Goodbye South America

"Sometimes those who wander really are lost."

For my last few weeks here in South America I have been in Sucre, a town I loved the last time I was here because of how safe and relaxing it is. I have been in the best hostel with awesome people, and for the first time in a long time I have had fun doing almost nothing. This is a place where lots of people get stuck, meaning, that they say they will stay a few days or a week, and end up staying much longer. My days involved Spanish classes, volunteering, and a lot of hanging out. Sometimes we (a group from the hostel) would go to the park and juggle, make dinner together, or just hang out in the nice outside courtyard. We also visited waterfalls, and did a two day hike through little villages. Besides that, I just spent most of the day reading before going out at night with people from the hostel. Since I don't have much to say about the last few weeks, here is a little cultural bit.

Mines-
Potosi, known to be the highest city in the world, is also a huge mining town. There is a tour you can do to visit these mines, but I opted out of doing it because you go down, watch, and take pictures of people working in some of the worst possible conditions. One night they showed a very touching documentary about these mines, especially the kids working in them, so I thought I would share it with everyone else.
This documentary followed a family, a fourteen year old boy (who is seen as the dad of the family and their source of income), his ten year old brother, their little sister, and their mother. They all live in a small one room hut right next to the mines. The mom is a guard and is in charge of making sure no one steals from the mines, while the two young boys head off to work, everyday and sometimes night, in the mines. There is no way to describe the conditions but this, the miners life expectancy is thirty years (they die from lung diseases because of all the dust) if they don't die before that from an accident, something very common down there. As it follows his life in the mine, you see the reactions from the other miners that a kid so young is forced to work, and they aren't surprised. Though they all hate it and wish it would change, he is not the only kid working down there. The fourteen year old is also in school. He describes school as a vacation, and he hopes to finish high school and university so that he won't ever have to return to the mines again. Since he has to pay his school clothes, he is forced to work longer and longer hours. At his old mine, he was only making 2.50$ a day, so he went to a larger, more dangerous one, where he could make 4$ a day. This fourteen year old provides money for his family, goes to school, and protects his young siblings as if he was the father. Though he would do anything to me a normal kid, he is doing all this so that someday they can move to the city, and leave the mines in the past. This is one of countless examples on how kids here are forced to live... They don't live to play like kids in the west, they live to survive.

Though I have loved South America, I am ready for the last part of my trip: the beaches! I will be back here someday as I have a mountain left to climb in Peru, and a lot more to see in Argentina and Chile (and especially Patagonia!), but for now, I am off to Central America!