IN STEREO

We removed everything; we collapsed it; we crushed it – for that we were paid. We had to do it. Before that, we worked up there near the mining market, and that was worse. You know why? The roofs were joined with logs and leather. We started work on the adobes of that block, buildings full of leather. The house had something; it had a spirit. I almost died: I fell through the ceiling, where the plaster was destroyed. For me, I realised inwardly [that] it was the worst destruction of the old town. Clearly that was serious, but we had to do it. That is what happened. The houses have their spirits but what we went to do, we had to do it for the money. – Lucho

Well, here I am looking at the streets, right? I see houses like this in my daily life, with my own eyes – really very deteriorated. In rainy weather, it’s even worse; they fall down. It is a shame. They have completely left very old houses. Some houses are falling apart, cables all over the place. It’s a bad image; I think it looks awful. Some of the real colonial houses, they are modernising them. But I think it is running a risk, as they say. It no longer has that awful appearance, but there is not that will, let’s say, to give it the same feeling there was before. And also, because of the graffiti, the walls no longer give that feeling. [When] it’s erased, they give back that feeling. They are forgetting or are wanting to change it. With that, I believe it will no longer have that special, different characteristic. [Potosí] is characterised by being colonial and they no longer want to give that appearance. Perhaps because it is economically expensive, to build it once again. – Lorenzo