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Globe trekker
Potosi is a colonial town renown for it still fully operational silver mines and its narrow streets, balconied mansions and ornate churches.
A number of us arranged to go on an organised guided tour of the silver mines in which we walk, ducked and crawled through the mines tunnels. It is so dark and the air is thick with dust, it is unbelievablle to imagine what it must be like work under those conditions. The average age of a child to start working in the mines in about 12 and they continue to work until their health doesnt allow them to work anymore or they are killed in the mine. The average age of a man who has worked in the mine all his life is mid 30s. It opens your eyes to the poor conditions that they have to work under as there is little or no other jobs available. It makes you realise how luck we are to be born into a relatively wealthy country where such working condition were outlawed.
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