When You Tour the African Gold Mine
When you tour the AngloGold Ashanti gold mine you will laugh at how much they charge you for “extras” like taking photos and transportation to the actual mine.
You will pay the extortionate sum because the people with you are too polite to bargain or argue.
You will then be led to a room and issued your compulsory gear: wellington boots, a blue overcoat, a neon green belt, a hard hat, and an oxygen flask.
You will quickly realize that the belt is not designed for anyone with a less-than-32-inch waist, which you’ll later think is odd because most mine workers are rather thin.
You will cinch the belt with the mysterious oxygen flask as tight as possible and remarkably find a way to position the heavy tank so it doesn’t slide past your unfeminine hips and onto the ground.
You will fantasize about the contents of the 10-pound hip flask now attached to your ‘husky’-sized belt, imagining it is actually a survival pack filled with protein bars, playing cards and whiskey. Everything you would need if trapped in a mine.
You will idly sit in your new mining attire for about an hour, wondering why nothing is happening and laughing at yourself for thinking that the tour would take place in a timely fashion.
Eventually you will be taken to the mine with your blue-clad colleagues and repeatedly be told that “safety is our first value,” as if that wasn’t clear from the numerous slogan-filled signs with oddly androgynous cartoon characters professing the importance of safety and hard work.
Finally, you will attach to your hard hat a head lamp that is connected with long rubber tubing to a comically-heavy battery pack. When you attach the pack to your belt you relinquish any remaining hope that the belt would somehow, perhaps magically, stay on your waist. You will surrender to the inescapable reality that you must hold up the belt and its contents for the next two hours.
When you are tightly packed onto a small, dilapidated elevator with fifty Ghanaian university students, you will feel slightly anxious and claustrophobic as a German tourist says to you, “We’re just like pigs.”
As you rapidly plunge 2,600 feet into the earth, the pressure will build and your ears will pop no less than six times.
You will be surprised, as you exit the elevator half a mile below the earth’s surface, at the size of the tunnels and how illuminated they are. The head lamp battery pack now will feel even more like dead weight.
When a large Land Cruiser drives by, you will marvel at the massiveness of the tunnel network. You will be dumbfounded trying to contemplate the engineering that had to occur to connect all 52 levels and miles upon miles of tunnels.
You will be led to an underground machine repair shop that has several workers climbing about an enormous yellow scoop truck.
Next to the repair shop you’ll find a small air-conditioned room where hoses are mended. Assuming that these rooms exist on every level, you will realize it is like a small underground city with people working round-the-clock in 12-hour shifts.
You will be reminded of a novel you wanted to write as a child about proto-humans that became trapped underground but managed to survive and evolve into a new species. As their subterranean colony grew, they eventually resurfaced to encounter modern-day man.
As you continue the tour you will be amazed at the level of access you are granted. You could easily reach a high-voltage electric rail that could severely burn and perhaps even kill you.
You will follow the rail to a train of giant bins filled with tons of rocks. You will witness the train dump each bin into a pit that descends another two hundred feet before leading to a conveyer belt to transport the gold-filled stones out of the mine.
You will imagine yourself being dumped with the rocks down the pit, not because you have a death wish but because it would be so easy to jump in front of the crushing stream of rocks. This thought will make you appreciate the tour because it would not be possible in the States, given the country’s penchant for litigation and the scores of crazy people who are prone to do stupid things.
You will sweat continuously due to the increased temperature and limited ventilation. Your legs will become very tired as you wish you brought water and ate a bigger breakfast. If you are lucky, you’ll be offered water by one of your tour buddies.
You will ask lots of questions, primarily about working conditions and land reclamation on open pit mining sites, and most of them will be answered by one of your friendly tour guides.
As the tour winds down, you will take part in a conversation between a Nigerian student and a mine worker about the government-owned mining company having financial difficulties and subsequently being acquired by a South African company some years ago. When the worker explains that the government now owns only 3% of the company, both conversation partners will use the word “pity” multiple times.
You will reflect on the exploitative nature of capitalism.
When you get back on the elevator you will regret standing near the outside because, as you ascend, dust will assault your eyes until they gush tears.
You will be momentarily blinded by the sun’s brightness as you emerge from the depths of the earth.
You will pass through security and be checked for pilfered valuables with a metal detector, then you will promptly remove the burdensome belt and give all your gear to a university student eagerly awaiting his turn to tour the mine.
As you exit the property and pass by towering mine shaft elevators and colossal processing plants, you will be baffled by the billions of dollars required to extract some stupid, shiny rocks from the ground.
