An experience in Kedougou - Senegal
A blog should be a journal where one writes their own experiences or where one can share ideas and also information. After many years, I decided to start rewriting my studies, my experiences, and the journeys always made for the love of my craft which, to this day, continuously stirs the levers of my curiosity.
The gemmological studies were carried out thanks to the friend and professor of gemmology Dr. Costantini and his wife who, besides teaching me much, had great patience in sharing her life experiences which I still remember with much affection.
The journeys come naturally, sometimes planned carefully, sometimes as opportunities I cannot miss. A testimony of what is, as a mere observer without having to make any forced consideration or reasoning, which is done anyway in one’s own heart. I thank the companions of every journey and the friends in various countries who, even after years, willingly organise the trip with care.
A journey along the path of gold
We left by plane from Bologna with a stop in Casablanca to land in Dakar at 1:50 in the morning, two hours ahead in time zone and a significant humidity welcomed us at Léopold Sedar Senghor airport.......with clouds of mosquitoes ready for their morning breakfast.
The trip had been prepared for some time: 4x4 vehicle, air conditioning, experienced driver and naturally the person who will act as our guide, the one recognised as "the one who can" venture into certain villages. A couple of days are enough to greet friends and acquaintances, one suitcase each is enough for 3 days, 2 of travel and 1 of meetings. Our guide does not want us to stay too long, situations may arise sometimes that cannot be managed in a civil manner.
So off we go, at 6 o’clock. Heading to Kaolack then turning towards Tambacounda and crossing the Niokolo Koba National Park and as the last stop Kédougou. We arrive after 13 hours on the road, worn out by the heat and fatigue aware of having seen so many things in such a short time. Four stops, every 200 km just to satisfy basic needs, clean the sand that sticks to the car windshield, fight off flies and mosquitoes, marvel (because even after 100 times) when you see buses or cars that have on their roof twice, if not three times, the height of the vehicle itself... sometimes with a goat and a person lying on top of everything!
Each stop is a separate chapter, each moment leaves its reason. Used to having what is necessary at hand, when it is not there, the art of making do must be present to lend a hand. So, as on every journey, I bring with me what is most useful, also useful to ingratiate myself with the moment or to repay a kindness. Thus, it can happen to exchange a sealed bottle of water for a favour received or give a baguette of bread to a swarm of children so they watch the car without touching it.
The last 200 km we cross the Niokolo Koba National Park; the road looks like a ribbon cutting in two, about a meter high, the low forest. Warthogs and monkeys dominate, a few small gazelles can be seen in the thicket in the distance.
We stop halfway, it is 47 degrees and the trucks with red plates travel this road incessantly. They are the truckers from Mali, said to be the best in Africa, legends bordering on the incredible are told about them. They travel back and forth between Mali and Senegal on the road that has potholes in which a car can get lost. In fact, we choose to travel parts of the track that runs alongside the road and at 7 in the evening we find ourselves in front of the town of Kédougou.
Taking a shower, drinking almost cool water (in the car the bottles were scorching) and lying down stretched out is priceless... as a famous advertisement says! At 9 in the evening we meet with our guide who explains that there is no security about what they will allow us to see. It depends on us. If they feel trust, they will let us go to their village, otherwise we turn back. Excellent!
Over the years I have developed a sense that has led me to resolve sometimes adverse situations, I bring it out, I use it to the fullest... it is silence!
We are in the presence of a young man who comes from the village, he will assess. Our guide speaks, we introduce ourselves and offer a Coca-Cola (this sometimes helps too) and every now and then I smile, every now and then I nod my head, every now and then I make a glottal sound as a sign of understanding... come on, it worked.
11:00 am: we have been waiting for the young man for 3 hours, nothing is visible on the horizon except the heat that increases visibly.
A (Chinese) motorbike arrives with 2 people, the young man gets off, gets into the car and the motorbike leaves again. We also set off, over 70 km towards nowhere in the direction of Mali.
The village appears both on the right and left of the road. On the horizon the mountain from which they dig tunnels to remove the rock that will then be worked in the village welcomes us. Barren and red. Living conditions unthinkable for us westerners to face, village made of branches and wooden structures, plastic sheets, woven branches and beaten earth. Inside the huts are carpets or mats, there is no water and no electricity. Everything is done at the river which is 2/3 km away and for electricity those who can afford it solve it with a solar panel where inevitably the phone and a radio have supremacy over everything.
