Cerro Rico

Went to the mines in Potosi the other day. You know the mine that made Spain a most formidable colonial force because it was totally full of silver. You know the one that was discovered by a shepherd who got caught up on the mountain because his llama ran away, so he started a fire to keep warm, then woke up the next morning to find a river of molten silver. You know the one that made Potosi the largest city in the world for a time and where 8 million indigenous workers have met their death. Yeah that one. Went to tour it. Rather wild. A devil statue that the Spanish created named Tio stands at the entrance. His erection sits in his hand and a cigarette still smoking sits in his mouth. Coca leaves cover the ground around his seat, saturated with offerings of sugar cane alcohol - 97%! Apparently, the indigenous folks objected to entering the Earth because of its sacred status. So the Spanish told them about Tio (Dios, actually, but ¨d¨ doesn´t exist in their language, so they named him something pronounceable), who would basically ¨do bad things to them¨ if they didn´t work for free. So, to this day miners make offerings of coca, cigarettes and chicha to try to satisfy Tio in order to keep them safe. Doesn´t work too well. Three still die every month in this fragile mountain that has been tunneled through for upwards of 500 years. It´s hellacious work for little to no reward.

A quarter of Potosi´s population still hammers away in the barren mines. They say that the Spanish left the trash after sacking all of the riches (i.e. silver) - the Zinc left is impure and brings little profit. The backbeaking work of hammering away at tiny veins of zince for 12+ hours, then the monumental task of moving that 10 tons from 40 meters below by turning a crank by hand - one potato sack of rubble at a time - then shoveling a ton at a time into a cart whose tracks to the depository rarely acommodate the cart´s wheels. All of this work yields maybe 200 bolivianos ($28) to be split three ways. This is with cooperatives, too. It used to be unpaid work - slavery or indentured servitude - until the 1950s.

The plight of the indigenous communities here is rather heartbreaking in general. Though an indigenous man was recently elected to his second term of presidency, most accounts I´ve heard suggest that he is a puppet, not truly connected to the people. Typical top-down manipulation, oppressed turns into oppressor type stuff (Freire ref). The disparity between rich and poor is stark. Nice houses in La Paz are fortified with 20 foot walls housing guard stations. Some of the Aymara vendors from the market sleep in the streets - their adobe shacks tended by their young children in the hills. You know the story. It´s just amplified here. I´m trying to figure out how to help. I´ll let people know if I figure it out. To be continued...