines except during Carnival, when they come down and decorate Tío with balloons, streamers, etc. Single women rub Tío’s penis in hopes for a husband. Tío is a male spirit that guards and protects the Cerro de Plata, who is considered female. Women are not allowed as it would make the Cerro jealous and she would hide her riches from the men.

Safety

There is a mining agency that determines the safety measures for miners. Before helmets were not required, and now they are. Before there was no minimum age a worker had to be; now the minimum age of a workers is 12 years old. Perhaps in the near future face masks and goggles will be required. The issue is that the cooperatives (workers) have to pay for these safety measures and when you consider their daily wage, you understand why safety measures are so minimal.

Reflection.

The experience was unforgettable. Many of the men work with as little equipment as possible and do back breaking work. I had a difficult time actually being in the mine. It could have been the altitude, which is 300 meters higher than Potosí, or it could have been the air-borne particulates that permeated the tunnels, but I had a difficult time breathing and keeping up with Antonio and Lucia. It seemed the oxygen was depleted in the dark, hot, claustrophobic tunnels. I was only too glad to reach the light of day. I cannot imagine what it must be like to come in day in and out to mine the mountain in hopes of earning of Bs 40.

I made me reflect on what I can for the safety of these workers. One would be to require face masks and goggles, but this would be for the workers to decide for themselves. It also has me reflect on how I participate in this economy for cheap minerals—used in laptops, cell phones, electronics, and then we throw them away. The reason they are so cheap is that they have been paid for with sweat and blood.