There is No Memorial at the Potosi Mines

  Potosi is the highest city in the world, which surrounds a mountain rich in silver, tin, copper, and zinc.  This town was the largest city in the Western Hemisphere in the 1600s.  This Bolivian town sustained the entire Spanish monarchy for over 200 years through its silver production.  The mines have seen the deaths of 8 million African slaves and local Bolivians during their 400 years of production.  But, there is no memorial, there is only a brief mention of the poor conditions people were forced to work in.  Perhaps this is because conditions are little better then they were 300 years ago for the 5,000 workers attempting to eak a living out of the mines today.
  I toured the mines and even the thrill of being in an active mine paled in comparison to the horror of having to actually work in one.  We donned boots, hard hats and lights to wind our way through the labrynth of mines.  We perilously walked over 100 foot chasms.  We dodged falling debri and even ran from some dynamite that had just been lit deeper in the tunnel (the blast blew wind threw the tunnels out at us).  We crawled and climbed and spent 3 hours in the dark world that workers spend 12 or more hours in a day.  Bolivians work very, very hard for their jobs.  We saw this all over the country in any shop, but the pinnacle of hard work was being done by the 14 year old boys who had sledgehammers for crushing rock before it was brought outside.  $20 a day for one of the boys because his job was nearer to an exit and was thus cool.  Deeper in the mines where temperatures reach over 100 degrees F (32 degrees C), pay can be $30 per day.  That fixed pay is only for the helpers.  The manager of a section of the mine who directs where to dig gets paid only for what they find.  In fact, the dynamite that exploded while we were in the mines was only being set off because it had been improperly placed by a new manager.  The new manager was 16 years old and was given the position as his inheritance after his father died only one week ago in the mines.  The worst part of the mines was definitely the drilling room.  Workers with no masks used a jackhammer in a cubby hole-sized room that had so much dust that I could only see one foot in front of me.  These miners are paid hansomly at $10 per hour but have a very short life expectancy.  The experience in the mines was nothing short of tragic. 
  The only pidly comfort I took was that we had purchased gift bags for each miner we passed while in the mountain.  The bags including cookies, coca leaves (more on this later) and dynamite (yes, we legally purchase dynamite and coca leaves prior to entering the mine) and outside the mine I was able to by some souvenir rocks from some of the children of the miners.

Here is the dynamite.

This is the devil gorging in his gifts inside the mine.

This is a 14 year old boy crushing rocks.

Here is a miner carrying a bag of dynamite across a chasm.  He has a wad of coca leaves in his mouth.

Here is us climbing through the tunnels.