On
Friday, it was finally time to travel to the mines. We’d spent all day on Thursday meeting with
officials in Kedougou city (Direction of the Environment, Direction of Mines,
Water and Forestry Division, Police, Governor in a town 7 km away) to inform
them of our activities; they were all glad to be informed and repeated that it’s
important that we came to them. This all
relates to the Senegalese system of everyone wanting to be a part of a project
by being informed, even if they will play no part in it.
Friday
morning, we set off with our overnight bags and cooler of empty sample bottles
and bags. After a breakfast of a bean
sandwich, we went to the garage to find a car going to Saraya, where we’d be
based for the next few days as we visited the large mining town of
Kharakhenna. Fortunately, the van filled
quickly, and we were all set to go. But,
the car had to stop first at a few houses to retrieve some baggage. There were some complaints from passengers (particularly
from one well-dressed man who insisted he was in a rush to make a meeting in
Saraya), but the driver declared he had only one stop left. He then proceeded to enter a tire mechanic
shop to fill the rear tire with air.
However, after several minutes of failed attempts to fill the tire, it
turned out that the tire wasn’t just lacking air – it also had a hole. All 14 of us passengers filed out of the car
to wait as the tire was removed, patched, and placed back on the van. During the wait, over the sparks of a nearby
metal working and the pounding of three carpenters building a bed, I was able
to sit and examine the other passengers.
I was particularly struck by one woman (not much older than a teenager)
and her 3-year old child. I had noticed
them in the car as she stroked his head, an affection not often shown
here. I had also noticed large bumps
across his scalp earlier, but now I noticed that he was unable to hold his head
up, and it kept flopping to the side while the woman tried to help him sit up
in her lap. When she went for a walk and
swung him onto her back, she had to place his arms around her neck and legs around
her waist, while leaning over so that he would not slide off, as he was incapable
of these maneuvers himself. She then had
to hold his body while his head flopped at a dangerous angle. When she turned toward me, I saw his eyes
rolling into his sockets, teeth black and wasting, mouth turned in pain, and
legs and arms too skinny for a child. He
was starving, sick, and likely didn’t have many days left. It was an incredibly sad sight.
Eventually,
the tire was rolled back into place on the car, and we set off. The road to Sarya was recently paved and
beautiful as a result of the gold mining industry – though there are some
potholes, these don’t take up the entire width of the road, and driving is
easy. The 60 km trip only took an hour,
and I was eager to continue to the gold mines in Kharakhenna after dropping off
our bags, but that is not the Senegalese protocol. First we had to stop by the governor and
police stations to alert them of our presence and our activities. Then we had to walk around Sarya to greet
Falaye’s friends and acquaintances. By
that time, it was rude to leave without waiting for lunch (around 2:00 in Senegal)
and then too hot to travel until 4:00.
(Nothing happens in Senegal between 1:00 and 4:00.) But eventually we did find a car, waited for
it to fill, and traveled an additional 30 km on the beautifully paved road to
Kharakhenna, where I was completely unprepared for what I saw.
I had
been told that mining villages are transient communities whose populations have
swelled with the gold rush. People from
Senegal, Burkina Faso, Mali, Mauritania, Ghana, and Nigeria flock to the mines
for a chance at striking rich. And not
just miners come, but also people selling wares and prostitutes. Kharakhenna was once a small village, but it’s
population now likely exceeds 15,000. As
the population boomed, people didn’t have time or space to build compounds (a
series of huts surrounding an open area where a family lives together), but
instead constructed just a single room.
In fact, the rooms weren’t even constructed of mud as in villages or
cement as in cities; instead, they were created by weaving dried weeds together
and then using plastic sheets to cover any holes. These rooms extended for several kilometers
in every direction. On the road, lines
of people sold every possible item from food to containers to gasoline, similar
to what you’d see in a city but all based out of weed huts. Interestingly, there were a lot of people
selling solar panels (the first time I’ve seen this in Senegal), and many were
placed on top of the weed roofs to provide power for the rooms. There were also a few places selling new
motorcycles, a big attraction for people who strike it rich in the mines.
