One African, the owner of a gold mining company, for a reasonable fee, took us (me and my friend) as colleagues to his gold mine, and showed how they do it in Africa.
The abundance of people immediately catches your eye, and 80-90% of them are either resting, or chatting, well, or not busy with any work. Only a small group of people works hard and stops after working for a short time. Laziness is in the blood of blacks. The hubbub, fun, laughter is heard everywhere, the work is more like a party than hard labor.
Before we were taken to the mine, there was a slight hitch, I suppose that children were still working there, but they were driven out of there in advance. This is just my guess, I can't say for sure.
This is the general plan of a career. Mainly women work in the left career, and men in the right. Men are doing more difficult work - they throw gold-bearing sands on the device, which is connected to a water pop.
The device has a sprung bunker where sand is thrown, which muscular guys shake with their hands. The pump pumps water from a puddle and blurs the sand and carries away light particles that do not contain gold, and the gold settles on rubber mats called "Canadian moss".
Promotional video:
Most of the people in the career are busy with something like this:
Holey sleeves of pumps are stretched everywhere, water is sourcing everywhere, hoses periodically jump off the nozzles and fountains form, which amuse others a lot. Fountain!
This kid rolled up rags and smeared them with clay, and then put it all on his head. Why does this hussar need such a hat? I don't know, maybe she's protecting his head from the heat.
Women have more patience and accuracy and less strength (although looking at African women, I would still argue who they have here is stronger, women or men) and therefore it is they who are entrusted with bringing the concentrate that has settled on Canadian moss in trays. They are engaged in this work in a left-wing career, so as not to interfere with the men, and the water in their career is more muddy. If you look closely, you can see that they have plastic bags on their heads, you can see the dirt from the hair is difficult to wash out.
Old ladies. Instead of special trays, ordinary basins for washing clothes. Although they sometimes come across, if you look closely:
In my opinion, one of them is even pregnant.
The soil is separated from large stones using such a high-tech device. It is curious that throughout the country I have seen the same design of this washer everywhere. Apparently one person (I suppose that it is most likely white), for lack of the best materials at hand on his knee, designed something similar, and then the Africans began to mindlessly copy this design, like the Chinese cars and equipment. And yes, they also copy iron devices for washing gold and never try to improve them.
When the concentrate has been rinsed on the device and brought on a tray by the diligent hands of black women, the gold is separated with mercury. Mercury sticks together particles of gold, then it is evaporated on fire, and only gold remains in the form of such balls. They are heavier than lead. In this form, it is sold outbid. I don’t think they are refining it under their own conditions or smelting ingots.
“One African stuck a finger in his ass and pulled out four pounds of AU:“Don't judge a pun, my friend came up with, asked to insert it here.
This is what gold looks like when polished. (I already washed it).
As a specialist, I will briefly tell you that everything is being done absolutely wrong, after such mining there is a lot of undeveloped gold left. Labor is low-productivity - can you imagine how much wages should be paid to all these workers? The excavation of the quarry is carried out extremely illogically, the rock mass moves back and forth twice, which leads to the loss of time and money (the washed sands and ephels merge and pour back into the quarry from where they are moved outside the quarry). It is several times cheaper to use an excavator and an industrial device and disperse all these idlers. Rather, they are certainly not idlers, they just do not know more technological and correct working off. Many pillars are likely to be missed. I am 200% sure that if you re-wash the dumps of these artisans, you can still extract a lot of gold.
Gold … Perhaps the most useless thing in the world!
An element born in the hearts of dying stars. How many workers will fall ill and die from malaria in the tropics and tuberculosis and cold in the far north before it is brought out into the world? Who knows what sea of blood was shed and still will be, by people, throughout history, in an attempt to appropriate a piece of the yellow devil? More than one TV show will be filmed about Alaska, Gayana and other places and will be shown on Discovery dining office plankton. And in the end what? Most of it will be put into deep vaults, where, most likely, it will push the world economy, another part will become an adornment of the ring finger of men and women who unsuccessfully put on rings as a sign of the union of hearts. And only a small part (10%) of it will go for really necessary things - medicine, industry and science. It doesn't make people's lives better. It would be better if you collect all those involved in it - miners, jewelers, robbers, etc., including me, and just sit down to sew comfortable shoes, then humanity would forever get rid of the problem of corns!
Oh yes, I digress, it's time to go to discover a new field!
Finally, there is no photo with a cat, but there is a photo of the Tsetse fly, a carrier of sleeping sickness and malaria.