IN STEREO

Imagine that you are going to live in Potosí. The fact is that Potosí is a native mining town. Only mining sustains us. We have always been miners and we will not stop being like that. People are mostly accustomed to it, even before our parents. I was told that I should be a miner, [but] I did not like mining for myself, and from there I dedicated myself to tailoring. It has been a success that the children and the grandchildren went away from mining, little by little. We left the monotony of going to the mine. As they are taking out so much mineral, there are times when the mineral [value] goes up. But once the Potosí mineral is low, it’s left abandoned: we have no other income. So with that, the Potosí mining lowers the economy. In the days when the prices of tin fell, I had a low point myself: no work, no money.

There is a downturn, but when it rises again, there is another economic movement. It is the only thing that moves Potosí, tin money. If there is no such thing, there is nothing. We do not have factories, sources of work of any kind. It will have to remain as a mining camp. Mining holds us up, but [the mountain] will sink down sooner or later, if they don’t stop taking out so much mineral from there. But if we stop it, how are we going to survive? I mean, sooner or later, we are going to dry up. Once it is finished, let’s say, what are we going to live on? Where are we going to work? We are going to have to leave, like many people [already have]. Our Potosí will be forgotten in time. It will not last more than 15 to twenty years. It will not be worth anything, because we have nothing to support ourselves. – Don Freddy