The Exploitation and Contradiction of South America - Who let the Miners out?: Volume 3, Episode 3

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Señor Pasajero, su atención, por favor. We are gonna finish this story up.

We three met our mine tour guide, San Pedro, outside of his office near the main plaza of Potosí on a brisk night, even for 4000 meters altitude. There were three weddings this Saturday night but he opted for the wedding of one of his miner friends. So San Pedro, Amber, Andy, and I caught a public minibus toward a district near the mines where the miners and their families live. We brought our own bottle of Singani as a wedding present (to ourselves), but due to a faulty Bolivian plastic bag it fell to the cold concrete and shattered into tiny fragments, as would all our expectations for the night and the wedding we were about to witness. From a few blocks away we could already hear the live music blasting out of the open door and windows of...let's call it a grange.

Walking into the structure through a large door, we noticed an empty dance floor surrounded by a perimeter of nearly completely occupied wooden benches. Everyone was sober, serious, and quiet and no drinks or food were to be found anywhere. The deafening band on stage urged the locals to get up and dance. Gradually a few older, nicely dressed couples stood up which opened up some bench for us to sit on restlessly. The miner's families had arrived to the dance space sporting their most pristine outfits (men in suits and super-shiny shoes and women with long, puffy dresses. The group of couples stood in lines across from each other and performed a slow 2-foot shuffle. The dance would become a bit more complicated and less structured as alcohol would kick in but I was happy to abstain. Amber, however, was the immediate target of an assault of propositions from the upstanding gentlemen of Potosí. They asked first the permission of me and Andy, followed by San Pedro, and finally of Amber herself, who could of course not refuse. The dances ended up usually being a five-song medley lasting about fifteen minutes before a break could be taken from the dancing and the blaring band, which gave way to utter silence. But things started to change quickly when unlabeled bottles of yellow liquid started appearing from an unknown source.

It seems I forgot to tell you, incidentally, that this miner's wedding departed in almost every way from a traditional Catholic wedding. The bottom line was probably money; that the miner's family and friends couldn't afford the unnecessary details of a typical western wedding, some of which traditions - I believe - are often mistakenly ascribed to the future success of a marriage. Rather this was a civil union or celebration, albeit lightly peppered with loose tradition. But basically it was liberated from structure and much more friendly, like a wedding and reception wrapped into one tasty multi-layered burrito.

The bride and groom had traditional, separate dances with the opposite parents and with the couples who paid for and made the wedding cakes. But there was no exchange of vows nor ceremony. Wedding gifts many times consisted of a dance where a friend stuffs the equivalent of a $1.50 into the groom's breast pocket. And throughout the entire night, I must admit, much was lost in the cultural translation. San Pedro did his best to describe as much as possible to us in English so as not to offend the guests.

Did I mention liquor? This is what inevitably made the night flow smoothly, as if each bottle contained fuel for a time machine. Small glasses of yellow, sweet, fruity liquid were passed around the perimeter to all guests. Every guest poured a small bit of the drink out of their glass twice before pounding the remaining fluid. This inspired two questions for me to San Pedro.

1: Why does everybody pour twice if they are not in the mines saluting Tío?


Answer: They pour both times to Pachamama, the provider. Twice because all things in life come in two. For example, arms, hands, legs, feet, eyes, ears. My interpretation of San Pedro's answer is that they are really saluting to the health of the miners, who need their body to function well to continue to work and find financial success.

2: And what is this piss-colored drink I just slammed (PLEASE don't include tap-water in your answer)?

Answer: A mixture of tap-water, flavored yellow soda, and - not surprisingly - ceibo, the cheap, 198 proof alcohol of mining lore that by this time we had dubbed "rocket fuel".

Thus there was an endless supply of free alcohol for all ages to consume. Pachamama would easily consume the most (as people became more drunk they would pour more and more out), the concrete floor being a virtual lake by the time we left. But my pants would also absorb quite a bit through the spilling of old, drunken miners. Soon we were the proud owners of our own bottle of the urine, which gave us license to demand a shot of a drunken miner if he demand one of us (according to the male miners, real men are not allowed to turn down a drink). An entourage of old, toothless, drunken miners now stood surrounding us, pinning us against the wall, as the music raged on. Of course we attracted the most drunk, least inhibited, most curious, and most difficult to understand individuals, but what was lost in the translation was inevitably gained through another trago (shot) and a smile.

