IN STEREO

In Potosí there is nothing. In Potosí there are no medicines. You have to bring all that from outside. There is nothing in Potosí. They had to operate on my wife and there was no blood in Potosí. There were 11 women from the foundation that I worked for, set to donate. I sent them to the hospital, so that there was blood for another emergency. I'm A+ but my wife was universal. It’s a little weird, but you donate a little A+ blood and in return they give you universal. [But] I went with a friend to Bracamonte Hospital, to the blood bank – and the blood bank had no units. There was no blood in Potosí. It was unbelievable. There was no blood. We sent so many people. I mean, I called friends, I paid for them to go.

I grabbed a taxi, I went to Bracamonte and they told me: “No, people have come to donate blood for your wife, but that blood is in process. We cannot give it to you.” “But I cannot wait until tomorrow! I need the blood!” I called people I work with, people who I have done favours for. And they returned the favours to me. Everyone went to donate blood. When my relatives came to her funeral, [they said], “I don’t think that if I was sick, so many people would do something to save me.” Imagine, all that blood. But when my wife needed it, there was no blood. 24 people went to donate blood, and I no longer needed it. My wife was dead already. It's how things work here in Potosí. In Potosí you get sick and you die. If I ever get seriously ill, I will not stay in Potosí. I'd rather go and die in any other city. – Enrique