Subterranean Homesick Alien

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Second City

In the mid-fifteenth century, the Incan king Huayna Capac came to Ccolque Porco and Andaccaua for an inspection of his silver mines. On the way, he saw a tall, imposing mountain. Sure that this mountain would also be full of silver, he ordered his vassals to immediately begin exploring for ore.

Men climbed the mountain and began searching for the hidden veins of silver. As soon as they were found, a thunderous noise crashed above their heads. They then heard a voice.

"Do not take the silver from this hill, for it is destined for other masters."

For the Incas (as well as many Anean people today), mountains are alive. They are, in some cases, gods. Frightened and sobered by what they heard, the vassals returned to the king to tell him of what had happened.

The term "thunderous noise" with various possible translations in either Quechua or Aymara eventually gave the mountain its name - Cerro de Potosí (Potosí Mountain).

This is one of a handful of versions of the legend of Potosí. True or not - alive or not - the silver concealed within the mountain really was destined for other masters.

By the mid-sixteenth century, Spanish colonists had come to recognize the value of the mountain, and formed a city (Potosí) at its base.

The tremendous amount of silver mined here caused the city to grow rapidly and become one of Spain's most important sources of wealth in the colonies.

At its height, Potosí actually became the second largest city in the world - rivaled only by Paris. Although it has lost this distinction with a meager population of only around 130,000, it has held one shining claim over the centuries. At 4,090m (13,400+ ft), it is the highest city in the world.

The city center looks as anyone might expect an old colonial Spanish city to look. A grid of narrow cobblestone streets encompasses a large central square. People can be seen bustling about at all hours of the day. In the early afternoon, endless masses of children flood the streets in their school uniforms.

Having left the comparatively more liberal countries of Argentina and Chile, I immediately notice a difference in clothing custom. Women - particularly older women - never wear pants. They wear colorful traditional dresses that cover them entirely in thick flowing fabric. They wear large woven shawls around the top half ot their bodies. These seem to double as a sort of satchel in which they wrap food, supplies, and even small babies to be carried on their backs. Many of the older women wear black hats with very wide rims that droop and cover their faces. I never see the faces of these short women as they scurry past, only occasionally speaking from beneath the dark rims.

This image in combination with those of my North American upbringing induced by Nathaniel Hawthorne and mysterious woodland folklore mentally invokes the word "sorceress". But this is merely a cortical conflict of pattern recognition formed against the backdrop of the mirage we know as Modernity. These are wives, mothers, and grandmothers on the corners of this Bolivian city - selling fruit out of a cart or begging. Or both.

Near the main square, the old Casa de Moneda still stands. This is where the silver taken from the mines was processed and minted into coins for use throughout the Spanish empire. A visit to the mint starts with an extensive collection of colonial artwork and architecture. Eventually, you make your way down to the bottom floor where all the original mint machinery is kept. Giant cogs and wheels all interconnected in a complex mesh of metal and aging wood fill entire rooms. Running the whole thing at the center is an enormous vertical driveshaft that sinks down into the basement. You descend into the chilly basement and see the driveshaft extend from the ceiling above down into the cobblestone floor. A horizontal beam runs through the shaft at just below shoulder level. This is the mill that drove the machinery in the room above. Mules were sometimes used to keep the mill rotating. However, mules brought in from outside the city needed more time to adjust to the high altitude, and tended to die after only a few months. So the colonists began procuring African slaves to push the mill. They were probably provided by the Portuguese via the port city of Cartagena in Colombia - one of only a few cities in the empire that were allowed to deal in slave trade.

Three Aliens

As the years went on, the easy silver was drained from the mountain. As the flow of riches from Cerro Rico ('Rich Mountain' as it is now also known) began to diminish, so did the prestige and importance of the city of Potosí. Eventually tin was the only mineral the mountain would hand over.

But there is still a great deal of silver and other valuable metals within the mountain - they are just delicately mixed in with the stone. And as the flow of silver fell, the flow of technology has slowly risen over the past few hundred years. Even today this is still a very important mining community; the mountain still hands over its valuable contents - and still at a brutal cost.

For about $10, one can take a tour of one of the many mines dug into the side of Cerro Potosí. I walk from my hostel into the main plaza to where a small office houses one of the several agencies that offer these tours. A friendly woman takes my information and money and once the rest of the group - mostly Swiss tourists - shows up, we climb into a microbus and head off to the Depósito.

The Depósito is just a little building owned by the agency where they keep supplies for the tour. We walk inside and are handed large yellow pants and long-sleeve jerseys to wear over our clothes. The mine is dirty, afterall. We are asked our shoe sizes, and the guides hand us large rubber boots. Finally they give us yellow hard hats and attachable headlamps wired to large battery packs that we tie to our waists. We're ready for the mine.

Almost.

