The Colour of Gold (9 page)

Isaiah's eyes
opened wider and he nodded.

"I've heard of
that place and the miners who work there." he said.

It wasn't long
after Isaiah had moved into his accommodation at the top of the
apartment building that he had begun to hear stories about illegal
gold miners who searched for gold in the hundreds of abandoned gold
mines scattered across the gold-bearing reef known as the
Witwatersrand Reef that stretched for over three hundred and fifty
kilometres and averaged one hundred and fifty kilometres in width.
Although most of these abandoned mines had been sealed with walls
of concrete, illegal miners found ways to bypass these barriers and
search for the gold left by the inefficient mining methods of the
past. More efficient methods of extracting the gold from the ore
also encouraged these men to turn to this unlawful form of
mining.

One of his
roommates, Johnson, appeared to have a sound knowledge of these
illegitimate miners.

"Most of the
abandoned mines are in the buffer zone between the white towns and
cities and the black townships." Johnson said in response to
Isaiah's enquiries. "This huge wasteland is covered with gum trees
and bush and has hundreds of dumps of white sand that has been
extracted from the now-abandoned mines and treated to remove the
gold."

"Do these men
make a good living?" Isaiah asked.

"No." Johnson
replied. "If they did there would be no workers working on the
legitimate mines. They would all be working in the abandoned mines.
The reason these men work the abandoned mines is the hope of
striking a rich vein and making a fortune. I have never heard of
anyone doing this though. Most of these men only make enough to
survive and as these are difficult times, any work is better than
none. The only men that make money are the dealers who sell
explosives that are stolen from the big mines and the men who buy
the illegal gold."

"Is it as
dangerous as working in a legitimate mine?" Isaiah asked.

"It's possibly
even more dangerous." Johnson said. "Apart from the rock falls,
deadly gasses and other accidents there's also the constant danger
from rival illegal mining gangs who often murder miners and steal
their gold. There is also no back-up so if miners are trapped by a
rock fall there is nobody to rescue them even if there predicament
becomes known. Then there is also the possibility of being caught
by the police and sent to jail. The mines employ security forces to
hunt down illegal miners or inform on them. Extracting the gold
from the rock is also very dangerous as the miners use a method
that involved heating mercury and the fumes from this process are
highly dangerous."

"Who buys the
gold from these miners?" Isaiah asked.

"There are many
illegal gold buyers and they are the people who make the most
money." Johnson said. "But they are not to be trusted. They know
that if they cheat you, you cannot run to the authorities. There
are also buyers who are working for the police and trap the illegal
gold miners who then get sent to jail."

"If there are
so many dangers," Isaiah asked, "then why do the miners work in the
abandoned mines?"

"Firstly,
because they cannot get work anywhere else and secondly, there's
always the chance that they will hit a rich vein and never have to
work again." Johnson replied.

"Who are these
illegal gold miners?" Isaiah asked.

"They are
mostly men from the gold and platinum mines who have lost their
jobs for one reason or another and can't find any other work." the
man said. "They are not allowed to be here because they don't have
work permits but they refuse to return to their homelands as there
is no work there at all. Many of these men stay underground for
months at a time, constantly searching for the gold that will set
them free."

Isaiah thanked
his friend for his information but decided not to take the matter
any further. He was quite happy to work in Hillbrow.

Now, as he
walked Isaiah walked South he began to wonder if this wasn't the
solution to his problems. He tried to remember what else he had
heard about the buffer zone between the white city of Johannesburg
and the black metropolis of Soweto. It had originally been the
place where all the small gold mines had been established but these
mines had proven to be unsustainable as the bigger mines developed
mining and extraction processes that they couldn't match. These
small mines had been abandoned but now, with the price of gold so
high, it was possible for illegal miners to exploit these old
diggings and survive.

Isaiah walked
through the central business area, still in awe of the towering
buildings that he passed. He walked through the area known as the
Southern Suburbs, staring at the thousands of small red-roofed
houses built right next to each other and that had housed the
families of the white men that worked on the mines for over eighty
years.

