Chile Where Condors Fly

By Adrian Mercado

An eleven year old boy slides atop a sloping tin roof hoping to get a birds eye view inside a school yard plaza below where fiery speakers are exhorting thousands of cheering, banner-waving labor protestors.? Soldiers quickly set up machine gun emplacements at the four entrances to the plaza. "Fire!" one of the soldiers shouts.? The jubilation i

• Language: English
• Publisher: Collins Literary Guild
• Release date: Oct 3, 2023
• ISBN: 9781962484077

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Copyright © 2023 by Adrian Mercado

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ISBN : 978-1-962484-06-0 (Paperback Version)

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Rev. Date : 07/09/2023

Chile,

Where

Condors

Fly

Dedication

To my mom, Delia Cristina Mercado, a Venezuelan, who taught me by example that love is a magnificent power that knows no bounds. To my dad, Cecilio, whose dignity, keen sense of fairness, delightful humor, and positive approach to life continue to be the guiding beacon of my life, and to my talented sister, Carmen Matilde, whose sense of right and wrong was unbending. And whose extraordinary benevolence and loyalty to family and friends I always admired and cherished.

Introduction

Mealtimes at home meant nourishment for the body and the mind. Mother filled our bodies with good rich Latin food, while Dad enriched our minds with stories about his experiences growing up in the nitrate mines in the desert of northern Chile and scores of stories about his life. His stories served to mold our convictions, loyalty, family values, positive approach to life, and the importance of approaching every situation with a touch of humor. To vary the subject matter, he sometimes talked about something he read in the Spanish daily, La Opinion, Readers Digest or Popular Mechanics. Then he went back to recounting the stories about his life experiences. Mother generally excused herself from the table to do the dishes, but my sister, Matilde, and I remained at the table until Dad excused us. The three of us became so familiar with his stories that we took pleasure in correcting a few inconsistencies or when he omitted a detail or two. His delivery was masterful; if a story included interactive dialog, Dad acted out all the characters, voice inflection, and even each character’s body language, keeping us engrossed with his one-man show. Years later I thought, what a shame, If over time. these wonderful, inspiring positive stories were forgotten. How sad it would be for my children and grandchildren not to become familiar with Dad’s hard-earned wisdom, proven bravery, and stubborn determination to overcome life’s hurdles. Then it dawned on me to have him recount his stories to preserve them in his own words. It was from this fountain of information that I began writing the story of Dad’s life, Chile, Where Condors Fly, as a tribute to him--- my best friend hero, inspiration, and indeed the most significant influence in my life. Alta Loma, California

Preface

One of Chile’s greatest assets is the infectious optimism of its people; they have been blessed with a delightful, irreverent sense of humor as evidenced by the cueca, their national dance. It starts with the cracking of jokes, dancing, and a pause for refreshments (the aro), and the dance ends with some final jokes and laughter. Influenced by the Spanish conquistadores in the 16th century and central European settlers. Chile became the first South American country to publish a daily newspaper El Mercurio and the first to outlaw slavery. With literacy above 90%, it has produced two Nobel Prize winners in literature: Gabriela Mistral in 1956 and Pablo Neruda in 1971. A blend of Native American and European names like Caupolican, Lautaro, Galvarino, Oxley, O’higgins, Prat, and Carrera fill the pages of Chile’s rich history.

Chilean nitrate deposits became vital for fertilizing crops around the world. As one of the essential components of gunpowder, Chilean nitrate, used for making dynamite and gunpowder, Chile became instrumental in conducting warfare on two continents. Chilean copper also supplies industries worldwide. Its fruits grace the tables of many nations, and its fertile vineyards produce wines of international acclaim.