We pile back into the micro and head over to the miner's market. The guide explains to us that this is where the miners can buy absolutely everything they need to work in the mines - lights, axes, clothes, drills, dynamite, and food. The guide tells us that miners eat only twice a day - in the morning and in the evening after a 12 or 13 hour shift.

The guide takes us to a small stall where an old woman is selling various supplies. It is customary for visitors to bring gifts to the miners. The guide shows us a large bag of coca leaves. The miners chew these all day to fight off hunger, increase oxygen flow to the body, and to keep their energy up. They also appreciate simple, hand-rolled cigarettes of black tobacco and a type of alcohol sold in little plastic bottles. This stuff is 96% pure alcohol. They don't drink it to get drunk - that would be a damn fool thing to do in a mine. But I guess it does take the edge off.

The guide picks up a stick of dynamite and a long string of fuse. "Also, if you guys want to buy a stick of dynamite, we can light it at the top of the mountain and you can see how powerful it is. It's fun!"

I buy a handful of cigarette packs wrapped in plain white paper, a few bottles of the alcohol, and a big bag of coca leaves. I sneak one of the packs of cigarettes into my camera case for further anthropological study. Just curious.

Back in the micro, we start the ascent up the mountain. Along the way, the guide explains that the mines are "cooperative mines". This means that the concessions to the minerals inside belong to private owners, and that miners are freelance workers that are allowed to take minerals from the mine s and negotiate a price for a sort of resale back to the owner.

The owners provide some infrastructure such as compressed air to run drills. Drills make the job of cutting through rock and searching for veins much more efficient.

I'm curious, "So the owners provide infrastructure to run the miners' tools?"
"Sort of. The miner has to pay if he wants to use the compressed air."
"How much does that cost the miner?"
"Usually around 80 Bolivianos per hour."
"Per hour? That's almost twice the minimum wage in the United States. Can the miners afford it?"
"No. But they can't afford to buy the drills, so it hardly matters. The drills are only used by a few miners who have gotten extremely lucky and found some raw ore that was very valuable."
One of the Swiss girls asks "So what do they use?"
"Basic tools. Axes. Hammers."
Another guy asks "How are the working conditions in the mine different today than from colonial times? Like what has improved?"
The guide thinks for a second, "Electric headlamps are much easier to work with than kerosine lamps."

The miners are responsible for buying all of their equipment. There is no wage. There are no default services to make the mining easier. There is no standard for pricing of minerals.

"Ok, so the miner finds some deposits embedded in stone, and brings them out. Then he gets money for it?" I ask.
"Yes. But that is a problem. Since the minerals are now composited with the worthless rock, it is extremely difficult to judge the value simply by looking at it. It is even more difficult for a miner to judge since he has no training or analytical insturments. So sometimes the purchasers will tell the miner that what he has found isn't worth very much and pay him less than it is really worth."

Silence for a moment. A few of the group and I exchange glances.

I ask, "Sorry, but I'm probably confused. What part of this process is cooperative?"
The guide smiles thinly and waves his hand with a shrug. He doesn't want to get into it.

"And the owners are here in Potosí?"
"No, most of them are in Santa Cruz in the East."

Right. Stupid question.

We arrive near the top of Cerro Rico which towers an additional 800 meters over the highest city in the world. We get out of the micro onto a flat area of the side of the mountain and take a few pictures of the view of the city. One of the Swiss girls bought a stick of dynamite in the market and the guide demonstrates how it and the fuse is prepared. He then lights it and takes turns letting members of the group hold the stick with the progressing fuse for photos.

I take a few steps back.

After an uncomfortable two minutes, the guide scurries off down a small path to a lower plateau to plant the dynamite at a safe distance. Another excruciating 90 seconds of suspense goes by and we see him running back up the path.

When the fuse hits home, the explosion looks small but I can feel it in my chest. This stuff is not to be messed with.

Finally, we make our way to the entrance of the mine. We switch on our headlamps and enter. I have fairly good night vision, but it takes several minutes to warm up. It will take quite a bit longer having come in from the harsh high-altitude sun of the Andes. I follow behind the string of people down a narrow path with a low, jagged ceiling. So far, the headlamp is only projecting a small, thick ring of yellow light four or five inches across. It looks like the ghost of a luminous Cheerio on the rough walls of the mine. I move my head back and forth in order to continually light portions of the floor and walls as we round a corner. It is nervous work, but I keep up.

At the end of the path, the guide tells us we'll be crawling down a hole to the next level. He stands to the side and guides people down, telling them where to place their feet to find the best footing for lowering themselves down. I start the descent blindly, using the tactile sense of my hands and feet to judge each step and maintain an internal visual of the jagged and fractal chaos of the downward tunnel.

"How far down is this next level?" I ask.
"Just don't fall," he replies.

Eventually I can feel the rungs of a squat ladder that I use to lower myself the final meter or so.

Whew.

