EXHAUSTED AND CAKED in red mud, they plough wearily on, searching toxic water for traces of gold. Some glance west from where they fled, across the border in Zimbabwe, towards home. There, the life of miners is even harder. At least there are no soldiers standing over them with assault rifles here in the gold mines of the Manica Province in Mozambique.
Whole families have crossed the border from Zimbabwe to join the hunt for treasure and to escape hunger and political strife. Not so long ago the country was the breadbasket of southern Africa—Mozambicans would cross into Zimbabwe looking for work, but now it is the other way round. The economy of Zimbabwe has declined rapidly in the past decade, resulting in widespread poverty and skyrocketing unemployment. Some attribute the devastation to the country’s role in the war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo as well as to land reform policies implemented by President Robert Mugabe after 2000. Others claim that sanctions imposed by Western powers in response to Mugabe’s controversial policies have crippled the economy.
In the mines of Manica, flakes of gold are exchanged for the local currency, the metical (MT 26.99 = $1), but much of that hard-earned cash doesn’t make it out. Alongside the gold trade is another bustling business—alcohol, the curse of miners in developing countries around the world. The drink of choice here is straight gin. The families of some of these artisinal miners wait under makeshift stick huts and eat barbequed mice while the men dance and drink away their earnings. Much of the hard-earned benefits of this risky occupation never make it to their intended recipients, the family members back in Zimbabwe.
Zimbabwe has one of the lowest life expectancies in the world. Discovering gold, if the profits are not all drunk, can literally save lives. But the search destroys lives, too. Diggers handle toxic mercury without protective gear to extract gold from the red earth. They risk suffocation at the bottom of fragile mineshafts that at times collapse and all too often bury occupants.
A few find enough gold to change their lives, but most do not. Many become ill and some pay the ultimate price in their search for gold.