Chile is a narrow strip of land between Peru, Bolivia, Argentina, and the Pacific Ocean. Called the shoestring republic, its width is only one-hundred and ten miles. It stretches along the coast of the Pacific Ocean for two-thousand three-hundred sixty-one miles to Tierra del Fuego and continues another two-thousand three-hundred sixty-one miles to the South Pole. Argentina and Bolivia border Chile on the north and east by a natural border, the Andes Mountains, and Argentina one of the longest mountain ranges in the world. This is a nation of contrasts; all four seasons occur simultaneously. While the northern Atacama Desert scorches year-round, Antarctica’s permanent ice cap remains frozen. Chile reaches for the sky at Ojos del Salado Peak at 22,578 feet atop the Andes, then plunges dramatically to sea level. This is a nation of contrasts where the majestic condor, the largest bird of prey in existence spreads its ten-foot wings and glides effortlessly along northern Chile, and the wingless penguins sporting tuxedo-like plumage waddle to the edge of the icepack and dive into the frigid waters of the Antarctic to swim for food. At the same time, in the mineral-rich Province of Tarapaca, the Atacama Desert may wait centuries for rainfall.

Prior to the mid-1800’s Tarapaca was considered a wasteland serving primarily as a buffer zone between Bolivia and Chile. It grew in importance when the Spanish conquistadores discovered nitrate deposits there; they ground it and mixed it with carbon to make black gunpowder. Nitrate became known as the white gold. At the time father Camiña, a colonial priest, also made an amazing discovery. He accidentally discovered that plants near some caliche rocks in his garden grew taller than others making him realize the value of powdered nitrate as a fertilizer. As the demand for nitrate grew worldwide, mining companies from Bolivia, England, Italy, Germany, and the United States started mining operations in Tarapaca, called oficinas. The umber of oficinas grew to nearly three hundred. Formerly considered a wasteland, the Province of Tarapaca now became valuable real estate, especially to Bolivia and Peru who now laid claim to this former wasteland. When taxes from mining revenues filled Chilean coffers, Bolivia and Peru conspired to contest Chile’s claim to the Province of Tarapaca, and to take it by force if necessary. Bolivia declared war on Chile in March1879, and in accordance with their secretly contrived plan, Peru immediately offered to mediate the conflict in order to buy time to prepare its own army for a surprise attack on Chile. As fortune would have it, Chile uncovered the plot and in turn declared war on both Bolivia and Peru on April 5, 1879. After two years of land and naval battles the War of the Pacific came to an end when on March, 1888. Chilean troops occupied Lima, Peru’s capital city which led to the unconditional surrender of Peru and Bolivia. The Treaty of Ancon, signed by the three waring nations in 1884, and mediated by the United States, awarded Chile the entire Province of Tarapaca. Thus, Bolivia became landlocked until today as the demand for nitrate grew worldwide. Mining companies from Bolivia, England, Italy, Germany, and the United States started mining operations, oficinas, in Tarapaca.

It was in 1884 when the Treaty of Ancon finally brought closure to the War of the Pacific among Chile, Bolivia, and Peru which had been fighting for two years for the sovereignty of Tarapacá, the northernmost part of Chile. Twelve years later, more than 160 nitrate mining camps or oficinas, were operating in the pampas of the Atacama Desert, the driest place on earth. Although Chile won the war, it failed to change the allegiance of the miners of Tarapaca who continued to feel mostly Bolivians, Peruvians but much less Chileans.

Chapter 1

Feast of Saint Lawrence

On November 22, 1896, at the British-owned Oficina Primitiva, Matilde Mercado, a tall, striking Bolivian Indian woman with a penetrating gaze, gave birth to me. They named me Cecilio in honor of the day of Saint Cecilia, the patron saint of music. For the next sixteen years, I adapted to the inhospitable dry and dusty climate of the desert, to the blasting of the dynamite used to fracture the caliche in the ground, and to the hammering of the rock crusher used to pulverize the pieces of caliche. Once pressed, this white powder was refined to produce nitrate, phosphorous, iodine, and other chemicals. Although I grew up in that mining camp, I had no idea that the nitrate powder that surrounded me was valued as the white gold of its time and highly coveted worldwide by the most powerful nations in the world for manufacturing gunpowder, medicine, and agriculture.

