Life on the edge in Bolivia's gravity-defying 'suicide homes'

By Monica Machicao

EL ALTO, Bolivia (Reuters) - In Bolivia's highland city of El Alto, the row of colorful corrugated metal roofs - blues, oranges, reds and greens - for a moment distracts from the terrifying sight below: a precipitous drop inches (cm) from the houses, known locally as "suicide homes" for the high risk the inhabitants take.

The thin row of flimsy structures hangs on the edge of a cliff formed of earth with a sheer drop hundreds of feet (meters) to the rocky escarpment below. Experts and city officials say the cliff is eroding, making the homes even more dangerous - hence their nickname.

The precarious homes often serve as workplaces for Aymara shamans, known as yatiris, where they make offerings to the Pachamama, or Earth Mother. But heavy rains and global warming are increasingly undermining the buildings' foundations.

"The precipice in this valley is 90 degrees," said Gabriel Pari, municipal secretary of water, sanitation, environmental management and risk at El Alto's mayoral office.

"That is precisely why we want them to leave this place, if they do not want to leave we are going to have to use force."

The shamans, however, are clinging on, despite the back doors of the rickety homes having only a narrow ledge before the ground drops away completely.

"We are not going to move from this place, because this is our daily work place," said yatiri Manuel Mamani, making an offering to the Pachamama with a fire outside his home.

"But we are going to take care of the soil, especially the rainwater, we are going to channel it so that the water goes somewhere else."

El Alto, and the highland political capital of La Paz nestled in the valley below it, often bend the mind with the sheer landscape that reflects the surrounding Andean mountains. It led local authorities to build cable cars to help people get around.

And that landscape is getting more treacherous as weather patterns become more extreme, something that has been exacerbated by climate change.

Gabriel Lopez Chiva, another yatiri, said he was confident, however, that the Pachamama would protect him.

"We can do an offering ceremony, we do it as a payment and in this way the land will never move because Pachamama needs an offering. It is like giving food and this way this place will not move. On the contrary it will stabilize," he said.

(Reporting by Monica Machicao; Writing by Adam Jourdan; Editing by Sandra Maler)