Torn between two ‘golds’

matter fire or the frying pan, choices are difficult to make.
Young people, men and women, in Chikuti, Makonde District of Mashonaland West, have to grapple with this kind of dilemma.

This is an area where cotton, referred to as white gold, is grown and has traditionally provided income for families.
Where seasons regulate the rhythm of life, the crop has been the nerve centre of activities here marking out times of work and play; little and plenitude.
While the older folk might hold back and possibly hope for better days, the young have thrown caution to the wind.

They have ventured into illegal gold panning to earn a living.
A recent visit by The Herald to the area showed people who have abandoned the white softness of cotton to get down to the business of gold panning.
People from surrounding villages of Chikuti, Two Tree, Kasimure and villages 5 and 6 swarmed Angwa River to pan for gold.

“Growing cotton is not profitable and you have to wait for months to get so little money,” says 24-year-old Roger Machingura a gold panner.
“You can make US$35 a day which is the price of a gramme of gold if you are lucky. You get $3,50 for a point which is 0,01grammes. Sometimes you get only two points the whole day. But the prospects of getting money for your upkeep are better than when you grow cotton,” he said.

He revealed that he is the only one in a family of three that is in gold panning as his siblings are still bound by the family to help with growing cotton on the family land.
For an unmarried young man, it is all about satisfying the physical and immediate needs.
“I buy food and clothes,” with the money, Machingura told The Herald when the paper caught up with him at a makeshift shopping centre about a kilometre from Angwa River.

The shopping centre, or rather compound, pulsates with the life that gold panning has brought to this area.
There are bars, shops and stalls that are made from rudimentary materials such as poles and mud and thatching grass.
Also here are mobile shops as traders sell their wares from cars.

Cars belonging to buyers complete the picture of this compound.
Men and women who would have made a fortune down at the river come here to sell and spend. George Chinhare operates a grocery shop.
He is one of around 80 traders that have set shop here.

Among traders are prostitutes as well who follow the glitter of gold from surrounding areas and as far as Karoi, Chinhoyi, Banket and Harare.
Chinhare says business is good here, fluctuating between peak summer days and low but good days this time of the year.
“In summer there is a lot of water in the river to wash the gold with, he explained, “but as the water levels go down it becomes difficult and slow.”

“I make between US$50 and $70 on good days and when business is slow $30-$40.”
Chinhare has seen a lot on this sprawling compound.
His tales range from the tragicomic like the case in which a female teacher at Chikuti Primary School lost a fortune to conmen who sold her brass instead of gold.

There are also sad cases when robbers pounce on buyers and panners. Then there is the scourge of the world’s oldest profession.
“Prostitutes come from around the area and as far as Karoi. They charge between US$2 and $8 and service is given in the nearby bushes,” he said, adding that cases of sexually-transmitted diseases were common.
Down at the river, the industry among panners resembles that of a nest of ants.

Mother of three Cathrine Tembo (27) has joined her husband Dickson Hweruzani among other panners trying to eke out a living.
Her legs immersed in the shallow water under the bridge, she bends down, digs her metal pan into the bed of the river and with her strong arms lifts the pan laden with sand and water.
She shakes the pan in gentle, calculated winnowing movements which send the pebbles and sand particles cascading back onto the river bed carried by the water.

Gradually the pan empties of its sandy contents and fine silt remains at the bottom.
The woman gingerly scoops water from the river with her right hand into the pan.
More silt is washed away and tiny glittering particles are seen on the base of the pan and in the remaining silt.

Convinced, the woman decants the contents of the pan into a much smaller bowl.
Tembo repeats the process over and over again.
She might be lucky today; perhaps not.

But she knows she has to do it to complement her husband and their farming activities so as to give their children something to eat.
“I saw what others achieved with proceeds of gold panning,” she said her face glistening with sweat.
“After the end of the day my husband and I pool our money and we use it for our needs,” she said.

In the last two years, revealed Tembo, the family has managed to buy a televison set, an inverter and a generator which achievement is a source of pride where such luxuries help soothe the body that works.
However, there are no such daily comforts for Lloyd Tonderai, a father of two who trekked all the way from Mhangura to find gold here.
Tonderai and two others have joined forces to prospect for gold on the land near the river.

One digs into the earth, another carries the soil to the river where another man washes the soil for gold.
As these processes require different levels of exertion, the men rotate roles.
Tonderai who has been panning for gold since 2004 after building contracts in which he worked in Kariba ran out says this business brings food on the table.

He said: “I spend a week or two here and go home during weekends.
“Everyday is different and sometimes you can get just three points and sometimes seven points or a gramme. After we sell at the end of the day we give one person the day’s takings and the following day we rotate.”
And when it is time to retire to bed, the three men huddle together in a burrow in the earth, only to start the day at six on the morrow.

This is not one of the lives to relish.
But Tonderai believes that authorities could help with providing claims to groups of small scale miners so that they could be regularized and profitable.
Panners along Angwa River are working on someone else’s claim and they sell their produce to the claim holder and other buyers.

On the other hand, as their activities are illegal under the mining laws of the country and as they leave a trail of destruction on the environment, they can expect little sympathy.
Gold panners also use chemicals such as mercury and cyanide which are harmful to human and aquatic life.
Police occasionally raid panners and arrest them. The Environmental Management Authority is equally dismayed.

EMA’s Mashonaland West spokesperson Mrs Lenia Mbira told The Herald that the authority carries out blitzes against panners and quarriers and slaps them with fines. The fines ranged from US$500 to levels dependent on the extent of environmental damage or whether offenders are first timers or habitual offenders.
It is not all fury on the part of EMA though, as it provides for the regularization of mining activities.

“We are saying that if people engage in their activities they should do it in a sustainable manner and use resources for the future.
“After extraction there should be something left for future generations,” she said.
She invited small players in the extractive industry to form groups and regularize their operations.

This also empowers them to be accorded such licences for Environmental Impact Assesment, milling, substance storage, brick moulders, sand extraction among others.
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