El Fundo – Las Mercedes
Melipilla, Chile
started 4 November, 2010
On one hand, I’m writing now because I have little else to do. On the other hand, perhaps it is fitting to begin this here, in the place of inspiration. I’m at work. Still working as a supervisor, for a little while longer. At first, as I’ve written, this work bored me, and I resisted the idea of having a more privileged job, without having earned it. But in the end, I must admit I’ve grown rather fond of it, come to realize the organizational skills that it has taught me, purely out of necessity, taught me how to navigate what little but burdensome bureaucracy exists here, taught me how to push what I need to happen through that bureaucracy (like securing water, (clean) portable bathrooms, fair prices to the best of my ability, and safe equipment for my workers). Surprisingly, this wasn’t always easy, and it was sheer laziness that was my greatest enemy. This job taught me to respect my coworkers, fight for them, and to do what I could to help them. I taught me how to deal with the authority that I had. For me, I admit, that was the hardest thing. I had to learn to maintain a certain aloofness to preserve the necessary authority. But most importantly, I learned to respect all kinds of people, even though, as you’ll see in a moment, it’s not always been easy: I do mean ALL kinds of people.
Perhaps some of you are familiar with the Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano. Perhaps his most famous work is Las Venas Abiertas de America Latina (or the Open Veins of Latin America). It was written in 1971, but has recently received some attention from the press. Perhaps its subtitle reveals more about its content than its title, the book being a self-described history of “Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent.”
If I have one criticism of Open Veins it is that Galeano is no historian, no economist, and it becomes evident throughout the book as he makes projection or prediction or calculations that very unsound or naïve, and many of which have been shown up by historical developments since. All of this is only exaggerated by Galeano’s narrative. I forget who said it, but one critic said the book read like a pirate novel. And it’s true. While it’s a very readable book, considering its topic, Galeano gets a little too carried away by his own words. Galeano is a journalist, a writer, and he has an ability with words unlike most. Luckily, I was exposed to Galeano’s work through another work, a book called Bocas del Tiempo, or Voices of Time in English. I found this book in an English bookstore in Oaxaca City, in Oaxaca, Mexico. I devoured it on that long interstate bus ride in southern Mexico. Since then, that book has come to mean a lot to me. It’s been with me while I was traveling in Europe, and now it’s one of the three books I allowed myself to bring down here (the other two being a collection of Chilean prose writers and a Spanish grammar guide, which I’d have to confess I haven’t really used). It’s a yellow paperback, which has become rather grimy and dog-eared nearly to death as I marked all the pages that mean something to me. Simply, it’s a collection of stories, most not even a page long, really more like sketches or snapshots of prose, all describing or embellishing (“burnishing” as Galeano himself described it) little moments, objects, memories, dreams, little experiences or encounters that the author had or was told about. and it’s here that Galeano’s true skill with a pen shines through. He’s an expert photographer with his words, capturing all of the little emotions, using his imagination only when necessary, and using just enough words, but no more, to describe his subject.
Isabel Allende wrote that Galeno “has more first hand experience of Latina America than anyone I know.” Perhaps that’s it. Maybe the key is his experiences.
I don’t remember when it was exactly, but I know it was here in these fields, sometime between freezing my butt of crouched between two rows of fruit trees in early Chilean spring and sitting here now, trying to wait out the heat of the day in the shade, on the cusp of summer. Sometime between struggling o form sentences in Spanish and now, having extended conversations, I guess I realized just how many stories I was gather. And now I’m preparing to leave.
I came to this continent hoping to be inspired. But it wasn’t until I was looking one day at that yellow book, which I had brought more as a promise to a very close friend than for any other reason, that I put it all together: the stories I was collecting mentally, the inspiration of Galeano. So I decided to begin to write all of this down.
