since yesterday morning Annika and I are in Cochabamba, my last stop before returning to Ecuador. We had Potosí leave on Friday afternoon, the constitutional capital of the country, Sucre, reached on Friday evening and there twenty-four hours later the way to Cochabamba begun.
was in Potosí a visit to the infamous mines on the program. The Cerro Rico who sits on the highest city in the world, procured the city once world-famous: The silver deposits that it housed, were unique in the world and made sure that Potosí in the sixteenth and seventeenth century one of the most important and largest cities the world was. Immeasurable amounts of silver were shipped to the old world, and lost countless people through the inhumane working in the mines their life; estimates range 2:00 to 8:00 million victims.
And today still offers the Cerro Rico (Rich Mountain), not only the only significant source of income Potosi, but hides still life risks: In the past week, again, two workers were killed, apart from those who, after decades of Shuf Tens between the fortieth and find fiftieth year of death, because their lungs are destroyed because of the harmful dust.
Even before the tour to the mines I had a strange feeling in the stomach: We would consider the location and cause of death of millions of exploited people, and we would walk past with our guide to hard-working men and boys, without help to. And indeed, the whole experience was the sight of the mines and working very disturbing.
was first tell us something about dynamite, alcohol and coca and told, three elements that make up everyday life in the mines: The dynamite to work, work is progressing in the rock in search of the riches. The alcohol is part of the tío , the uncle who is a sort of patron saint of workers donated, or Pachamama, Mother Earth. Or he is drunk. The fact that the alcohol not beer or wine, but brandy sechsundneunzigprozentigen, I must mention no extra maybe. Coca is also an indispensable part of the work in the mines: Chewing on coca leaves can be hunger, thirst and fatigue forget things for which the mine is in no time. All mineros is to see their Coca Consumption evident in the often admirable big cheek, in which they take the coca leaves.
(Coca is no drug! The paper not intoxicated and does not make dependent. The cultivation of coca is legal in Bolivia and Peru, is part of the culture of the highland population. The elaborate processing of the sheet allows the production of cocaine, its effect, however, nothing to do with the coca leaf has the simple ...)
In the mine, we initially followed the tracks of the Loren: Boys at the age of thirteen, fourteen, loaded with stones, by using their car slid all the energy through the tunnel, a beam of Coca inflated beyond its limit, drawn entirely from work. Hardly any of them could bring a greeting on his lips, so they were tortured by the work. We turned at some point on this main road, crawled a few feet in depth and had to much with the heat, the acrid smell of urine, explosives and dust and tight fight: to work here? Impossible!
As we left the mine, made some buddies for lunch. There was nothing to eat, instead they pushed their implied a coca leaf at a time between Cheek and back teeth. It was frustrating and frightening, as is sometimes anschwiegen fathers and sons, done from work. Many of the works are actually no older than fifteen years - and their job is a gamble: Who finds a vein of silver is the winner. Others work more than eight hours a day and find nothing Profitable! There are no fixed wages are not in Potosí, each buddy is one of a group of miners and the license may be looking at this Union a place to work. Sponsored minerals and silver sold every mountain man himself: Part of the profits he pays into the pension fund, a portion of the insurance. Who does not find anything is simply empty.
sorry for the gloomy atmosphere through the mine we left Potosí, whose future looks bleak: It is estimated that the industry must be set there in fünz to ten years. On the one hand, because the exhausted natural resources, partly because of the Cerro Rico riddled as it is will collapse. Potosi could be a ghost town: work one finds little outside of the mines ... With the end of mining in Potosí then an investment of the German government is no longer necessary: After the chemicals needed for the separation of silver from the rock, five hundred tilted years in the rivers, had financed the Federal Republic of Germany, the construction of adequate sewage treatment and disposal systems. Whether and how development cooperation with Spain in the region Potosí operates, I do not know ...
made in Sucre Annika and I do not much, apart from the chocolate purchase, there really is worthwhile, since there seems to be some chocolate in Sucre, and the visit of a barber who was with me urgently necessary.
In Cochabamba, we now have a few days. I will collect as many impressions before I leave on Friday to Ecuador! I sincerely apologize and thank you here at Henry, who is currently in Ecuador and in whose room I had during the may live days in Cochabamba! Muchas gracias, Enrique!
0 comments:
Post a Comment