Memories of the CdeP Mining Camps and Those I Remember

Margie Fawcett and Jennifer Fox, in Goyllarizquizca - 1952

Margie on the Andes pampas

Memories of my first couple of years in Goyllarizquizca where my first and best -- and now longest-standing -- friend was Jennifer Fox, daughter of Ken and Molly Fox (now in the United Kingdom), are followed by years in the Cerro de Pasco mining camps of Yauricocha, Siria, Mahr Tunel and, later, Cerro de Pasco proper. Here, in Cerro de Pasco, vivid Sunday scenes of “Wyatt Earp” and “Roy Rogers” – movies of the early 1950s -- appear, while we children, ranging in age from three to 14, were wrapped in awe in the comfortable theatre chairs of the Cerro de Pasco Club. The modern club, with all its amenities, was up the road from our house on the main road, facing the opposite hill with its two tiers of company houses. The clubhouse also offered a bowling alley and many a party was held there for our “partying” parents, including Bridge parties. Birthday parties were lots of fun in the grand dance hall. I remember the McComb, Humphreys, Patterson, Lochman, and Foote children -- some my age, some older.

My brother, Frank’s, and my house was right next door to the school. Although I was home-schooled until I was six or seven by my mother, given that the previous mining camps did not have schools, I think I attended the one in Cerro de Pasco only briefly, before we left for Colombia to another mining company, this time involved in gold mining one. Mother used to receive school material from Calvert Homeschooling in America.

Trips down to Lima, the capital, were broken by a stop at the company hotel in La Oroya (now the most polluted place on earth), where we visited some friends and family (Youngs (daughter Monica lives in Sydney, Australia), Allens, Oxleys, Fitchetts (daughter Ann lives in Christchurch, New Zealand), and Caudrons, respectively, the latter family now in Belgium). Relatives were also visited on our way through Casapalca – the Boswells (now in the United States).

Other children I remember from the different camps were (forgive spelling errors!) Doug Allen, the Smith-Gillespies (now in the United States and Switzerland), Gautiers, Nicoletti (or Nicolini?), and others who, in my mind, have now become nameless. Adults were the Oxleys, Whitlings, Walkers.

On the eight-hour trip to and from the coastal city of Lima, either by car or train, one would pass Ticlio at 18,000 feet altitude. “Soroche”, altitude sickness, was a common fact – we all suffered from it.

Train rides were captivating. While the Indian passengers would eat the strong-smelling large yellow fruit, relative to the lime, which were sold at the stations on long vines, we expatriates would be enraptured by the frequent change in direction of the train. The diesel engine, sometimes two at a time, which pulled the various carriages of peasants and city folk, would delink at one level, be turned on a “turn-about” and then push the train downwards to the next level of the high Andes mountains. On the next bend, the engine(s) would be turned around again to pull the coaches across and down the next few kilometers. The zigzagging, a feat of engineering, was the only way for the train to descend the high Andes mountains. What once was known as the Central Railway (built by an American, Henry (Enrique) Meiggs), is the highest railway in the world. The bridges across the deep valleys always held my breath. They were so narrow and high.

The loneliness and barren hills of the Andes, with the deep blue sky, is brought to mind many a time, when I listen to Peruvian Indian music, particularly when played with the kena and charango. It gives me a certain desire to be back there, but only for a while; to contemplate the harsh beauty enveloping a beige-brown-colored landscape, with snow-capped mountains and a deep blue cover that is the sky.

These are experiences and memories that have made us what we are today.

Margie (nee Fawcett)

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