Edgar, 42, a miner from Potosí whom I had met just a few days earlier in the pitch-dark tunnels of Cerro Rico, sends me a photograph of a rainbow, or rather, a double rainbow. An explosion of light and colour right above the dark, hidden world of the mines.
Potosí, nestled in the Bolivian Andes at 4,090 metres above sea level, is a labyrinth of narrow, dusty streets, seemingly unaware of their glorious past. Once, they could have been paved with silver, so abundant was the mineral extracted from the belly of Cerro Rico, the rich hill that looms over an urban sprawl resembling a Lego construction.
The Rich Hill
This is how it appeared to the Spanish colonisers in 1545, a rich hill, when they discovered the treasures hidden within its belly. It is estimated that more than 8 million people have lost their lives here since then. An enormous price to pay for satisfying the insatiable hunger for precious metals which, sadly, did not diminish with the decline of the Spanish Empire, but continued to grow, and is today the cause of conflict and death in many regions of the world.
Children little more than old enough to walk begin descending beneath the earth, only to emerge years later after exposure to toxic substances and at risk of mal de mina, the mining disease that silently takes hold of their lungs. That is, if El Tío, the demon god of the mines, listens to their prayers and accepts their offerings of coca leaves, cigarettes and alcohol. Otherwise, the mountain devours you.
Down there, conditions are precarious, with colonial-era equipment, no electricity or ventilation systems, manually pushed trolleys, dynamite explosions and deep, unmarked shafts. The entrances are holes dug into the mountainside, and you have to crouch as you make your way along tracks that lead ever deeper underground. The only light comes from the lithium lamps worn on their helmets, casting shadows that follow you and make the space feel even narrower.
Night club
The miners, organised in small teams, work long shifts and take a break only for a cigarette, fresh coca leaves to add to those they constantly chew in a wad held to one side of the mouth, and a sip of ethanol. The disco club, a slightly larger space where they sit in a circle, allows them to stand upright without banging their heads against the rock.
Fear, hunger and exhaustion have no place in the mines. The senses become confused, with little awareness of time or space. The only thing that matters is finding something among the rocks that will bring in enough money to feed the family.
When their day is over, they emerge covered in a fine grey dust, squinting against the intense light outside. The women wash their clothes in large washing basins submerged in mud, the boots are thrown into their work sheds, and they meet at the foot of the hill for a beer, or several, if it is Friday.
Edgar tells me that he goes to school in the evenings. He wants a better future, not so much for himself, but for his son, for the new generations, for the chance to write a destiny that now seems already decided if you are born into a miner’s family.
Legend has it that, with all the silver extracted from the rich hill, it would have been possible to build a bridge connecting it directly to the royal palace in Madrid. Instead, the bridge is Edgar’s rainbow, reaching me directly with the memory of his smile and of those days that offered such a powerful reminder that hope and tenacity, even in conditions of extreme poverty and hardship, are the other side of the coin. The side worth continuing to look at and to tell.
“Abandon all hope, you who enter here,” Dante Alighieri wrote in the Inferno.
But perhaps the miners of Potosí have never read it.