Every year the Peruvian mining companies closed on July 23, Peru’s Independence. Bolivian companies did the same thing every August 6, but September 18, Chile’s Independence Day, was never celebrated. Only my small Chilean friends and I celebrated by shooting off homemade firecrackers that we made by combining nitrate powder and carbon powder, both readily available in nitrate and carbon mounds in the camps. Whenever possible, we sneaked into private parties to watch the half-stoned adults drinking wine, or chicha, a sour-tasting drink made from fermented corn. From time to time a drunk shouted: Long live Peru! Long live Bolivia! Down with Chile! and I, being very patriotic, suffered in silence because I was not allowed to be disrespectful to any adult. Sometimes I felt like a foreigner in my own country; however, I used to get rid of my anger by launching firecrackers on the eighteenth.

Daily life in these mining camps was normally monotonous, but since I had a vivid imagination, the days were not all that boring for me; I ran around and jumped into the dust devils as if they were my personal toys. Other times I collected small stones rich in phosphorous and used them as chalk to draw on surfaces so that they shone at night; from time to time, I lit sacks of empty saltpeter powder and turned them into Roman candles. What I loved most, however, was listening to adults tell stories about the port city of Iquique, approximately 50 miles southeast of my mining camp. They told of the solid houses painted in bright multicolor and its beaches with panoramic views of the wide-open Pacific Ocean containing all kinds of delicious fish and shellfish; the fishing boats with white sails powered by the wind were seen seesawing over the waves. Living some nine hundred meters above the sea, I longed for the day when I could come down from our high plateau to visit the wonders of Iquique.

The scorching sun baked the saltpeter desert floor during the day with no trees to offer any shade for protection. In the early afternoon, thermal winds whipped up the dust creating little whirlwinds. At night, a wave of humid oceanic air the camanchaca reached the pampas. The temperature dropped until we felt quite cold. Daily tasks were left for the morning and the afternoon when temperatures were more moderate. The boys put on light sweaters and the ladies their thick shawls. After dinner, the children helped their parents with the housework, studied, and played by candlelight until bedtime. Around midnight, a layer of icy fog, the camanchaca, hovered just meters off the ground before finally settling on the arid desert floor as a white blanket of frost. At dawn, early risers crushed the thin sheets of ice on their way to the community water spigot to carry water for their breakfast tea.

On the morning of July 27, I, now seven years old, got up earlier than usual because that was the day Mom was going to take us to the little town of Huara where the Fiesta de San Lorenzo was celebrated each year. It took Mom and my sisters an hour to walk along the train tracks until to reach Huara, a town of 7,000 inhabitants that served as a railway depot supplying the various oficinas that loaded the minerals from the mining camps back to the port of Iquique. The visit to Huara always excited me because there were two-story buildings, a church, banks, restaurants, and shops with glass windows.

Once in Huara, we went directly to the Church of San Lorenzo, a white colonial church with large wooden doors and deep-sounding bells that resonated within me; each belling filled my body and soul with vibrations that seemed to liberate my wandering spirit. If those bells ring any longer, I thought, I think my soul will float to heaven.

For the Fiesta de San Lorenzo, Mom wore the traditional dress of the pampa’s women. She dressed in a gray skirt that reached down to her ankles over a white petticoat that hung at the same length; she also wore a long-sleeved white blouse buttoned up to the neck. Her footwear was brown leather sandals. A gray blanket-shawl rested on her shoulders; that blanket protected her from the sand that blew in the pampas and also protected her from the blistering sun; it also served to keep her warm in the cold mornings and afternoons. Women also used these blankets to carry groceries and to help breastfeed their babies.

On holidays, some women preferred to wear mantillas; delicately hand-woven by local artisans or imported from Spain or Manila. In the street procession before mass, the wealthiest parishioners displayed their fine mantillas. long gold earrings, necklaces, and bracelets. Mom, however, had no fancy mantillas or garments to adorn her. I promised myself that one day I would buy my mother a beautiful mantilla like the ones other women wore.

