Gold Rush*

Last week I had my very first hut sleepover! Despite my writing this on Valentines Day, there was nothing romantic about it… it wasn’t even to visit me, bringing out my Eeyore, it was just to check out the gold mining going on all around my village. All joking aside it was a good visit and I’d love to have more (hint hint everyone). 

Right now there is a whole new rush to a village right nearby called Sambaranbougou. It started up sometime in November and is continuing to grow and it’s causing a lot of changes for me. First I’d wanted to put an Ag volunteer there and now with the gold rush security would be an issue (nothing with security has changed for me so don’t worry). The most obnoxious change has been in transport, which up to now has been pretty regular; when I missed cars it was usually my own procrastination. This caused a day of lost time and I even accounted for my own usual tardiness in the plans. Cars headed my direction are now filling up faster so I have to make it to the garage even earlier than I’m used to (but still in the afternoon, allowing plenty of time to come up with a procrastination project) and cars that used to go all the way through my village are now going to Sambaranbougou , the road to which does not pass through Khossanto (though there is a handy bush path). There is the option of getting off at the turn off, but that’s still a good 30-minute bike ride. This was the option we took. It was a great plan until Martin got a flat tire right around sunset – I biked ahead to get a spare tire I had in my hut. When I got there and told my family about it they were a little on edge that I had just left him “in the bush,” I assured them he was on the road… this is, by the way, coming from people who freak out if you cell phone is on while there is lightning around just to give you perspective. He was fiiine.

The next morning, with a fresh new tube in his bike, Martin and I bike the 25ish km to Sabodala to check out the commercial mining operation there. They were our big donors for the summer camp in August and had given me an open invitation to check out what their doing, so our resident geologist (Martin) and I cashed that in. We spent most of the day with their Environmental Manager but I still didn’t know what kind of questions to ask. We say “The Pit” which was very impressive, but the nature lover in me saw this big hole in the ground and the giant hill next to it and wasn’t very happy. In their defense they were clearly using ‘first world’ standards for safety and environmental practices – even down to making everyone buckle-up in their cars. I know there’s a need for mining, and I don’t know enough about any details to say that I am for or against it; it’s still hard for me to see people making such big changes to the environment, no matter how responsible they are. Martin, having been to active mine sites before, informed me that it was pretty par-for-the-course and seemed fairly impressed by their standards himself.

I did not take this photo

My thoughts quickly turned to all the water they use. So much, so fast that simply pulling from the ground water isn’t fast enough. What does that mean then? Well, they took two intermittent/seasonal streams, built some earthen dams, and voila! Lakes. Right now their names are really boring so I’m going to call them Big One and the Little One (not that far off from their actual names). Actually, any time now they’ll be finishing up another dam to create a medium sized one. To make Medium One they had to move a tiny village (we’re talking like 8 families) to higher ground. If I have anything to do with it, and I wont, it’s going to be named after that village – I think Big One can have the same naming scheme actually. Dear mapmakers, keep that in mind.

This whole operation started in the late aughts so these new lakes are still pretty young and don’t really have their shorelines worked out yet. To complicate their establishment they have no real input in the dry seasons, and a pretty major pull in the mines, so levels fluctuate a bunch. Actually, Little One might wind up drying up before the rains come. When the rains do come their streams do connect to the big one that is the border with Mali so there is a fish population as well as crocodiles and birds and terrestrial animals have definitely found and started utilizing these water sources. Their youth and fluctuating shore line has yet to make noticeable changes to the flora in the area; we were told the dams, and therefore lakes, would stay when the commercial operation closed so they will have plenty of time to find their footing. This creates a very unique water resource in the area that includes at least one “permanent” stream coming from Big One.

Honestly I’m conflicted on this. The bottom line is what kind of impacts is this new set of ecosystems going to have on the area – there are positives for humans and nature, but there are negatives too. It all depends on management and it could go either way. I for one and very interested to find out.

Moving on, we were given a ride back to Khossanto and made our plans to check out Sambaranbougou and the artisanal mines the next day. We almost made it out of town in the morning when a friend of mine told us that no one would be working; someone had died out there. Obviously shocked and concerned I asked what happened. All I was told is that he had a sickness and was a guy from Mali. We made the best of the day and were able to see everything that an artisanal miner does right in Khossanto, except the digging in the ground part.

This happens all day every day somewhere in the village so I’ve got a pretty good handle on what they do at this point.

1. Dig and bring rocks back to your compound
2. Hammer said rocks into pebbles. 
3. a: Pound pebbles into powder, some choose to use a special iron pounder. b: Pay a small amount to have the pebbles ground to a powder by a machine. 
4. Use water to wash the powder down a ramp covered in carpet squares, which will catch the heavier bits, including gold.
5. “Pan” what comes off the carpet squares for a preview of what you got. Optionally set this aside to pay special attention to the higher concentration of gold. 
6. Get as much water out of the sand collected from the carpet squares without drying and add mercury (you know, that dangerous element in some thermometers, they call it “Produit”) and grind that into the sand with your hands until you cannot tell it is there. 
7. Add water again and agitate so the mercury, which will have grabbed all the gold, consolidated into a bead while carefully pouring out the excess sand and water. 
8. Pour the mercury/gold bead into a small cloth and squeeze out as much mercury as possible, leaving a mostly gold nugget in the cloth. 
9. Press out as much mercury from that as possible, that stuff is expensive and you will not be getting it back after the next step. 
10. Take your nugget to the buyer who uses a special torch to burn off what’s left of the mercury (usually in a place that makes it really easy to breath in the fumes) then weighs the gold and pays you accordingly. 

As with any commodity the price varies and changes, but I feel pretty comfortable saying people are getting about 20,000 CFA/gram (about $40). I don’t however feel comfortable saying what an average days work gets, but it is apparently worth it. 

That night we found out another man from Mali died in Sambaranbougou. This time I was a little more persistent to get information about what kind of sickness it was – he was coughing, had a fever, and was maybe throwing up. These may be the symptoms for a lot of diseases, but I’m going to be extra aware of anything like that happening to me. So far so good and I haven’t heard about anyone else passing away. Between it being Friday (prayer day) and news of this new death it was clear no one would be working out there the next day so Martin decided to head back to Kédougou and my little gold rush came to an end.