Reported by: Gabriela Factor, Redminas Argentina

Present ever since living memory in the history of mining in Bolivia, Chorolque is an emblematic mine. It is like looking at any cooperative camp of traditional mining through a magnifying glass. Everything is larger, higher up, colder, somewhat better equipped, tougher, the money earned is more, but it is also spent faster.

Whoever has once visited Chorolque can never forget the experience. The mountain top has its peak at 5,552 meters ( 18,215 ft ) above sea level, covered with perennial snow.Breathing is hard, and so is moving, finding water, keeping warm. In winter temperatures drop to minus 20 °C (- 4 °F) and all is cold, rock, wind, ice.

Despite all this, there are almost five thousand people living in Chorolque, one of the highest mining camps in the world: men and women from mining cooperatives, and their families, are distributed in three campsites at more than 4,850 meters ( 15,912 ft ) above sea level: Santa Bárbara, Sagrario, and Fierro Uno. There, where nothing grows, mineral flourishes and men and women of the mine survive, while they can.

Having made them invisible within their own communities and cooperatives, Bolivia has officially ignored the presence of women in the mining sector, as housewives and spouses, and as workers too. Perhaps looking and listening to Chorolque through the eyes and souls of its women may help us in reflecting, in thinking over again about how to define and characterize the mining sector, poverty, gender, courage, violence. And it may also help us to do something about it.

The Minera Chorolque Limitada cooperative and its campsites at almost 5,000 meters ( 16,400 ft ) above sea level is today one of the most prosperous and organized cooperatives of Bolivia. It has fifty nine women members, from some twenty five hundred women living in Chorloque. In the context of the struggle against poverty, women miners are the poor among the poor, with an alarming average of early widowhood, the highest degrees of interfamily violence of Bolivia, high indices of illiteracy and lack of identification.

Fire on Ice is a project of Reflection and Information Dissemination on the Life Experiences of Women in the Chorolque Mine and other mining women of Bolivia.

The project is promoted by the Mining Corporation of Bolivia – COMIBOL, and sponsored by the Danish Program for Cooperation with the Environmental Sector –PCDSMA.

The initiative arises from the workshops for identification, design and organization of activities of the Women Miners Plan, which have been conducted with women of the mining districts of the Tupiza and Cotagaita rivers, in the South of Potosí. The Women Miners Plan works in improving the access to rights, resources, and towards increasing the participation and the right to be heard of women in the Bolivian mining sector.

The book was presented on August 4, 2005 , in the city of La Paz , in an emotional event that was endorsed by the presence of Mining and Gender government authorities, representatives from embassies and international organizations, NGOs and mining unions, among others.

With music, words and tributes, thirty six women miners, playing the starring roles in the book and participating in non mining productive projects sponsored by the program, presented the book and declared as inaugurated the photographic show in the Museum of Anthropology and Folklore of La Paz.

This project aims at having the women of Chorolque, their faces and stories, stand as the reflection of all miner women of Bolivia . It intends to make the stories and photographs become a mirror in which Bolivia will recognize and identify itself, in order to facilitate a sincere and profound discussion about the situation of women in the mining sector.

Previously agreed with the protagonists was the scope and background with which their words would be presented. All pictures are by Peter Lowe, and were taken will full knowledge and consent of the women. Interviews were performed by Felicidad Bravo Zambrana, conducted in their homes and workplaces, and recorded in their own languages: Spanish and Quechua. Gabriela Barriga and Gabriela Factor facilitated the first contacts and coordinated the initial and final steps of the project. Peter Lowe was also responsible for the work of editing photographs and text, and also for the diagramming and graphic design. The participative process of elaborating the introduction and closing sections, the sorting out of pages and editing of final texts were the responsibility of Gabriela Factor.

All testimonies related with violence were removed from the interviews and anonymously presented in a separate chapter to prevent retaliations against the protagonists and women interviewed.

For further information, please contact:

Dirección de Medio Ambiente, COMIBOL

dma_comibol@ecelerate.com.bo

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