Eventually
Isaiah saw the huge blue gum trees and thick bush that covered the
vast buffer zone between the white and black cities. As he drew
closer he noticed the piles of papers, plastic shopping bags, empty
tin cans and bottles and builder's rubble that littered the area.
He also saw the huge mounds of white sand made from the crushed and
processed rock that had been extracted deep below the earth's
surface at such a deadly cost in human lives during the more than
eighty years that man had been searching for gold on the vast
gold-bearing reef known as the Witwatersrand.

Furtively
Isaiah moved into the desolate dusty forest, the dry grass
crackling beneath his feet. In the distance he could hear the roar
of the traffic travelling on the main road between Johannesburg and
Soweto. Birds chirped in the branches above him. As he walked he
occasionally glimpsed other black people, mostly dressed in rags,
and huddling around small fires cooking food or lounging in the
shade of the huge trees. There were also a number of small hovels
made of cardboard boxes, sheets of rusty corrugated iron sheets and
large pieces of plastic sheeting. Whenever he heard people
approaching he quickly hid in a nearby clump of bushes, not wanting
to be confronted with anyone until he felt more comfortable in
these surroundings.

After wandering
about the vast wasteland for several hours Isaiah noticed a small
group of six men wearing dirty overalls and orange hardhats with
lamps attached to their fronts and standing around a large hole in
the ground. A huge mound of white sand lay nearby. As he needed to
do something about his predicament he walked closer to the men. He
raised his right hand in a gesture of friendliness.

"I'm looking
for work as a miner." Isaiah said. "I come from Natal. Can you help
me?"

The men stared
at Isaiah suspiciously.

"How do we know
that you aren't a police spy?" a large man who appeared to be the
group's leader asked in a harsh voice.

"I'm not a
police spy but I have no way of proving it." Isaiah replied. "What
proof do you need?"

The big man,
completely bald with large protruding eyes, a broad flat nose and
thick lips that exposed strong white teeth studied Isaiah, his eyes
narrowing as he tried to assess the stranger.

"Have you
worked on a mine before?" he asked.

"No." Isaiah
replied. "I have just recently come to Jo'burg from Natal where I
lived and worked on my father's farm. I was going to work on the
Deep Reef Gold Mine but decided to work in Hillbrow instead. Then I
got into trouble and came here to hide from the police."

The big man
nodded and turned to the other men.

"What do you
guys think?" he asked. "Is this man genuine?"

The men stared
at Isaiah. He stared back, his expression neutral. He saw the men
begin to nod their heads.

"He's okay."
one of the men said.

The others
nodded their heads vigorously.

"Okay." the big
leader said. "My name's Paul and I'm the leader of these men who
all work here in this abandoned gold mine. If you really want to,
you can join us now. We are just about to go back down underground.
You must understand something though. It's very dangerous work and
there isn't much money in this type of work unless you strike a big
gold vein and I have never heard of this happening yet. But, if we
didn't think that it might happen to us we wouldn't be here now.
Are you prepared to risk your life for a possible fortune?"

"Yes." Isaiah
replied. "I'll join your team. Maybe I'll bring you luck."

The men grinned
and began to descend into the darkness of the mine tunnel. Isaiah
followed, walking next to Paul.

Isaiah followed
the men through the darkness, the lamps on their helmets casting
beams that exposed the ragged walls of the tunnel. The tunnel
sloped downwards quite steeply and zigzagged as it progressed
deeper into the earth. The men walked in silence their steps
echoing off the walls of the tunnel. Eventually, after what seemed
like hours to Isaiah, they reached a tunnel that branched off from
the tunnel that they had been walking down. They turned into the
level tunnel. Behind them Isaiah noticed what must be the main
shaft that went down to the deeper tunnels.

"We'll give you
a hardhat when we get to our base." Paul said. "In the mean time
walk in the centre of the tunnel along the hopper tracks so that
you don't hit your head on the roof."

"What are
hopper tracks for?" Isaiah asked.

