House On Mango Street Monologue
Olivia and I sit on the roof, whispering about our respective days when all of a sudden we hear the sound of an Andean flute. Devan has arrived. He climbs the stairs from the roof to a farther up roof and then up a ladder to atop a water tank. "Devan," I warn, with a slight sence of jealousy for the view he must be seeing. "Let's join," Olivia offers, and we run up to join him.
At the last rung of the ladder, I turn to face Cerro Rico for the first time. Small yellow lights dot the outline of the mountain against the dark night sky which itself is brimming with lights, those of thousands of distant stars. There's somesort of colonial arch to our left and two other colonial tower structures to our right. After a minute or so, the dichotomy of the the city stars to come into focus, that between the colonized and the colonizer; the poor and the extremely wealthy; beauty and exploitation. …show more content…
The hills nearby offer a glimpse of what this mountain looked like prior to the Spanish colonization and following exploitation of land, labor, and capital. Although not much grows at 13,000 feet above sea level, there's a clear difference between the stripped face of Cerro Rico, littered with trash and large mounds of mined material, and the surrounding hills, dotted with trees and shrubs. At night, all of this is hidden. There's a false sense of beauty on this roof, only overpowered slightly with the feeling of mine residue entering the lungs each time you take a breath. The dichotomy continues in the architechure of the city. At night, the colonial buildings stick out, but during the day, the rest of the city is much more visible. The most common buildings are those made of adobe, weathered and
At the last rung of the ladder, I turn to face Cerro Rico for the first time. Small yellow lights dot the outline of the mountain against the dark night sky which itself is brimming with lights, those of thousands of distant stars. There's somesort of colonial arch to our left and two other colonial tower structures to our right. After a minute or so, the dichotomy of the the city stars to come into focus, that between the colonized and the colonizer; the poor and the extremely wealthy; beauty and exploitation. …show more content…
The hills nearby offer a glimpse of what this mountain looked like prior to the Spanish colonization and following exploitation of land, labor, and capital. Although not much grows at 13,000 feet above sea level, there's a clear difference between the stripped face of Cerro Rico, littered with trash and large mounds of mined material, and the surrounding hills, dotted with trees and shrubs. At night, all of this is hidden. There's a false sense of beauty on this roof, only overpowered slightly with the feeling of mine residue entering the lungs each time you take a breath. The dichotomy continues in the architechure of the city. At night, the colonial buildings stick out, but during the day, the rest of the city is much more visible. The most common buildings are those made of adobe, weathered and