Today is the day of the mine, an annual celebration of mining here in Chile. This year brings much to celebrate as Chile´s main export, copper, is selling at a high rate. This means that the mining industry is doing quite well, politicians are scrambling to impose taxes, workers are looking to change jobs as new work opens up, and the mine can afford to hire people to do things such as teach English!
The day of the mine is celebrated by a special lunch which is going on right now. A young girl sings songs and the hotel receptionist (where I work, and where most of the miners sleep at night) passes out wallets, belts featuring large, texas style belt buckle with the name of the mine, Los Pelambres. Tonight the operators, ie, the miners, will get a show from an exotic dancer with a name to the effect of tities so and so.. the management, and support staff (which features a percentage of females employees) will receive a tamer event, with singers, and a comedian. I hope to be able to make it to the watered down dinner. I have been warned that the comedian has been known to single gringos out from the crowd and make fun of them in a dialect that only a Chilean could understand. On top of that, I have also been told that there is an effort to well, bother any foreigners, gringos, Japanese, and whoever has the misfortune of ending up a target of bad humor. Last year one of the English teachers drank a little too much red wine and started dancing on a table. Something that was laughed at then, but was also noted when time came to renew the contracts. Needless to say, my boss gave us all a warning about "etiquite" but I think we all should be ok.
So goes my one month anniversary of working here, it has been interesting, to say the least.
Salud por el dia de la Minera...
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