The Day of San Lorenzo was a day for going to church and shopping in the open-air market that formed in front of the church and attracted artisans from distant places such as Iquique. Some vendors set up makeshift kiosks, while others spread blankets on the floor to display fruits, vegetables, blankets, clothing, and jewelry for sale. Itinerant musicians strolled around playing Andean music using wooden flutes, zampoñas, quenas, and rondadores; they also beat small drums and tambourines. Dancers, wearing short multicolored skirts over several petticoats of the same length; swiveled their hips from side to side to the steady beat of the music. Their male partners, dressed in brightly colored costumes imitating birds, jumped around, trying to scare onlookers with their huge mnemonic masks. It was the traditional Bolivian dance

Mom secured a strategic place along the square, and with our help, she improvised a stall to sell the paper flowers she made at home; she also made candy figures right there at her stall. Ponciana 9, me 7 and Estela 5 years old, helped mom take care of the space and run errands. From time to time, we were allowed to walk around the square. Every sight, sound, and smell of the event stimulated me tremendously; The festival of San Lorenzo, although lasting only one day, erased from my mind the monotonous life in our mining camp.

Finally, in the afternoon, one of the priests agreed to my pleas and allowed me to ring the church bells to signal the end of the festivities. I began to pull on the ropes with all my might until a priest, annoyed by so many bells tolling, yelled: In the good name of Jesus, stop, stop, stop! The festival of San Lorenzo lasted only one day, but for me, those memories lasted the whole year.

Chapter 2

A Beautiful Mestiza

Mom was a very beautiful Mestiza woman. She was born in Bolivia of Tiahuanaco and European blood. She was tall. fair-skinned and her braided black hair hung down to her waist. Her angular nose complemented her oval face and dark, almond-shaped eyes. Her exemplary physique made her stand out among her peers. That pretty woman projected a friendly yet commanding personality. When she became angry, her eyes lit up, and her clenched fists became two weapons ready to strike anyone who dared to bother her or her children. She was admired and equally respected by men and women and was honest, trustworthy, and a person of positive convictions. She was a loyal, respectful, obedient wife and a devoted mother at home. Born in Quillacollo, Bolivia, a region deeply influenced by the Inca and Tiahuanaco cultures, she spoke to us in Quechua and Spanish, but we answered her back in Spanish.

Shortly after I was born, the family moved from the Oficina Primitiva to the Oficina San Joaquin, a subsidiary of the Oficina San Jorge. As in most mining camps, medical services were virtually nonexistent, food was scarce, and the death rate among newborns and the sick was extremely high. Only the strong and healthy survived. Castor oil and iodine were used to cure everything; iodine was readily available because it was a byproduct of processing the caliche.

Recently, someone asked me about my earliest childhood recollection. I replied that I remembered the time I was being carried on my mother’s back in her shawl, and playing with her braids. For my feeding, she moved her shawl to the front while continuing with her chores. I also remembered being tied around the waist by a rope inside my house with the other end anchored in the ground to prevent me from escaping into the street. I must have been young because I had not yet learned to untie a knot. One afternoon some older boys saw me alone in the house, untied the rope from the stake in the ground, and dragged me across the floor like a sack of potatoes: I do not remember crying, but I do remember how angry I felt; when I finally managed to get to my feet I ran after them, but they kept making fun of me shouting olé, olé. They eventually got bored with taunting me and walked out the door with me right behind them yelling and with the rope still dragging behind. To this day I remember how angry I felt.

Mom did her best to keep me at home, but I found ways of escaping. Once she took off all my clothes and put an empty sack of flour on me as a poncho thinking that I would feel embarrassed enough not to dare go outside. She was wrong. I climbed on some boxes and escaped through the ceiling between two corrugated zinc sheets not completely weighted down in place by stones. Hanging from the edge I got scared and started crying until a neighbor helped me.

