Eight million people
have lost their lives in the Potosi mines over the last 500 years.
But that's just a number, and one so huge that no one can really get
their head around it. Every day people sacrifice their lives on two
levels: they risk being trapped as the tunnels collapse from
poorly-planned dynamite explosions aimed at freeing a few low-value minerals. And, secondly, they crawl, scratch and snatch
their way to an early grave, their lungs filling with poisonous gas
and dust in their coffin-like workspace. And yet they work united.
Not only in the face of these cruel, unreasonable dangers, but also
in the face of intense competition. They work for a cooperative and
yet each one's earning is yielded from the minerals they personally
find and sell. Cerro Rico, a once fertile golden mountain, raped by
generations, now only feeds its people scraps.
Some of the workers are
boys, as young as 9, providing for their family as they fit being
the main breadwinner in between classes of algebra and PE.
The most famous, Basilio, who starred in The Devil's Miner is
now 20 and, failing the aspirations he expressed when interviewed for
the film six years ago, is still in the mines. His dreams of becoming
a teacher unfulfilled, ten years now of hard labour. The film's many awards did not result in any rewards for his family. Oliver Baulch,
in the book Viva South America!,
tells the tale of how the film company did send Basilio a cheque
for $30 – but it would cost $59 to cash it.
I
walked up the mountain last week, chewing coca leaves to keep the
altitude monsters at bay, in the hope of meeting Basilio's family,
and found his mother. She said the family still had not been paid.
Not only that, she seemed oblivious to the fact that hostels and bars
throughout the city were airing their story on an almost daily basis
to the swarms of new backpackers. Local businesses entertaining the
Westerners at the expense of one of their own, it seems.
A
staff member in my own hostel almost laughed when I asked if the 5
bolivianos (50p) we had paid for our viewing pleasure would go to the
mining families. A long email to her manager on the topic was met by
the following: “Many thanks for your message, we are planning what
we can do with your opinion.”
When
we were walking up the mountain towards a statue of Christ that
overlooks the city, we felt the earth move. One, two, three, four...
eight dynamite explosions, one after the other. It felt like the
Cerro's fragile chest was pounding under our feet. We quickly moved
to a safer path to get away from the dangerous mines - we're lucky we
had the option.
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