We Fight for Diamonds

I can still hardly believe that Obama won the election. Not because I don’t think that he should have, it’s just that during the entire campaign all I could think about was the fact that the Americans voted for Bush, not once, but twice. This memory kept my faith in the American populous very low so even when the polls were telling me that Obama was going to win, I couldn’t believe it until it was for real. And now it is for real. 4 realzzzzzzzz.

Finally, 40 years after the civil rights movement, there is an African American president leading what is still arguably the world’s most powerful nation. I know changes won’t happen overnight, but the USA’s international reputation has already skyrocketed. Almost every world leader (other than Kim Jung Ill, who right now is in fact quite ‘ill’) has issued a very public, warm welcome statement to Obama. The day after the election, everyone’s favorite Hugo Chavez pulled a complete 180 and exclaimed the he is excited work with Obama. He said that he is interested in working with Obama on some of the major international issues he addressed in his campaign. ¿qué? Chavez excited to work with an American? This is definitely a complete turn around considering Chavez’ feelings towards Bush can only be classified as extremely hostile (I classify referring to someone as ‘Satan himself’ as hostile).

The fact that Chavez has already showed a strong willingness to work with Obama indicates great potential for change in USA-Venezuela relations, which right now are pretty desolate looking. Current USA-Venezuela relations are somewhat reminiscent of the relationship a crack dealer has with a crack addict. Crack being oil, the addict the USA, and the dealer Venezuela. 1) They don’t really talk to each other. 2) They don’t really want to work together. 3) The addict keeps coming back for more even though he pretends not to need it. 4) The dealer just wants the business. 5) The dealer makes fun of his customer behind his back to his other dealer friends (in this case, OPEC and other socialist Latin American states) and even though the addict hears these rumors he can’t do anything about it because he is truly addicted to the dealer’s goods.

**Trans: Chavez- "You are the devil, you smell like sulfur, you are a drunk, you are a demon, you are a genocide Mr. Devil, you are a dictator, you are an assassin Mr. Devil, you are..." Bush- "Yeah, yeah whatever you say, just fill up the tank!"

Luckily, we could soon see this love-hate relationship evolve into something less destructive. Hopefully Obama’s willingness to dialogue with the nation states that the Bush administration previously declared ‘off limits’ will help the old cronies in the US government understand that every alliance in the world (socialists in Latin America, China-Russia, EU states etc.) isn’t out to get them.
Morales has also expressed a similar enthusiasm for Obama’s election, saying that it is a positive sign of progress for the United States. I also think he is pretty pleased to see a visible minority as the nation’s leader. Morales is not a minority, but he definitely knows what it’s like to be treated like one.

Barack has a huge task laid out in front of him. He won’t change the country overnight. He may not even accomplish half of the stuff he wants to, but the fact that he is there is change enough. I don’t care if that sounds cheesy. Oprah's right.

Tomorrow we are traveling to the FONCRESOL office in Potosí. Next week’s post will provide more details on this trip so for now I just want to give some background information...
Potosí was the most important and prosperous city in South America during the good old days of colonialism, but now it has a lower human development index than Haiti. During its heyday they say that the amount of silver being exported to Spain was enough to build an entire bridge of silver all the way from Potosí to Madrid (Look at that distance on a map- it’s far!). Unfortunately, the Spanish colonizers completely drained an entire mountain worth of silver deposits in Potosí. This over-extraction created a surplus of silver in the Spanish monetary system, which caused ridiculously high inflation rates and the demise of the Spanish empire. When Spain fell Potosí lost its greatest investor and it has continued to struggle since. The mining industry lives on, but it is no longer silver-based. Now it’s mainly tin, but in the 1980’s the world tin market collapsed and many miners fled Potosí looking for work in Northern Argentina or elsewhere in Bolivia. There is a high rate of child labor in the Potosí mines, partially because the conditions are often too horrible for an adult to even fit in the mine shaft, but mainly because most of the older men have left to look for other work and families are desperate for a source of income.



We’re going to Potosí to evaluate their communal banking programs, which have been operating much longer than the Sucre programs due to the city’s soaring poverty levels. My research in Potosí will consist of talking to with credit officials to get their perspective on the financial behaviors, skills and attitudes of their clients and then I will also talk to clients to try and determine some of their thoughts and feelings towards money. These discussions will help indicate the strengths and weaknesses of clients' financial knowledge and assist with curriculum/workshop design down the road. I will do similar needs assessments in Sucre because that is where my project is based, but having a chance to chat with folks in Potosí will provide me with a greater level of understanding of the financial behaviors of FONCRESOL clients.

Speaking of mining… BBC news just issued an interesting article about the lithium deposits that exist in the salt flats in the Andean plains of Bolivia.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7707847.stm
Lithium is the stuff found in batteries and laptops and the salt flats lying about 4 hours outside of Potosí apparently contain 50% of the world’s lithium supply. Auto manufacturers are really revved up about this. Lithium is a big deal for them because enough lithium could bring the electric car back from the dead. GM, Toyota, Nissan-Renault and Mitsubishi are already on the hunt. The only problem is that they estimate that within 10 years the demand for lithium will multiply by five and lithium, like petroleum, is a finite resource.
Can someone remind me again why we aren’t spending more time thinking about better public transportation? If lithium will help with that, then fine- I’m in, but we seem to be missing the point…

In Bolivia, Morales and the minister of mining are being very cautious with this hot new resource. They still have memories of what happened in Potosí and other regions of the country where foreign investors took over. They know that the money always ends up going somewhere else, so Morales isn’t too eager to start selling off portions of the salt flats. The government is looking into some plans to make a nationalized plant, but the residents of the region don’t want to start extracting the resource. They are old mining families who are scarred by previous exploitative industries and just want to keep working and living as they are.
This quote from the Bolivia’s mining minister at the end of BBC article pretty much hits the nail on the head:
"The capitalist leaders have to change," he says. "If all the world had consumers like North America, everyone with a car, it would grind to a halt. It is also going to generate pollution, not just from fossil fuels but also from lithium plants, which produce sulfur dioxide. This isn't a magic solution.”