Digging Abompe, part 4

Ben informs me that bauxite falls fourth on the list of principal sources of income in the area behind cocoa, coffee and plantain. It’s difficult to tell where the illegal gold mining operation we passed earlier in the morning figures on that list, though I’m guessing the foreign bosses, who we are to encounter some hours later in their new Land Rovers, don’t much care.

Bauxite has nevertheless been a mainstay of the local economy since the early 1900s as the preferred material for the beads that are such an important part of the local culture. The brown rock, which to be honest looks a bit like dried crap, is said to take on an attractive sheen from its contact with the skin, turning a glossy brown over time.

After another half an hour of humping through the branch and brush, Ben points out the first of a series of abandoned pits. Largely grown over, they are not exactly what I expect. When I think mining, I think monumental gashes carved into hillside, big holes, Bob the Builder sorts of equipment. I expect a busy beehive of men.

But incredibly these pits are dug by hand, in most cases to a depth of only about 15 to 20 feet and then laterally as long as the vein of bauxite cooperates. And more incredibly still, I am informed that Sam, a one-time Nigerian tailor, is the only miner of the stuff in the area. Each of the dozen or more holes we passed were his doing and his alone. He does not seem to share my stupefaction at this news and only offers a passing smile with a mouth largely free of teeth.

We are sitting at his current site, a red hole in the ground, and he’s changing his clothes to get to work. By its simplicity, the spot could’ve just as easily been the work of some subterranean animal except for the little clefts that have been carved into the walls for hand and foot holds. He does not tarry long, every moment here being an opportunity to dig. So he quickly disappears, followed by Boadu, who has agreed to help him.

Ben remains up top to describe the process. I ask questions and he translates, shouting them down to Sam in the hole. Nearby sits a battered bucket attached to a line of raffia taken from a palm tree for pulling up the rock. A simple makeshift rack made of sticks teeters above a pile of ash; this is Sam’s grill where he smokes any bush meat he happens to kill.

And for his labor, the four-hour hike, an average of four hours in the dark of a 20-foot pit, that you must dig yourself, the chipping free of the rock and hoisting it up, and the ridiculously difficult job of then transporting the rocks, typically at a weight of 35 kilos to 50 kilos, on one’s head back down the mountain, for this, on a good day, Sam can expect to make no more than 10 cedis, the equivalent of US$10.

I ask Ben to ask Sam if this is enough. I do not speak Twi, but when I hear the answer echo up from the hole, I understand it clearly enough.

“But if Sam is the only miner, and therefore the only seller, of bauxite, can’t he dictate the price paid by the beadmakers in town?” I ask. I am stunned by the answer.

“No,” Ben says. “It’s not like that. People here don’t respect this work. People think that if you are not a farmer then you are lazy.”

(Picture: Boadu in the mine)