Part of my job has been to collect all of the personal information of the workers to form their contracts. I won’t go into the legal details, but I know all of their full names, their dates of birth, their RUTs (I don’t know what it stands for, but the Rut is a Chilean identification number based on the population, it is however, not a private number and the identity of a person can not be stolen using this number). I know their addresses and insurance providers. All that said, I’m not about to reveal all of that information (which I don’t even bother to remember). But that’s not really the point. The point is I also know other little details, much more important details. Like how many kids she has, or how he moved up here to the Santiago from the South to find work, but couldn’t find it, then came out here to work in the fields. I’d like to take the time to write something about each of them, but I haven’t got the time right now. But here’s something.
Camilo Sepulveda. But that’s not his real name. I’d like to use his real name, because it seems to me to be the only on that fits, because it’s also a part of his story, but I don’t think that would be right. So. We’ll just call him Camilo. His friends call him Sopa. Literally that means soup in Spanish. But it was explained to me like this, “He’s Sopa because he’s sopa, because he works a couple of days then he doesn’t for a couple of weeks.” He’s an odd looking guy, big, tall, pretty heavyset, kinda imposing. But Camilo’s got a baby face. A baby face with broken teeth. The guy’s only twenty, but he’s seen some pretty hard living. He, like a couple of the other guys (“cabro’s” as they call each other), has got scars all over his arms, his neck, his chest, even his face. When I first saw one of the other guys with these scars, I thought somebody had abused him as a child; they were too meticulous for a fight. It wasn’t until later that I found out they were self-inflicted. These guys are users of a nasty drug. Pasta base. It’s pretty new, relatively. I’ve heard about this drug before. Just rumors really. It’s supposed to be made from all of the leftovers of the production of cocaine and heroin and god knows what else. Recently it’s arisen as a drug to sell to poor people. That is, some bastard figured he could sell all the trash that they used to have to throw out after they sold all the purer drugs to those with money. The greatest demand for heroin and cocaine, and marijuana and amphetamines for that matter, is surely to be found in North America and Europe. On the other hand, the price for pasta base is relatively low, and as far as I know, consumption is highest in South America. From what I’ve heard here on the streets, you can get a hit of pasta base for $1000 Chilean (which is about 2 USD). I couldn’t confirm that, but it’s what I’ve heard. They also tell me that at the dosage that they sell the drug, the effects only last a couple of minutes.
Pasta base users are pretty unmistakable because of the scars. But the scars have nothing to do with the method of consumption. Pasta base is smoked in a glass pipe, rather like crack cocaine. Rather the scars, which, in the worst cases, are rows of razor cuts lining the guys arms and necks and chests, maybe their faces, and cigarette burns dispersed sporadically among what real estate is left unused on their bodies, are inflicted by the users when they can’t get the drug they need.
One time I was talking to Camilo. Some of the other guys were talking about what they were going with their weekend. We had just got paid, and I’m sure that most of them were going to blow half of their wages in a couple of days. I remember how we got to talking about it, but Camilo told me that he never drank more than one beer, not for the last two years. I asked why, and he told me, pointing at his scars, “If I drink more, I’ll end the weekend with these on my arms.”
I did some quick mental calculations. I couldn’t help thinking that, if what he said about being more or less sober for two years was true, he already had all of those scars by the time he was eighteen
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ended 21 November, 2010
This is the main group I worked with, minus one person, who is taking the photo. In case you're wondering, "Camilo" is not there. A lot of these workers only last a few weeks. Some no more than a day before changing jobs. The thing about this region, there is a huge abundance of work, so temporeros never have to worry about finding work. But that's not always a good thing. It means that they can't organize at all, because there is always someone else to do a job. And there is always anther job to be done. So if someone doesn't like the pay or the conditions in one place, s/he simply goes and looks somewhere else.
Me with a second group. I only worked with these guys for a short while.
Giant marine reptile.
Tiny dinosaur.
This is just the head of the mammoth. Argentinasaurus. 
Gigantosaurus. One of the largest predators ever found apparently. 
