THE LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL

We went to Sucre on Monday and checked apartments.  Tuesday morning we left for Potosi, about a 3 hour drive.  Last time we were on the road we saw them making Chuno but didn't stop. Chuno is as Bolivian as it gets.  A small potato, that is left outside with water poured over it at night to help it freeze,  after its frozen, and deteriorated for several days, the Bolivians crush the potatoes with their feet, much like the way wine used to be made (and still is in Bolivia) then the potato is dried in the sun.  The natives think it is delicious!   Prior to arriving in Potosi we saw them working in the same field.  They were waiting for the weather to warm up before they started stomping.  The boy below is using his sling shot to clear away the birds that are eating the potatoes.  We asked to take pictures, the Bolivians are always reluctant, but I said that we would be passing through the next day and I would drop off copies for the their family.  They didn't believe me but acquiesced  anyway.  As we left I noticed that I had lost the keys to BI-polar,(see previous posts)  By the way the Pres. had the car worked on and they said the security system was fixed,  but it was obviously off its meds.  Anyway we started looking for the keys and I told the boys I would give them a peso about 14 cents, if they found it.  After looking for several minutes I upped the ante to 10 because we had a "Capacatacion'" Training mtg starting in Potosi.  Obviously, this wasn't the first time Lorna and I had looked for my lost keys in a potato field.  Unfortunately, Christy and Dan, realized this also, since I have left a church cell phone in a taxi in Sucre and a suit at a hotel in Potosi on our first trip. Anywho , one of the little girls found the keys, and Dan said,  I'm going to give you 20 pesos for finding it..  Her aunt (not pictured)grabbed  the keys and said they wanted 50.  We got them to settle on 20.

 

 

 

On the way back, it was late. The family live in tents on the edge of the field.  When they heard us pull in they came running out.  They got several pictures and some literature as well.  I was going to  give the aunt  a picture then pull it out of her hands and tell her that would be 50 pesos.

 

using sling shot to keep birds away

That afternoon we were finished with our apartment checks,  Lorna and I skipped out on our capacatacion meetings and went on a 4 hour private tour of the mine.

CERRO  RICO

I think we mentioned several weeks ago when we were in Potosi, that a couple of hundred years ago Potosi was the richest city in the world.  The Spaniards found out about the silver in 1534.  In the next four hundred years Spain is said to have taken enough silver bars out of the country to stretch from Potosi to Spain, and killed enough indigenous people and slaves in the mines that there bones would stretch from here to Spain.

Our guide Daniel  was great, he had worked in the mine for about 6 years before becoming a guide, he was proud of being a miner like his grandfather and like his father still is.

Daniel showing us  the dynamite

Prior to entering the mine we visited a miner tienda, where they buy their tools and dynamite, which anybody can buy.  To enter the mines you have to give the miners a gift, usually whiskey and coca leaves   We bought them a big bottle of Fanta which they love, and coca leaves.

 

We visited some limited refineries,  which were definitely not osha approved, and had some bad smelling chemicals,  this is some of the silver

 

 Potosi being around 15,000 feet, and being winter here we dressed warm to go into the mine.  after several hundred feet,  it went from growing colder to warmer.  Many places we had to duck to get through and several places we had to crawl.  The tunnel is much smaller than I suspected,  there are hundreds of tunnels in this hill.  There was small gauge track in this one, and every few minutes the guide would yell at us to get to the side, we would hug the wall and suck in our guts to have the cars miss us.  Many places  had the timber supports falling down.  We came to several vertical shafts.  Lorna proceeded climbing and sliding down them,  I was smart enough to ask if we had to climb back up them,  being assured that it was one way I went ahead.  This is a place where the miners are loading the minerals into a bucket, and raising it up the shaft by hand.  Many of the train cars are pulled by two workers with two workers pushing behind. Some are gas driven. Two cars derailed and we helped them put them back on the tracks. One shaft we slid down had workers throwing down broken timbers to the rail road cars.  The whole thing reminded me of an Indiana Jones movie.

Lorna entering mine, started out looking good  notice the narrow gauge rail

vertical shaft

broken timber and pinched air hose

 

We came to one intersection where we ran onto a repairman with a pipe wrench in his hand, (Bolivia's Goober of the Andy Griffith Show)  Daniel asked what he was doing, he said the air lines were smashed somewhere and they weren't getting air to the back of the mine,  I asked Daniel where we were going,  he said .....to the back of the mine.

 

mining cars

After crouching and crawling for what seemed hours and feeling like we were burning up, I figured we were about out.  Found out we weren't even to the back yet.  Finally we crawled through another passage way and came to Tio (uncle in Spanish) however Tio was a God  (Dios in Spanish)  The natives didn't have the  D or the S sign in the Amyra language so they were trying to say Dios but it came out Tio.  Tio  was the Devil of the mountain,  they needed to keep him happy,  He was over the minerals.  Women could never look at the silver veins in the mines.  Until recently women weren't allowed on tours in the mine.  The miners believed that Tio would lust after the women, and not bless them with silver.  After looking at Tio, he was very excited to see Lorna.  By his feet are many llama fetuses that have been given as presents to Tio for good luck. Daniel said his father would get very upset when the miners would forget to give presents to Tio on Fridays.

 

 

Loading the ore by shovel into the buckets. The minor in the middle is the oldest, 65 years old From La Paz. I shared the few words of Amayra I learned on my mission,  In turn his fellow workers from Potosi shared the same ones in Quechua, I'm proud to say that I can say Kiss my ***** in 4 languages.

 

head of TIO 

 

llama fetus' placed at his feet

 Daniel discussed  how the mines were owned by Spain for four hundred years, then private companies, then the government, all who exploited the miners.   During the past 35 years they have been owned by a cooperative.  Investors have small companies, that hire workers,  they pay into the coop  but there is a lot of factions.  Sometimes when two companies reach the same point in a vein,  wars break out.  Daniels dad was foreman of one company that fought against another,  dynamite would be used against the others and it became nasty.  When Daniel met a girl and decided to get married  they had a dinner so the parents could meet,  his father in law recognized his dad as the opposing company.  The realized they were just doing what they needed to do to keep their jobs and so they let their children marry.

After hitting my hard hat on the ceiling more times than I could count, and feeling the air get cooler,  I finally  saw the light at the end of the tunnel and could really appreciate that expression. Just as we see how the light of the Gospel changes  lives both spiritually and temporally.

 We went to dinner last week with the Chalmers, who taught seminary in Arco and Blackfoot, they are now Perpetual Education Fund Missionaries for Bolivia. This in a tremendous resource for members outside the US  to better their lives with education and pay their loans back to help future generations.  It's amazing to see people with so little be so happy.  Thanks for everyone's support by comments and emails.