PHOTOGRAPHY EXHIBITION: THE LAST MINE

On Thursday November the 13, 2003 we visited here in Andorra a photography exhibition about the last days and the last work of the last miners that were left in Escucha.When we were looking at the photographs Maribel, the gardening teacher, explained to us lots of things, as her father and grandfather had been miners too.

The photographs had been made while the miners were working, and they were very impressive. Some of them were a bit scary because the miner was almost buried under the debris, working to rebuild the mine after the ceiling has collapsed.Other photographs were very beautiful, because the showed how good friends miners were, and they were having a morning snack, chatting or coming out of the mine.The photographs were of the last eight miners that closed down the Trinity Mine in Escucha. One could see them during a normal working day, but also one could see on the last day when they occluded with cement the entrance of the mine, so that it could never be opened again. Never again, anybody would go to work into that mine and we think that would be a sad thing for them.


Our opinions

We liked the exhibition very much because we got to know a bit more about the work of the miners, being that is a job where so many people work, even some of our parents.
We think that a miner's work is very hard. They have to be brave people to go down into the mine. They are underground the hole day and they had little air and poor working conditions. They have to be very strong, lifting heavy weights and to do this every day has to be very difficult.






SANTA BARBARA

Saint Barbara is the patron of the miners and she is a very nice Virgin. This is celebrated with lunches and suppers.The older miners say that they had a statue of this Virgin outside the mine and before going down into the mine, they used to pray and kiss her.She is also the saint to protect against bad storms. We saw a statue of Saint Barbara in a wagon that was inside the Escucha Mining Museum. Saint Barbara has got very long hair; she wears a thorny crown and a white and maroon big cape.