The Exploitation and Contradiction of South America - When Bus Rides Go Bad: Volume 3, Episode 1

Episode 1: When Bus Rides Go Bad

(Dios es mi piloto - Satan is my motor)

Amber & Andy

My dear readers (if any): We've finally made it off the Altiplano where the joke, "This is the highest I've ever been, man!" never gets old. Amber from Arizona, Andy from Cali, and Jon from Kanadá have descended 4500 meters off the back side of the Andes to sunny, tropical Santa Cruz, Bolivia, gateway to Amazonia and seemingly home to most of the country's drug and oil money. We spent our final days on the Altiplano driving across nearly limitless magestic terrain: The world's largest salt flat, 6000 meter high volcanoes, colored lakes dotted with flamingos, barren desert-scape, and Dali-esque rock formations. But all three of us got a reality check when we stopped in a city called Potosí and realized how much evil can lie below the surface of a landscape so wonderful.

Potosí, "the highest city in the world", was once South America's most populated. When the Spanish Conquistadors discovered in 1545 that powerful geologic forces from deep within the earth, over millions of years, had created a dense, rare, shiny metal in high concentration, called silver, they were quick to begin stealing the metal for themselves. Already having claimed ownership to the land where the coca leaves grow, they now controled the fate of any conscripted, endentured, or willing laborer. The work in the mines was so difficult the men needed the leaves to endure heat of 120�F, hunger, pain, fatigue, and 48 hour work days. By controlling the price of the leaves, all miners effectively became slaves and were doomed to life and death in the mines. Estimates have been wagered of eight million deaths to enslaved miners in the last 300 years.

The average contemporary mine worker in Potosí starts work illegally and willingly at around the age of 14 and can expect to live ten years from the day he first sets foot inside the mine, usually dying from silicosis pneumonia which is caused by the small particles in the air of the mine shaft and the lack of affordable safety provision. Why do they choose to shorten their life? It affords them a slightly higher quality of life. Why do they stay in after they are sick? Maybe we can find out, but quit asking me questions because I am not a miner, okay?

Before I recount the details of a long, educational day we had in the mines, I wanna say a few things and tell you a bedtime story: Miners, if not all other professionals, farmers, let's just say all people in these Andean nations have a long history of protest and uprising. This is more than likely connected to a much longer history of contradicition and exploitation, government conspiricy and corruption, social distortion and revolution, war, and several other adverse factors that are difficult for a brother to understand when writing with a first-world attitude and coming from a politically stable background. La huelga (strike), for better, worse, or no outcome at all, is never a stranger here in the Andean nations. In my first four weeks here I've seen four: A teacher's huelga in Peru which actually led to the death of protestors, a "people's protest" in Southern Bolivia which blocked train tracks and our path South, a farmer's protest in the plaza of the capital city of Sucre (by the way when someone yells "MUERA GRINGO!" to your face that means "Die whitey!"), and in today's lesson, when trying to get to Potosí last week, the most intense of all, a miner's strike.

Our bus was bumping along the washboard dirt roads of the colorful yet lifeless Altiplano against a backdrop of forlorn peaks when out in the middle of nowhere (I feel safe in using that overused phrase) our bus came to a complete halt. All passengers aboard were hoping it wasn't a similar delay to the former, which was a logging truck versus a jeep head-on...with graphic consequences. But this incident became much more inconvenient (for us). Eventually we discovered the road was bloqueado (blocked). To us, that meant we could either wait for the block to clear and the bus to continue, or blindly follow the other half of the passengers who were convinced they would freeze to death waiting through the night at 13,000 feet; or maybe they could find a way past the block. We had about 90 minutes of light remaining and no information as to what the block was or where in (the) hell we were. Stepping off the bus it could be seen that the line of semi-abandonded buses and semis continued to the horizon and beyond. Evidently, some of them had been there a while. So the only gringos in the area, Andy, Amber, and I grabbed our bags and started the hike toward the front of the line, all the way asking redundant, unanswerable questions to locals who seemed to know less than us. A mile or so up the road we were finally able to make out the source.

There was a small farm community of 25 or so adobe houses (no electricity, no plumbing) that broke the endless Altiplano expanse. It was also the spot of a fork in the road where our vehicles had ceased forward movement and oncoming traffic was stationary and lined up behind. Three important roads merged here; one to the capital La Paz, one to the Oruro which was our destination, and one to Cochabamba, our origin. Thus the three major cities in the West of Bolivia were not reachable from one to another by road due to this crippling block. Not one of the hundreds of vehicles were passing nor running. Scores of grizzly looking men walked or sat near the junction with serious looks on their faces as shadows fell over their brow from their hard hats. Looking for a wreck or a missing piece of road to be the "block", we couldn't extrapolate at the time that these burly fellows were miners. Apparently, this was their block. They gave us dark looks as we cautiously crossed their protest on foot, women carrying children in blankets on their backs, and men pushing carts of luggage.

The volatility of the situation only became clear to us when we could see the silhouettes of what looked to be an infantry of plastic army men standing on the nearby hill looking formidably down at the miners. Scores of troops stood stoic, evenly spaced in a long, spread-out line, each gripping a large machine gun. Upon closer look it seemed the national guard had evidently been called in to maintain order as the sun set, but the miners persisted with their standoff huelga. Hundreds of truckers, travelers, families, and passengers with bags too large to carry and without proper warm clothes were forced to be stranded in the pitch black without food, water, shelter. Things looked like they could get ugly. A road sign we walked past said it was only 50 kilometers to Oruro, but our bus and other vehicles would definitely not cross anytime soon, so we contemplated our options:

1. Wait, and become gringo martyrs in the oncoming melee (and freeze).


2. Wait for a mini bus (which made a round once every hour but was mobbed and nearly toppled by desperate travelers before it could get near the block). But the bus would either come again after dark or possibly not at all, so freeze.



3. Walk (till we freeze).


4. Use our unlimited combined wealth to convince somebody to turn around and drive us 50 km to safety.

We chose option four since it seemed to involve less pain, freezing, and death.

More importantly, in light of contradiction and exploitation, choice four would also spread the belief among locals that gringos have unlimited wealth and they should always be taken advantage of and given preferential treatment. But alas, the truck drivers here couldn't be bought and sold like so much of the rest of South America. They claimed they already had brought a heavy, full load up the hill, or had already come this far, or the gas would not be worth the money, or they would rather freeze than drive back down to town and directly back up. Things were looking bleak: Return to the block or walk?

But just then a farm truck with no cargo left the line heading away from Oruro, turned around, honked, and the driver yelled, "Sube!" So the mad scramble was on and anyone within sight distance ran and climbed into the back of the truck, throwing backpacks, babies, and blankets in first. The truck pulled away when it was basically full and we all smiled at each other in security. The truck sped down the highway toward the sunset and Oruro as the chilly wind frosted my ears and tore at my hair. We felt safe and happy to have avoided staying in the unfortunate situation behind us, but I could not comprehend what magnitude of suffering would bring one to the such desperate measures the miners took that night.

As the truck crept into the dusty, gray, high altitude mining town of Oruro at dusk, I pondered the issue of relative human suffering and I tried to have empathy. Someone will put his own welfare and life on the line only in a time of great trial or despair. I cannot even relate but I appreciated the fortune I had to be where I was physically and financially at that moment. The sun dropped behind a mountain and I shivered. And I wanted to know why.