Claudia Waskow, The Miner (Documentary/Photojournalism)
The Miner It is stinking hot and the sweat from the miner is repugnant in the small Styrofoam hut he’s been living in for the past 10 years. He’s proud of his humble abode though and gestures to his meagre possessions. His English is broken, yet we are able to communicate with gestures and words. He tells me that it is hard work getting the rich copper ore out of the ground, usually only with a pick and shovel after it has been blown up into smaller pieces with explosives far below the ground and then brought up to the daylight by conveyor belt. Outside the hut a young man was waiting at the car to show me where the rich ore is mined and then how they extract the copper so it attaches to a sheet of metal through electrolysis. The distances are far, the land is unforgiving. There is very little running water, electricity driven by generators and food supplies are brought to the miner once a week; usually by the young man who has just passed his early twenties. Both are prisoners in their own inescapable destiny. The young man told me he would love to escape his own existence to another country and another world. The old man just wants a better life. The story documented here is about the abject acceptance of two individuals in a harsh world.






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