« Recent developments | Main | More birds from Burkina »

September 16, 2007

Essakane Part 1: A Gold Mining Village

There really is gold in them there hills…

I go over to Essakane occasionally, about 40km from Gorom-Gorom, to visit the pastor there. It is one of those bizarre and disturbing paradoxes: the least developed region of the 4th poorest country in the world – and there is a rich deposit of gold there. The question is whether that gold will bring any joy or blessing to the region. Or whether – as so often in such cases – it will only be a cause of grief, conflict, degradation and immorality.

The Mixed Blessing of Essakane Gold
Certainly, since gold was discovered in Essakane, the town that sprung up around the gold has seen mixed blessing. The gold drew people from all over West Africa to mine the gold by hand. People dig holes going down to about 30m, then follow the seams of gold, burrowing reportedly up to 60m along, resulting in a network of unsupported tunnels, which of course collapse occasionally, killing those inside, with no hope of recovery. You count the shoes at the hole entrance to see how many people died. Others less courageous or foolhardy just dig down to the “gravel layer” at 7m depth, and others, mostly women, pan the surface rocks in search of an easy find.

Most people find very little of course, barely scratching a living. Nevertheless, in such a poor region, that “little” has been a vital source of income to people struggling to feed their families. And there is of course always the hope that that big find – the lottery win – will be just in that next rock. A few people do get rich quickly that way, but local lore has it that such money is not “blessed” – too often it gets wasted on flashy motorbikes and ghettoblasters and watches and drink, and houses that never get finished before the money runs out again. It is not seen as benefiting the person’s life, family, and community.

Meanwhile, respiratory disease is rife among the diggers. And disease of all kinds prosper in the ramshackle sprawl of temporary shelters with poor or no sanitation, and virtually no water supply. Mat shelters used to be the norm until the fires that occasionally destroyed the readily flammable temporary homes finally prompted people to build in mud brick. And crime, prostitution (with accompanying STDs and HIV, of course), and drug use follow the gold money. There is little sense of community. A local paper described it recently as the “wild west”.

A pretty horrible place, really. Yet people continue to work here, because they often see little alternative. In a good year, people’s fields in the area don’t give enough to feed a family for a year. And good years are rare. So after every harvest, the numbers at Essakane swell again with people seeking to make ends meet.

The Church in Essakane
Pastor Ousseini and his family have a small church in Essakane. The town’s market day is Sunday, so even several of the Christian traders in the area end up going to market rather than church. There are not really enough people in the church to support him, but he refuses to work the gold himself, preferring to trust God to provide. He also goes out to spend time with local people, and help them with their problems, and share the good news of Christ. “If people searched for God with the same fervour with which they search for gold, this town would be a different place,” he says.

And now Gold Fields has moved in to Essakane – the fourth largest gold mining company in the world, apparently. What is that bringing to Essakane...?

More soon.

Tags: africa burkina burkina faso sahel gold essakane gold mine mining

Posted by Keith at September 16, 2007 11:56 AM