And this was the point in the night where my nagging questions from all day were semi-answered. My major question for San Pedro was: What keeps these guys in the mine as they are dying from silicosis while neglecting the mental health of their loved ones? The way I think I understood it best, as the dancing and drinking around us increased equivalently and exponentially, was that the miners have developed a "miner lifestyle" or culture. They work six days a week in excruciating conditions and hardly ever seeing the light of the day. They live most of their waking life from age thirteen to death in a cave and develop relationships with Tío, alcohol, and their mining buddies, who are the only ones that understand them. Meanwhile their relationships outside of the mine deteriorate. This further alienates them and they spend even more time in the mine. And when they are hardly able to breathe or talk from silicosis or walk from all the physical abuse they have taken, they are more content to die in the mine than in a hospital or an estranged family residence. The cold, dark mining life is all they know.

San Pedro urged me to speak with some of his old mining pals who were in attendance. I attempted but they were all missing their teeth and their scratchy whisper of a voice could not compete with the noise of the band, their throats so damaged from toxic chemicals over the years. San Pedro saw I was struggling so he translated a bit for me as they slowly, peacefully recounted their many tales from the years in the mine. Despite the obvious looks of pleasure on their faces as they nostalgically rambled of years gone by, I felt horrible for what they had to endure. I thought as deeply as I could through my mental block of rocket fuel. Who is benefiting from this genocide of humanity and rape of nature? American companies? The people of countries who have enough resources to steal the resources of others? It seemed a tragedy that such exploitation could take place and that this was just one example of an endless amount. But these proud soldiers stood in front of me smiling and laughing, as if they were more than content to die in their tomb of the unknown soldier.

As these issues were neither fun nor comprehendible to me in such a state of alcotude, I decided to put them on the back burner and save them for another day which may never arrive. Besides, there were a lot of other things were going on at that moment so I decided to enjoy the time. The dancing had progressed (or regressed) to a style which I would have to call inebriated, geriatric break-dancing as the band was finally getting people to feel the music. But another important civil marriage tradition was about to begin. Two of the biggest, most elegant wedding cakes imaginable were being wheeled in to be judged by the crowd. It was to be a silent vote so as not to offend the two couples who had spent days and countless resources making the six foot high masterpieces which consisted of about ten individual cakes each stacked over five different levels between pillars. Each had functioning sixty watt light bulbs as part of their decor. After the silent contest was decided mentally, the bride and groom cut the cake and handed it out to all. San Pedro enlightened me by telling me that the groom would have to show his appreciation to each of the two couples the next morning. After partying tonight until sun up, he would, at nine AM, go knocking on the doors of the houses of the cake-makers - beers in hand - and invite them to continue the party with him. He would then move onto the other house with the same idea. This event would last the entire next day.

This day's events had continued to blow my mine over and over, but after the cake was eaten and the ceremony was finished there was still one tradition remaining: fighting. The flood of yellow ceibo on the concrete floor was starting to reach biblical proportions and I could only imagine the color of the boiling blood running through the veins of the small-statured miners after drinking so much. The groom's father's silicosis-laden body lay passed-out on a bench on the side of the room while some pushing, shoving, and sloppy tongues had begun to manifest. San Pedro told us we were going to have to exit soon because many fights are common when someone lets the miners out. Whether they are working out old grudges, starting new ones, or just having reckless fun, it was gonna be too dangerous or unpredictable for us to stay. This was unfortunate because Andy, Amber, and I were just reaching the Altiplano (of drinking). That is to say, we had been in such a foreign environment the entire day that no matter how much we consumed by way of necessity or peer pressure, we were on guard and prepared to handle whatever came our way. The Altiplano (higher plane) of drinking felt good right then and leaving the party was also symbolic of the fact that we were leaving the geographical Bolivian Altiplano tomorrow for lower ground.

But we appreciated the protection of San Pedro. He had been a saint for allowing us into the world of miners and their hidden culture. If only for a brief enough period to understand a fraction, we once again were blessed with an opportunity which few will ever experience: The miners strike, the day underground in the mines, and the civil wedding. The next day, on a long bus ride off the Altiplano, we reflected on our adventures in Bolivia and our upcoming parting from it and from Amber. And the quality of our experiences made our high-alcotude hangover that much easier to deal with.



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