Potosí: The Agonizing Hill

Jhonny lifts his helmet and opens the carbide lamp. He shakes it and spits inside, allowing the black saliva to react and reignite the chemical reaction needed to light the lamp. A match, and it works.

He grabs his tools and exits his undercut. Jhonny is engulfed in the dust raised by the dynamite explosions.

There's no point in staying here; better to go outside for a while. Though he bears an American name, perhaps chosen by his mother as a wish for prosperity, Jhonny's reality is far from luxurious. He lives in a windowless adobe room in the Altoso neighborhoods of Potosí. He maneuvers quickly through the galleries—right, left, crouching, dragging, climbing, and descending the rickety wooden stairs. He slides down a mineral shaft, then repeats the process until he finally reaches the main gallery.

From there, things are a bit easier. It takes him about ten minutes to reach the main undercut, but unfortunately, he doesn’t escape the hardships of his situation. Whether inside or outside, he continues to navigate through rocks and stray minerals, like a portable tunnel that follows him until exhaustion overtakes him on his dry straw mattress.

Outside, it’s raining, and a group of muddy tourists is gearing up for their dose of underground exotica. Others, huddled at the entrance, watch them with a mix of curiosity and disdain. Some words are exchanged, laughter erupts.

"In bad weather, put on a good face," one of them says, finding solace in a drink. He pours a few drops of alcohol onto the ground for Pachamama, then drinks, passing the bottle around.

The conversation picks up as the minutes go by, and there’s a bit of everything.

Tourists, wearing masks of compassion and horror, emerge once again. They shed their dynamite, guides, detonators, and leftover scraps bought at the market, like peanuts for monkeys in a mining zoo.

They speak in a tone of almost religious reverence, offering their sympathy as though it were a form of penance. They pity the miners. Some miners mock them, but everyone knows that when these "gringos" return home, to their comfortable beds, they will sleep soundly, believing they belong to a higher echelon of society. They think they belong to a world far removed from the harsh reality of life behind the clouds.

In the end, they don’t care about the slums.

As the hours pass, the cold outside bites harder, like a rabid dog.

The alcohol helps somewhat, but it’s time to leave. A cousin drives a truck to the cooperative, and everyone piles in. Along the road, the battered vehicle must stop several times to push off drunks who have collapsed like crucified figures in their inebriation. Ch’alla Tuesday and pure sacrifice on the tin mountain.

The next day, the same faces don the same helmets, light the same lamps, and ascend the same hill. Inside, the same ore veins either hook or disappear among the stones. The same blows chip away at the rock, and the cycle of dynamite, ch’alla, and warning blows continues. The lamp goes out with each explosion, and the earth trembles in response, like a mineral orgasm.

In a distant undercut, the "uncle"—the devil and master of the world’s entrails—laughs from within the glass eyes of his mud statue and serpentine figures.

Jhonny lifts his helmet once more, opens the carbide lamp, shakes it, and spits inside...