The guide tells us that we'll only be going one more level down and that it will be much easier. "The miners themselves go down dozens of levels to where it can get up to about 50°C (122°F)

We walk down another path and come to a wide open space where a few of the miners are fussing with a cart fixed to tracks and a few others prepare some equipment.

The guide takes a moment to explain working conditions in the mine.

Essentially, they haven't changed much in the past several hundred years. A majority of the miners work with basic tools and virtually no safety equipment.

The life expectancy is 40 years.

Death can result from badly timed dynamite, mine collapses, and other accidents. But a vast majority will die of silicosis from inhaling all the dust and particles in the air.

Children work in the mines. They are usually there to help their fathers or uncles. They start as early as 12 years old. A few years ago an 8-year old was discovered working in the mines and caused a big stir.

We move on down the path. By now, the rhodopsin levels in my retinas have optimized for the darkness and the Cheerio is now surrounded by a large, clear disc of light that stretches three feet across. Walking around is now much easier.

We move down to the next level and walk along a narrow tunnel lined with metal tracks. We stop at a junction where some miners are shoveling excess rubble into one of the carts. The guide collects a few of the gifts from us and offers them to the miners in implicit exchange for photos.

We wait for them to finish, and hug the sides of the tunnel as they push the cart back up the tunnel from where we came, and move on.

We stop at several other points and watch miners work - offering them gifts of coca and alcohol. The miners largely ignore our presence and keep working. Leaving one group, someone calls out "Chau gracias."

All four men respond with enthusiastic waves "Chau chau!"

Toward the end, we stop in a small alcove about six feet deep. Either side has had crude stone benches carved into the stone. At the end of the dugout perched on the shelf is an alien. Or a god. Or a devil.

The effigy is about two feet tall and has stringy light hair almost as long. From beneath the hair rise two stubby horns. The eyes are orange and unkind. The arms are outstretched and from them hangs long red fabric.

The guide explains, "This is El Tio," The Uncle.

"Can someone give me one of the cigarettes?" he asks.

Someone hands him one and he lights it in his mouth. He then places the cigarette into El Tio's mouth.

"The workers come here to rest and ask El Tio for help. If, when they leave, the cigarette is still lit, it means good luck.

El Tio was a fabrication of the Spanish colonists. Unable to motivate indigenous slaves to work harder in the mines, they played on their supernatural belief in mountains as deities. They told them that the mines were controled not by the Spanish, but by El Tio - a malicious god that ruled over the Underground. The little creatures were made and placed at the entrances of the mines to impose fear on the workers.

It worked. The miners began to believe that El Tio was in control of the mine's minerals, and began making offerings to him to win his favor.

Over the years, as Catholocism replaced indigenous religion, the workers began to draw parallels between Biblical descriptions of the Devil and the image of the Tio began to blur. He became a sort of devil-god - ruler of the Underground.

These beliefs continue in some form until today. Miners make offerings of cigarettes and alcohol to El Tio in hopes he will grant them silver.

The miners have a saying: "Above ground, God rules all. But down here, El Tio is in charge."

Someone asks the guide, "Did you ever work in the mines?"
"Yes, I started working here when I was twelve. To help my father. But about fifteen years ago, some charity groups built a school for the children of the miners. It gives them an opportunity to be educated and do something else. I was able to go. I learned English, and became a guide."

We get up to leave, and the guide stops with a grin, "Look! The cigarette is still lit. Good luck for us!"

We walk up the path, out of the mine, and into intense sunlight.

On the way back down, no one talks much. The fascination of the past few hours has been matched by how utterly upsetting it was.

I think of the faces of some of the miners I saw. Many of them looked to me to be in their fifties. But this is unlikely. They won't make it past 40. Decades of dust and harsh conditions have aged them rapidly.

The miner is alien to me - just as alien as El Tio. I can't wrap my mind around the idea of being 12 years old and doing such a job - and doing it every day for the rest of my life knowing it will kill me 30 years too soon. How does one face that? Where does the hope come from? Necessity, I suppose. Lack of choice.

But I'm the real alien here. I'm the invader. Could he comprehend what I was doing when I was 12? All I was thinking about was knocking out as many algebra problems as possible before the end of the afternoon so I wouldn't have any homework. That way I could go home and focus on real work - getting to the next level of the latest Nintendo game.

And here I stand in his world, snapping off photos with a piece of machinery the cost of which would support his family for six months or more.

We return to the Depósito, remove the clothes, and wander off on our separate ways.

I'm supposed to meet Joan and Marta for lunch, but I've still got half an hour. I walk around the city center for a while.

I remember the miner cigarettes in my camera case, pull one out, and bum a light off a passerby.

For the miner.

Maybe I can be a good Tio - a benevelant alien for a few minutes. The cigarette won't go out.

I cough out the first drag. It isn't processed tobacco - it's just pure black leaves - like a cigar.

I walk down the street, holding the puffs in my mouth and tasting the rich tobacco. Occasionally, I glance up at the peak of Cerro de Potosí, looming over the city.

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