Potosí was once the largest city in the world, surpassing both London and Paris in wealth and population. It once had the largest silver mine in the world, discovered by a llama herder who got lost on the Cerro Rico mountain at night and lit a fire to keep warm- only to see a trickle of molten silver form from under his fire. From then on Cerro Rico has been exploited for its mineral wealth, with an estimated 8 million. Million. slaves and forced laborers dying in these mines.
Nowadays the mines are owned by the Govt. and worked by mining cooperatives, with every group of miners selling their own produce and paying only a percentage tax to the state. This is good in that the profits go directly to the miners, and they can organize themselves as they want in respect to working hours and conditions. But its also bad because they have no uniform safety standards or regulations. Nobody regulates the mines except for the miners themselves.
The Cerro Rico is basically a mountain of red rubble perforated by hundreds of mineshafts and crisscrossed by dirt roads. The working conditions in these mines are among some of the worst in the world. They are heavily prone to cave-ins, there are often poisenous gases and minerals and the heat can be stifeling (more than 45º in some places). The dust inhaled by the miners gives them silicosis, which results in death. Most miners dont live more than 10 or 15 years after entering the mines. Most miners do this because there is nothing else they can do to survive.
That said, it is apparently good money, if youre lucky. In every mine is a statue of the Tio, or devil, which the miners worship when inside the mine, and a cross on its entrance to prevent the Tio from coming into the outside world. They have thin metal tracks running into the mouth of the mine all the way until the end where the drillers use their pneumatic drills to make holes for the dynamite, which they then blow in the afternoons, resulting in several tonnes of rubble that are then carted out on the metal tracks, dumped into a truck and sold to the town's various smelters.
Me and Charles visited one such mine, stopping at the miner's market first to buy presents of fizzy drinks and dynamite for the miners, in addition to the ubiquitous coca leaves. We then took the bus up to the mountain, stuffing ourselves with coca leaves like chipmunks before arriving. All the miners have a large bulge of coca leaves in one of their cheecks, chewing and spitting periodically. They are supposed to give you more stamina, help you breathe and work harder. I don´t know if they did us much good, but it did take us forever to fall asleep that night.
The mine passages were tiny. The ceiling was held up by a thatchwork of wooden planks. To descend to the third level we had to crawl on our hands and knees through thick layers of mud and powder dirt that got everywhere from our hair to our nostrils, making it hard to breathe. There is no ventilation, no escape route no regulations or guarantees. Despite, or because of these atrocious conditions the miners were surprisingly upbeat, all with a very unique sense of humor and often with smiles on their faces.
They day before we had watched a movie about a child miner in these very mines. The movie was very... direct/moving/harsh/depressing... a mixture of these words. But upon visiting the mines the reality of it sets in, and you realize that these people don't think about the chances of cave-ins or noxious gases, or the fact that they will die prematurely, they just think about doing their work for the day- and the comraderie and humor helps them get through it.
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