Trip 3 Beginnings

Returning to Anka, our base, and the villages we’ve worked in is comfortable and familiar. We find ourselves not quite picking up where we left off. We’re greeted by name and with big smiles, yet everyone is asking if we’re ‘starting Bagega’ – referring to the village that remains to be remediated. But when Simba uses one of his metaphors to explain that we’re here to assess the effectiveness of remediation, everyone nods as though this is the most logical thing. The metaphors still seem silly to me and when he says “When you plant a seed, you must come back and remove the weeds and check it’s growth” they all nod seriously in agreement as I hide a smile. These satisfying explanations travel far here and really stick in people’s brains.

I’m thinking of this because I came across a file on my computer from Phase II titled “Wisdom from Baba”. ‘Baba’ is the title for a grandfather and it’s both respectful and endearing. We had a great man working with us in Phase II whom we never called by his real name – just ‘Baba’. Baba watched out for us like a parent and took our health and safety as his number one concern. When someone had malaria, he would drive his SUV through the bush like a crazed ambulance to get him/her to the hospital. And he would share the most profound bits of wisdom with us, often religious in nature yet practical truth, during the hours of bouncing along to the villages.

“Allah put the poison [lead] deep in the ground to keep it from poisoning people, to protect us. But we dig it up for money.”

“You see, that politician, people like him because he gives away money. But what’s the use? The next day you come back for more money. Better to teach me a job, let me earn my own way.”

“You see airplanes – there’s nothing under them. Only Allah holds them in the air, nothing else.”

In Zamfara, our responsibilities are divided between technical aspects of the job (testing, characterization, quality control, landfills, mapping, risk assessment) and what we call the ‘advocacy’ program (grassroots education and dialogue, health messaging, building the foundations for a safer mining/processing campaign). This requires attention to both scientific precision to the greatest extent possible in these conditions and the ability to work effectively with people at a grassroots level.  We have great success with so many individuals with different backgrounds and strengths making the project really work. Remediation without advocacy isn’t sustainable – our work will be undone the minute people return to processing in their homes because it’s the only way they can afford to feed their families. But there is a long term, sustainable solution to be found by listening, trading knowledge, and forming solid relationships in addition to completing an effective remediation.

‘Safe Mining, Safe Money’ is a phrase that started in reference to Simba’s allegory of the day: ‘We’re not against mining. We want you to make money – lots of it! But we want you to make money and not give it to the doctor – spend it at the market or the shop. Don’t give it to the clinic because gold has made you or your children sick.’