Years later Mom told Cecilio of all her efforts to keep me at home when I was a puppy. She told me: You drove me crazy.

Chapter 3

An Elusive Father

One cold morning when I was seven, I was looking for something to do. I left my house and began kicking the stones I found on the road. I found a stick and started dragging it over the corrugated sheets of zinc that made the little houses. I crossed the path to the sunny side to feel a little warmer. Seeing that my little friends still had not left their homes, I continued my way until I got bored and began to return to my house. As I walked, I felt someone was following me, but I thought one of my friends was trying to scare me. To surprise him, I quickly turned my body and found myself with a tall, reddish-haired, striking-looking, well-dressed man who smiled. Psst, psst, he whispered and reached his hand towards me, but I was now even more suspicious and prepared to take off in case he tried to grab me. Cecilio, Cecilio, come here. I want to talk to you, the man whispered to me. How does he know my name? I wondered. Come here, Cecilio, the man insisted, and he said: I am your father."

At that very moment, my Aunt Jesusa was passing by looking for water, and she found me looking timidly. Why are you outside your house? You seem to have seen a ghost, she told me.

It’s that this gentleman is calling me, and he says he’s my father, I replied shyly. The man quickly backed away and hid behind a house, but Aunt Jesusa recognized him. Facing him, she yelled, Damn you, what the hell are you doing here! I got closer, but Aunt Jesusa yelled, You get to your house immediately! Thinking I had done something wrong, I ran as fast as possible to my house. Mom noticed something was wrong and asked me: What have you done this time? Nothing! I do not know why Aunt Jesúsa ordered me to run home. I have not done anything wrong!

Of course! She replied angrily, Your aunt always scolds you for no reason, right?

At that very moment, Aunt Jesusa came into the house screaming and waving her arms, That stupid Adrián, he was outside talking to your son! Mom immediately began cursing loudly in both Spanish and Quechua. That scoundrel, what the hell is he doing around here!

To vent her anger, she slapped me on the head, grabbed a broomstick, and left the house with Aunt Jesusa behind. The two women returned quickly, but I never dared to ask Mom about that incident to avoid another smack from her. I never saw my father again.

That brief encounter with my father, Don Adrián Flores, became a turning point in my life; Knowing my father, however briefly, stayed in my heart for the rest of my life. I realized I had a flesh and blood father to share my thoughts with. Mom never mentioned him again. I learned more about him through bits of information my sisters or I heard from our aunts or neighbors. I found out, for example, that he was of Spanish and Scottish descent, had been born in Argentina, and while serving as an Argentine military attaché in Quillacollo, Bolivia, he visited Oruro, a tin mining town, where he met my mother. They fell in love, and in 1894 she gave birth to Ponciana.

Ponciana was still a baby when Dad was transferred to Tarapacá. Mom then made the 250-mile journey over the Andes by mule caravan to the Oficina Primitiva northeast of Iquique, where she stayed with her sisters awaiting her husband’s arrival. The grueling nineteen-day journey was a very taxing experience for her; not only did she have to protect her luggage and Ponciana, but she also carried me in her womb. To take the shortest route they had to go through several towering mountain passes and dangerous ravines past the dry salt lake of Uyuni to Calama, Chile. From Calama a train took them to Iquique, where they boarded another train to Huara; they walked the last stretch of more than an hour before reaching the Oficina Primitiva. Don Adrián joined us in Chile shortly before I was born. In 1898 my sister Estela was born. I overheard Aunt Jesúsa telling her friends that Doña Matilde and Don Adrián were very much in love, but he had a problem, Dad spent much time away from home in his official military duties. Our dashing looking father liked to sing and play the guitar and soon became a very popular figure among the ladies of Huara and Iquique. When Mom found out about his affairs she threw him out of the house including his guitar.

