My journey to Potosi, Bolivia begins later today via a 12 hour bus ride from Cochabamba. Potosi, a mining town, was one of the world´s largest cities in the 1600´s and was exploited mercilously by the Spanish who wanted its silver. Legend has it that the amount of silver stolen from Bolivia and shipped to Spain could make a bridge that crosses the Atlantic Ocean.
While silver and other minerals continue to be mined there under horrible working conditions, the town is said to have a ghost-like appearance...both because of the abandoned and deteriorating buildings and because of the regular appearance of ´fantasmas´ or ghosts. Isn´t it always in the places where the most horrific and violent acts take place, that ghosts appear?
Spain´s legacy in Potosi consists of the environmental disasters caused by heavy metals mining, slavery, conscription, and the ´genocide´of Indians (through brutal and lethal working conditions that included direct exposure to mercury)...so much so that Spain had to send African slaves to Potosi every year to keep up the mining and processing of the silver.
I started reading Eduardo Galeano´s book: Open Veins of Latin America several years ago when I was in Argentina. This book introduced me to Potosi and the exploitation of colonial powers past and present in South America. I didn´t get to finish it, but want to find it again when I return to the US. It has recently gained popularity/notariety because this is the book that Chavez handed to Obama. I would highly recommend that Obama reads it.
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