"Hoppers are
also known as coco pans." Paul said. "They're large steel
containers on wheels that carry the broken rock from the mine face
to the main shaft where it's hauled to the surface to be crushed
and treated to extract the gold. The big mines now have electric
trains that carry the broken rock to the mine shaft. In the old
days the workers had to push the hoppers. It must have been
back-breaking work."

"How deep
underground are we?" Isaiah asked.

"Actually,
we're not that far underground." Paul said. "We're just over a
kilometre down. Many of these mines go as deep as two kilometres
down and the big mines like Deep Reef go down almost four
kilometres."

The group
walked along the level tunnel and again Isaiah was astonished at
the length.

"Where is your
base?" he asked.

"It's about
five kilometres along this tunnel." Paul replied.

"Five
kilometres!" Isaiah exclaimed.

"Yes." Paul
said. "We would go a lot further but the tunnel's blocked where our
base is due to a rock fall."

"How to you get
the gold out of the rock?" Isaiah asked.

"First we have
to find rock that we think has gold in it." Paul said. "We look for
small specks of gold on the rock and then break out those pieces
with hammers and crowbars. It would be a lot easier if we could use
explosives but they're too expensive. Then we break the rock up
into powder with hammers, sift it through a fine mesh and mix it
with mercury. We heat the mixture in a small steel dish and this
separated the gold from the rock. Then we put the mercury into a
strong rag and squeeze it out. The gold is left inside the cloth.
We store the gold and when we have enough we take it to a dealer
and split the money that we get."

"Sounds like
very hard work." Isaiah said.

"It is." Paul
replied. "But then, beggars can't be choosers. All of us were
unemployed before we came here, and like you, many of us were being
hunted by the police."

"Do other
miners use explosives?" Isaiah asked.

"Some do but,
as I say, it's too expensive." Paul said.

"Where do they
get the explosives?"

"From the big
mines." Paul said. "Large quantities of dynamite are stolen from
these mines every year by black miners who sell it to illegal
explosives dealers."

"How did you
learn about mining?" Isaiah asked.

"I started
working on a mine in called Roodepoort Deep Gold Mine many years
ago but then I was fired for assaulting a white miner and I
couldn't get work on any of the other mines." Paul said. "The
government wanted to send me back to the Transkei where I was born
but there was no work there so I came here. I've been working here
for three years now."

Finally the
group of men reached their base. Several lanterns were lit and
Isaiah was surprised and pleased to see how neat and orderly the
place was. An area along the wall of the tunnel had been divided up
into small sleeping lots, each with an air mattress with a blanket
folded on top of it and a large suitcase to store belongings. At
the far side of the camp a number of brass primus stoves, a variety
of steel pots, pans and plates and two fireplaces made of rock with
steel grids on top indicated the cooking area. Food was stored in
two large steel kitchen cupboards. On the other side of the tunnel
stacks of mining tools and jars of a silver substance that Isaiah
presumed was mercury, leant against the wall.

"You'll have to
sleep on the ground until you can buy a mattress." Paul told
Isaiah. "It's always warm down here so you probably won't need a
blanket and I'll find a plate for you for your food. I'll keep a
record of your expenses and take it off your share of the money
that we get when we sell the gold that we've collected since you
arrived here."

"When will that
be?" Isaiah asked.

"It usually
takes us about six to eight weeks to collect enough gold." Paul
said. "Then we sell it, buy more provisions and share what's left
over."

Isaiah settled
into the routine of the camp and was soon accepted by all the men.
The schedule was very basic. Because there was no indication of day
or night each man had a wristwatch and a calendar had been
scratched onto the wall of the tunnel with white chalk and each day
recorded. The day began with the lanterns being lit and breakfast
of maize porridge with sugar and long-life milk eaten. The team
then split up into two groups, one to break the rock off the walls
of the tunnel with hammers and crowbars and the other to pound the
rock into powder using hammers. It was Paul's responsibility to
select parts of the tunnel wall that he considered to contain
gold.