Wednesday's Reflections...
Dear Readers,
This trip has been pretty dank so far but Wednesday was probably the best day so far. The day started off perfectly with a hearty breakfast of french toast nuggets and coffee brewed by our resident artisan, Chris. We had a relatively productive day over at both Mary and Dolores' houses with lots of painting, flooring, sanding, spackling, and a new set of front stairs built to add to our list of accomplishments. However, the most interesting part of our day was going up to the coal mine in Caretta and seeing the mine firsthand.
What really troubles me about coal mining isn't the dark, claustrophobic tunnels that lead into mountains or the communities that are built around this commodity. It is the fact that America was built into the great industrial giant with far more wealth than any other nation in the world while forcing the miners themselves into poverty. The coal companies have exploited both the environment and the people and perhaps this is the most blatant example of violence of an industrial capitalist society. Although I had been up to the mine before, I still had a feeling of giddy anticipation for the surreal sights we all were about to see. The steep road leading up to the mine, the huge pieces of equipment used to move mountains, the toxic sludge pond, the coal covered dogs, the black ground, the black coal seam, the black smear of coal permeating everything.
A man named Kevin gave us an informal tour of the mine as his colleague who was supposed to show us around was stuck in his holler. But being the brother of the mine owner he had a wealth of knowledge to share with us and taught us much about the process of extraction, location, dangers, and final destination. His family was from Vietnam and had worked hard to purchase several of the mines in the area. On our previous trip to WV, we had the pleasure of meeting his older, and larger brother Sang who was also shy about revealing how much he truly knew about mining but really was an expert.
All in all we had a pretty fantastic day. I don't think my bowels purged themselves, which was lovely. Ciao
What really troubles me about coal mining isn't the dark, claustrophobic tunnels that lead into mountains or the communities that are built around this commodity. It is the fact that America was built into the great industrial giant with far more wealth than any other nation in the world while forcing the miners themselves into poverty. The coal companies have exploited both the environment and the people and perhaps this is the most blatant example of violence of an industrial capitalist society. Although I had been up to the mine before, I still had a feeling of giddy anticipation for the surreal sights we all were about to see. The steep road leading up to the mine, the huge pieces of equipment used to move mountains, the toxic sludge pond, the coal covered dogs, the black ground, the black coal seam, the black smear of coal permeating everything.
A man named Kevin gave us an informal tour of the mine as his colleague who was supposed to show us around was stuck in his holler. But being the brother of the mine owner he had a wealth of knowledge to share with us and taught us much about the process of extraction, location, dangers, and final destination. His family was from Vietnam and had worked hard to purchase several of the mines in the area. On our previous trip to WV, we had the pleasure of meeting his older, and larger brother Sang who was also shy about revealing how much he truly knew about mining but really was an expert.
All in all we had a pretty fantastic day. I don't think my bowels purged themselves, which was lovely. Ciao
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