A year later, the family moved to the oficina San Jorge. There she met a Peruvian gentleman named Mariano Caucoto, a conservative man with a calm temperament. He assumed the responsibility as stepfather to Ponciana, me, and Estela. Together they had three more children, La Nazaria (1900) who was affectionately called La Negra due to her dark skin, Apolinario (who died in infancy in 1901), and Leonidas (1903). Mom and Don Mariano lived happily for many years.

Chapter 4

Roosters and Flowers

Without electricity, gas, or drinking water in our homes, daily life for women in the mining camps was difficult, but the pampinas existed as best they could. They found out what was happening in their oficinas by word of mouth and always helped each other in case of calamities. Secrets did not last long. The ladies frequently visited each other to exchange the latest gossip, borrow things, or work on sewing or cooking projects.

To earn money, Mom and her two sisters, Jesusa and Angelita, prepared lunch for several miners. As soon as the office whistle blew to signal lunchtime, fifteen or twenty hungry workers rushed to our house. They devoured bowls of a hot soup made with the toughest and cheapest meat Mom could afford. With only half an hour to eat, Mom and her sisters had to make sure that lunch was ready when the customers arrived. The soup was served from a large pot with a ladle into wide soup plates that helped to cool down the soup enough to allow the workers to blow across it so as not to burn themselves and to be able to eat faster. Lunch was a very noisy affair with patrons slurping their soup loudly. They drank the broth first and left the pieces of meat and potatoes for last. Hot pepper sauce, mugs of hot tea, and Marraquetas, (loaves of bread), were never lacking at each meal. To increase her income, Mom made and sold sweets and artificial flowers. Her specialty was making candy roosters. The roosters were made by boiling water in a pot, adding a couple of kilos of raw sugar, and stirring it continuously until it became a gel. When the gel reached its point, Mom gave it the shape of a rooster. Days before making the roosters, she sent me to collect horses and mule manure to use as fuel; the oficinas had a lot of mules so it was not hard to find the dry stuff. I hated collecting it not only because the manure smelled bad but also because it attracted clouds of flies. In addition to being the official manure collector, I was also the candy-making assistant. My job was to stir the mixture until it thickened and made a plop, plop sound." After several monotonous minutes of stirring, I became sleepy, and Mom woke me up with a pat on the head, and I went back to stirring.

She frequently tested the consistency of the mixture by dipping the middle finger of her right hand into a glass of cold water and quickly dipping it into the hot gel. Rolling the little bit of the gummy candy between her middle finger and thumb she formed a ball and then folded it several times to give it the shape of a rooster.

I also learned to make the little balls and passed them to Mom. She quickly squashed and stretched them to form a rooster. Once done, she placed the candy cocks on a flat metal sheet to display and sell. Sometimes she gave in to my pleas and let me make several little cocks.

Mom also specialized in making beautiful two and three-tier crystal candy baskets that included her candy animal figurines. These baskets were used as substitutes for birthday cakes since there were no ovens on the pampas to bake biscuits or cakes. She not only made candy baskets but also had a creative spirit in making and selling paper flowers. There was always a demand for paper flowers because they did not grow in the desert. She sold them as decorations for homes and graves.

When she received an order for flowers, she sent me to Huara to buy the materials. The road to Huara was a narrow, desolate road along a railway line where sun-bleached human remains were sometimes seen half buried in the sand. At first, it was a shocking sight for me, but in time they did not bother me. When a person died along the road to Huara, the nitrate-rich soil and low humidity preserved the deceased until a good Samaritan buried him in a deeper hole; sometimes a small wire cross was placed on the site. Over time, these crosses fell without leaving any trace of the deceased.

Chapter 5

Horses and Dolls

On January 6, the Three Kings Day, the three biblical kings did not stop at our house to bring us gifts and toys to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ. Their camels did not eat or drink the little hay and water that my sisters and I placed by our beds before going to sleep. In fact, I never received gifts on Three Kings Day or my birthday.

Every day bits of wire, nails, strings, and cans were objects that I y turned into toys. Discarded socks were a real treasure because I easily turned them into balls; a