The Bolivian People 69Bs 1(Boliviano)—less than US$ 0.20. One young boy told me
Bs 1, and then after he’d fi nished, he asked for Bs 2. “I meant
Bs 1 for each shoe,” he said with a roguish smile.
An older lustrabotas named Victor claimed he had
graduated high school and was beginning university classes.
No other available job, he said, would allow him the time to
take classes. “Before,” he explained, “there were no kids that
did drugs or drank like today. An estimated 10 per cent of
lustrabotas are alcoholics or use inhalants like clefa (a type
of glue), petrol or paint thinner.”
Dr Javier Pérez of the Good Samaritan Health Centre in La
Paz provides free medical assistance to lustrabotas. “There
is a good chance,” says Dr Pérez, “that Victor doesn’t attend
the university. He just says he does.”
“On a good day,” says Nestor, another lustrabotas, “we can
make Bs 10.” With pavement meal costs of Bs 1.50–Bs 2,
plus bus fares and other items, the expenses total Bs 6.50,
leaving him with Bs 3.50 profi t per day, about US$ 0.50.
“From that we have to buy clothes.”
Shoeshine boys use hoods or masks, preferring to work anonymously.