We were
met by one of Falaye’s friends who acted as our guide in the village. I was introduced to many people, the first of
which was wearing a Syracuse t-shirt.
There is truly a sense of community in the village, despite its strange
construction, and people were welcoming and kind. As it was a Friday, no one was working in the
mines. This originates from the Western
African belief in genies, who they say are active on Fridays and Mondays. As a result, if people try to work in the
mines on these days, they are likely to be injured, and it is best to either
process mined dirt or to relax for the day.
We walked up to the mines, where it is ok to look at them, as long as we
don’t try to dig. Thousands of holes
dotted the hillslope; each hole was tens of meters deep and then continued
horizontally. Men descend via rope tied
to a wooden pole over the hole, and a fan keeps the air circulating. Sometimes they descend for multiple days at a
time, bringing food and tea into the hole with them. Dirt is lifted back up from the team at the
top of the hole. The process is
extremely dangerous, and many holes collapse due to lack of structure;
theoretically, every 10 meters is supported by wooden poles (leading to
deforestation as people chop down trees for these support systems), but in
reality, people often don’t reinforce the walls as often as they should. There is also the danger of reaching the
water table, whereby water begins to fill the hole and needs to be pumped out
before the digging can continue.
Once the
dirt is removed from the hole, it is brought into the village, where it is ground
into a sand, mixed with water, sieved on an angled wooden plank covered by a
mat. The dirt on the mat is then dunked
in water, and the water is checked for flakes of gold (which it usually
contains). At this point, mercury is
added to the solution since it selectively binds to mercury, which one man
demonstrated to me in his hand, while asking, “Gis nga mercure bi?” (Do you see
the mercury?). The mixture is then taken
to huts and burned by the women, releasing large amounts of mercury into the
atmosphere and leaving the gold behind.
Additionally, some of the tailings are then bought by men from Burkina
Faso, who move it to the bush and add cyanide to remove even more of the gold. They know that cyanide is prohibited by the
government, and this process thus occurs very secretively. In fact, people are generally loathe to
mention that they use either mercury or cyanide, for fear of repercussions by
the police or Senegalese government.
Traditionally,
Senegalese people had mined for gold using just water, and no chemicals. However, as more people from Mali and Burkina
Faso learned of the Senegalese gold deposit in the 1990s, they immigrated to
Senegal bringing not just themselves, but also the technique of using mercury
to extract more gold. And thus, the black
market trade of mercury (originating from mercury mines in Ghana) began.
When
people are not working in the mines or processing the dirt, they behave like
other Senegalese (or West Africans) – they sit, talk, drink tea, and smoke
cigarettes (another sign of their wealth – nearly everyone I saw smoked a pack
a day, at a cost of $4). They also
played checkers and engaged in promiscuous activity. Fortunately, I was unaware of most of the
prostitution occurring in the village, though the unnaturally light-colored
skin (caused by chemical skin lightening creams) and heavy amounts of make-up
on many of the women alerted me of their presence. And, since men far outnumber the women, the
men even engaged in tasks outside their gender norm; I noticed men cooking,
washing clothes, and cleaning. I was
also interested to note that French was fairly common among many of the people;
with such a high amount of foreigners, local languages were not shared by all
present, and French was often the first language utilized among strangers and
even amongst friends from different localities.
Aided by
Falaye and his friend, I was able to collect my first few water and soil samples. I collected soil samples along a transect
from a hut where mercury is burned toward the river. We were also aided by a man from Burkina
Faso, who took soil samples for us from the bush where cyanide is used after
the mercury processing. My project is
officially on its way!
(I apologize for the lack of pictures. My connection is too slow now, but hopefully I'll be able to post some when I head back to Dakar.)
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