The women work searching for metal as well as at home or caring for children. The men usually dig, transport and trade goods and merchandise. The village is not organised as a single structure, but each family has its own hut and cleans and arranges the adjacent space, without any particular logic. Along the sides of the road there are many sales structures like shops, from food to clothing to work materials. Everything is sold or exchanged.
Even the work at first glance is not organised in an orderly manner, but it works because each family has its own space adapted to the work, that is, searching for gold.
Gold is found in the mountain behind the village or in the sand, so from excavation material (mountain) or from alluvial material (sand), but the river is also dredged to collect the flakes.
The disorganised organisation means that teams have formed that work only on digging the mountain, continuously removing rocky material all day long that other teams put into large sacks and other teams carry down the mountain to the village where, once ground, it is put into other sacks to be bought by the prospectors who take them home for the work they will do on a wooden slide covered with a kind of carpet. The slide rests on a barrel (old oil barrels) full of water.
Water is also bought, stored in the centre of the village in 25-litre cans. At the top of the barrel they place a plastic colander with this ground material inside and pour water over it. The water carries away the ground rock and deposits the small gold particles at the bottom which are then skilfully collected and with the help of white mercury fused together. A treatment not exactly healthy for those who carry it out.
Thus we meet Mr. Dj who is responsible for the artisan miners of this village which counts about 3000 people. He explains that 70/80% of what comes out of their work is sold outside the local market. They take it to Mali, which is 40 km away, and have no transport problems. On the contrary, if they had to take it to Dakar, as sometimes someone ventures to do, the risk becomes very high. He tells us that a miner was robbed on a coach of 50 grams of metal. Dj is a very careful person and weighs what he says. The whole region extracts about 3000 kg a year and only 500/600 kg of product will be sold in Senegal. He has managed to involve 17 groups of women who work at the sieve. Each village has about 200 hectares of autonomous territory.
He signals that I can film, asks if I want to see the samples, tells me he does not want faces to be seen if the person does not consent... not to steal the image. A sign of respect and authority.
The images will speak for themselves. Mrs. Anta, who later took us under her care, speaks perfectly three local dialects, naturally French as they were a colony of France and an English you would not expect. She is from Mali, 55 years old and lived for 35 years in Brussels where she worked with her husband in a cleaning business. When her husband died, everything died. She has family in Mali where she still sends the money she earns. There now, in that field, she has everything she needs. She tells us that if it were not so, she would already be dead of hunger.
She lets us into her house, it is divided between day and night areas, she shows us how she works and that in the sacks full of earth she bought there is certainly gold. Anta is a proud person, she even offers us a Coca-Cola and tells us that the work is hard, but that in Europe it was worse. She had no contact with the outside world except work. I believe her, it is a concept I have heard very often in these years. TV shows what is not. The illusion is strong. I repay her with a roll of kitchen paper, she dries her face, gives me a broad smile. She appreciated it. She smells of cleanliness, a different scent, white. She carries it around with the delicacy used with a child.
We return to the car, still 47 degrees, still 70 km for the much-needed shower. In the evening other people arrive, they want to know the reason for our visit. They are part of a semi-governmental organisation, projects concerning the safety of people working in the metal extraction sector. Safety on how to manage a trade that, if organised scrupulously, would bring many benefits to the area. We sit and listen. There are three types of settlements. The industrial one, organised and sealed. The rural artisan one, which has always existed, organised in the villages of the local inhabitants and regulated by the elders. Finally, the artisan one, which arises thanks to the gathering of people who come from everywhere, often without any documents and without history, regulated hopefully by common sense.
Finally morning, we leave the bungalow where the air conditioning spared us, at night it is still 35 degrees. The word has spread, other people ask about us, they sit and wait patiently. They talk with the guide, ask what we have to offer, what we came to do, want to know if we are buyers or adventurers. They tell us about when years ago a white man worked as a buyer gaining their trust. Poorly placed since he had metal handed over and they never saw it again. Six months of work of an entire village stolen. They no longer had money to buy the essentials for survival.
It’s the same everywhere, whites who do not trust blacks, blacks who do not trust whites. The guide advises to leave, the good people, as he calls them, we have already met. It is not the case to meet the bad ones!
800 km return, with a mountain behind us that holds in its belly a metal that, all in all, gives every day what is necessary for the survival of entire villages. Conflicting feelings and judgments that clash continuously in the lively discussions we have on the way back, between the terrible working conditions that we Europeans do not accept, and their way of seeing life.
Perhaps this is the difference. For them it is simple survival.
