IN STEREO

The first version of Potosí was never a city, but a camp around the mountain, formerly called the ‘Indian zone’. A neighbourhood of Indians around the mountain. The closer to the mountain, the faster the neighbourhoods came to work. The largest number of churches in Potosí were built in the neighbourhood of the Indians. The neighbourhood of the Spaniards is an urbanisation in blocks: seeing that there were quite a few people, the distribution or the organisation began, with straight streets in squares. All this has been generated through mining. – Heritage Official

It is a camp; it is a neighbourhood that is remote from all other neighbourhoods. Because here in San Pedro, I don’t know where the limit of another neighbourhood is, right? But in the camp, it is easy to realise that it is only that neighbourhood that is there, alone and apart. And besides that, the houses come in pavilions. Each pavilion is five houses. Those houses were built before by [mining tycoon] Moritz Hochschild. He built them for his workers. And at the time of nationalisation, the state did fix many houses, and built other more modern ones, didn’t they? They are separate, have you seen them? There are other houses that are in twos, no more, you see. You should see that neighbourhood that is prefabricated, lower down, where the school is too. That’s a little more modern. But the other houses are not even adobes, they are tapia. To do it faster, they put lumber, they put mud with stone, and it dried there. So that has been our homes. It is a small house, nothing much. It consists of two bedrooms, a tiny room – a small dining room – and its kitchen and its bath. Small, simple, good. My wife and I and my three children live there. Yes, five of us live there. Right now, we are comfortable, aren’t we? When they grow up, I don’t know. – Amilcar