I usually write my blog posts nightly and then upload them when a wifi connection allows, but I needed a night off after Potosi to process what I'd seen.
I had passed through Potosi on my way to Uyuni and thought the town looked utterly depressing. Yet I was enormously intrigued by it. The town exists solely thanks to its silver mines and it's possible to go on a day tour to experience the mines.
There were about ten of us in my tour group and I was the only woman. Our guide works in the mines Monday to Friday and gives two tours daily on the weekends. We guessed his age to be around twenty five.
We first went to get suited up. We were provided with oversized pants and jackets along with rubber boots, helmets and headlamps. Everyone bought a bandana as we were told it'd help us breath. It's important to wear the latest fashions when mining.
Since we were going to be guests in a functioning mine, we went to the miner's market to buy gifts of coca leaves, soft drinks, gloves, breathing masks, and, to my discomfort, dynamite to give to the miners. It costs about US $3 to purchase a stick of dynamite and its necessary accessories. There are no restrictions on buying dynamite.
Then we went to see the silver refining process. I'll be honest, the machines were very loud and the guide had a bit of an accent that, when coupled together, made it hard to follow what he was saying. Regardless, it was clear that it is an extremely involved process, requiring plenty of spinning machines, lots of sludgy liquid, and surprisingly little manpower or supervision. There wasn't much in the way of safety precautions as far as I could see other than a couple of posters.
It took just a few minutes to drive to the mine. The mountain is approximately 4,700 meters above sea level (the town of Potosi itself is 4,070 meters and is the highest city in the world) and the mine extends down three levels inside the mountain a few hundred meters. Here they mine silver, zinc, aluminum, and tin.
Men work together in teams of about four to six, generally with specialized jobs. Jobs include detonation, chiseling away the rock, pushing/pulling the carts within the mines, and operating the pulley, among others.
The mines operate 24 hours. Since they are collectives, it's up to the workers when and how long they want to work. Ten hour days are standard, though it's not uncommon for a team to work additional hours if they feel they are close to a lucrative silver vein or if they believe a rival team may try to beat them to a suspected vein.
Women are considered bad luck to work in the mines. If a husband is killed in a mining accident, the wife has a few options. She may get a job watching over the mine entrance to make sure no one steals materials or tools, linger at the mine entrance to see if any valuable silver has been dropped or overlooked, or, rarely, she may work in the mine itself.
Officially, no one under the age of eighteen is supposed to work in the mines. However, if a father is killed in a mining accident, the surviving team members will often allow the oldest son to take his father's place on the team.
When the Spaniards arrived, they introduced their god, dios, to the indigenous Quechua speaking population. The Quechua speakers began to use Spanish but, because Quechua didn't have a /d/ sound, dios became tios (uncles) and finally just tio (uncle), as the god of miners is known today. This mine had a tio statue where miners could leave offerings of coca leaves, alcohol, or cigarettes.
The female counterpart to tio is pachamama, the mother earth. She gets jealous when women are in the mine and this, according to supersticion, is when accidents happen.
So far, this post is relatively academic. I haven't even described yet what it's like to be inside the mine. In a word: awful.
I walked forward into darkness, leaving behind a beautiful sunny day, my path only illuminated by my headlamp. The temperature immediately dropped several degrees and became comfortably cool. We walked single file as there wasn't room to walk two abreast. The walls were uneven, the ceilings low and supported with wooden beams. The ground was often covered in muddy water.
After walking for maybe nine or ten minutes, we reached a wider chamber and took a break. It wasn't hot yet, but the air was rancid. Sulfur made it thick and it tasted acidic. The oversized bandana covering my face couldn't stop this.
As we sat, our guide told us if anyone was uncomfortable and wanted to turn back, this was the last chance. Without hesitating, a young Israeli guy fresh out of his obligatory stint in the army said he wanted to leave the mine and the guide's assistant escorted him out. I certainly wasn't having any fun myself but I was keen to continue on.
Giving everyone a chance to rest, our guide started to tell us about the mine; how all of the tunnels are interconnected but it's easy to get lost; how the town will collapse if more thought isn't given to the future of mining and the lack of sustainable opportunities; how it's easy to accidentally kill someone; personal stories of racing other teams to win a silver vein.
Continuing on, we soon had to crawl on our hands and knees through narrow tunnels and climb down rickety ladders to descend deeper. Clearly, this was not Vietnam's famous Cu Chi tunnels, which have been enlargened to accommodate western tourists. The air continued to get thicker, the ceilings lower.
We encountered a couple of teams working on this Saturday morning, one of which included a seventeen year old who had been working in the mine for several months since his father died.
Another team we came across was preparing to detonate dynamite. They said we had two minutes until the blast, so the team hustled us abut fifteen paces away and pronounced us safe just before it detonated. I must have seen too many Hollywood movies because it wasn't at all what I had expected. It was just a fraction of a second and it made a quick, low thud sound, like someone firmly slamming a car trunk closed.
We stuck around for a little longer, chatting with the miners. Everyone was swimming in sweat. The miners took their lunch break and were happy to have our company. I realized the reason why they work ten hour days is that it takes about thirty minutes from first entering the mine to reach a mineable spot, plus an hour lunch break, and then another thirty minute commute to leave the mine leaves eight hours to work.
Even as I write this post, I feel like I'm rushing through it, like I'm intentionally leaving out vivid moments, like I just want it to be done already. That's how I felt for much of the tour. It was fascinating and I couldn't wait for it to be over. In all, I spent about two hours in the mine. I didn't have to push the heavy trolley carts, I didn't have to handle any explosives, I didn't have to wonder if I should stay longer at work to support my family. In short, I didn't have to be there.
I'm not interested in diamonds or jewelry, so I figured I can tell myself that I'm not guilty of perpetuating blood diamonds or resource conflicts. But that's not true. I had been thinking that I might get a new camera after this trip since my current one has some splotches on the lens which drive me crazy. A camera won't be made out of diamonds, but it will have all sorts of other resources like lithium that need to be mined from the earth. And now that I've seen mining conditions, how can I forget it? I don't mean to be overly dramatic and I realize that not all mines are the same, but it makes me uncomfortable to know that people are literally killing themselves working in mines (I haven't even mentioned alcoholism and its relationship with these miners) just so I can have a convenient iPad or take some cool photos.
If you haven't seen the documentary "The Devil's Miner," add it to your Netflix queue right away. I saw it several years ago and while I don't necessarily remember a great deal of the content, I vividly remember how it made me feel: absolutely sickened. It is a powerful and eye opening experience, as are the mines themselves.
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