Intiraymi Korikollo project and Universidad Técnica de Oruro

There’s more than one way to eat a llama….

Last night we arrived at the Oruro bus terminal and were greeted by a contingent of Rotarians who had expected us four hours earlier. No worries – we’re doing things “Bolivian style”! Being atrasado (late) might be a problem for some, but “oh well,” as my La Paz host dad told me.

Anel and I are sharing a room in Denise’s house. She has four kids and a husband who works a lot at a cement factory. As the manager of the factory, he’s often away at training courses and poor Denise is left with the kids, the dogs, a house to manage (with daily maid, however). Carlos, her husband, also takes university courses at night, so everyone is busy.

The first stop today was an open pit gold mine outside of Oruro called the Intiraymi Kori Kollo project. Formerly owned by a private company until most of the gold was extracted, the mine is currently run by the government. We stood at the edge of the open cast and looked into the inverted-cone shaped pit as their top environmental engineer explained the process to us. Dynamite is no longer used now that they’ve found a way to use ammonium nitrate. The charges go off one by one but it’s so quiet that you can barely hear it. Rather than spraying rocks and dust all over the place (and trust me, dust is the last thing you need more of in this place!), you have a small charge that does the job and keeps the local community happy. When the mine opened, they asked the town (population: 25) what they would like to have. They chose a small park and a community center, which they got. Because of the jobs that have sprung up supporting the miners, the population has swelled to almost 200. Unfortunately, the mine is extracting (only) about 35 thousand troy ounces per year, a level low enough that even the government is getting ready to shut down the operation and will likely do so next year. The BBC interviewed Augustín, the guy in charge of explaining the mine to us, and there’s now a DVD out called “Oruro’s Carnival” that apparently you can see clips of on YouTube.

Although visiting a real working gold mine was interesting, I enjoyed lunch even more. We took a minibus over to Iroko, the community next to the mine, and ate with the company employees. I met Vania Terrazas, who is a chemical engineer with only 2 weeks under her belt at the project. I asked her to pose for a picture by the bathrooms, which she thought was odd. But just ½ hour earlier I had almost knocked myself unconscious entering and wanted a memento!

After lunch we spent some time wandering around the empty community center – a beautiful building built for the town by the mining company. While there we were treated to a scene of passing llamas.

In the afternoon we spent time at the FNI (Engineering faculty), a school with 104 years of history and a major role in educating the engineers needed at the many local mines. The University now has 13 majors and 21,000 students, but “only” 6,000 at the FNI.

Finishing up the day was dinner with José Luis Velarde and Victor Hugo, two Rotarians here in Oruro. We were treated to a real specialty here in Oruro, Charquekan (Llama jerky-ish meal with potatoes, rice, and big kernals of corn. George, Mark and I suffered a bit the next 24 hours but it was certainly an amazing meal (eaten with your fingers, no less!).