FORAGING IN THE BOWELS OF THE EARTH

FORAGING IN THE BOWELS OF THE EARTH

A famer, that’s what I was,
Then came the mining company.
They wanted our land
Said mining was more lucrative
They were after gold deposits
That lay in the bowels of the land.


They told us tales of revenue in hordes
They preached development
They made use of big words
Like compensation and resettlement.
We all agreed,
The sums they mentioned were a dream to us.
I let go of my farm,
Said goodbye to pepper and cassava,
Farm was all I had,
A gold mine that fed three wives and 12 children.


Barely planned,
I just took my money
Went on a binge.
Began spending,
We lived like kings.
Our lives were colourful,
Forgot all about tomorrow,
Swept it under the rug.
Lived for the moment,
After all, tomorrow’s never promised.


All too soon,
Money run out,
In came hardship and misery,
We really fell on hard times.
Three wives and 12 kids,
Seems like a death sentence now.
Two square meals per day
Was my recurring nightmare
Utility bills, a hangman’s noose.
Three wives and 12 kids,
Far worse than a mid-afternoon migraine.
I lamented,
Sat for hours on end underneath the palm tree,
Began taking solace in it’s seductive brew,
This went on for days.
Then my friend Kofi came to me one morning
Whetting my abject poverty with tales of a gold mine.


Kofi is my name,
I worked in the mines all my life,
I was neither a C.E.O nor C.F.O
Was way down the bottom of the pile
But the mines paid good, took real good care of me.
Planning ahead? Who needs a plan,
I had the perfect plan of line
The mine was my only plan.
I never planned for life out of the mine,
I was a man of the mines,
That was my only home.


I felt feint whenever my feet were above ground,
My home was underneath it.
I was a mole,
I lived in the bowels of the earth
Busy foraging for precious gold.
For years on end,
I lived with pockets lined with gold,
I never fell on hard times,
Have you ever seen a hungry man sitting by a gold mine?
Impossible, that only happens in a bad dream.


Then one morning, a meeting was called
This we were told,
A machine had been procured,
One that could replace a hundred low level
Mine hands,
We were to be laid off in the coming month.
We demonstrated
We pleaded
And we picketted
But the machine was the new today
Mine hands, the most recent extinct breed.
We were handed letters
Sent to seminars on life after the mines
In a bid to prepare us for life outside the mine shafts.


They gave us money
Severance packages
That’s what they called it.
They sent us away with money
And the shirt on our backs
Into a cruel world that rarely smiled.
I lived off my severance
And searched for a job.
Sadly, my skills were only useful in the mines
I was good with explosives,
My specialty was detonations,
Spoke terrible English.
I was only good at digging gold
Had no degree,
No formal education.


Never cultivated the habit of investing
Never really put my severance to good use.
Money run out
And so did my friends.
I seem to run out of friends when
I run out of money.
I guess money does bring multitudes of friends.
Heard of a small-scale mining group nearby,
Met them, we had a chat
Once a miner, always a miner.


Kofi came to me one early morning,
I was seated majestically among empty calabashes
With one in hand that was half full.
All he talked about was mining gold
But I was not a miner,
Never met gold in my life before
A farmer’s was what I was.
He said all I needed was brute strength
And a love of hardwork.
I decided to do it for the money
But all Kofi cared about was going back under the earth,
I guess he was in love with the dirt.


We went to the mine site two days later,
We dove straight into the bowels of the earth.
It was extremely hard work,
No protective gear
Little supervision
And the logs propping the
Roof of the mine looked shaky and weak.
Women and children worked in the mine too
I met a boy, he was barely ten,
Busy doing a marathon with a shovel.
Later heard this line of work was illegal
Our honest work is termed galamsey.


I’d rather live illegally than drown in poverty,
I prefer galamsey to drunken inebriation
Under the old palm tree.
In the coming mines,
I began to feel at home,
A farmer, busy mining gold.
Our mine has collapsed twice
But so far we’ve had no casualties.
Kofi keeps me going,
It seems he runs on something greater
Than a will to survive,
It seems the sight of dirt
And life in the shafts bring him to life.


Whenever on land,
He barely breaks a smile.
All he keeps asking is,
When do we go back down?
I sometimes feel he was not born to live on land,
He’s so much at home when underneath it.
Yesterday the shaft caved in suddenly,
Luckily, no one was hurt,
We were out on break by then.
All we did was clear out the shaft
And burrow deeper,
As if nothing had happened,
Never a dull moment in the shafts.
For three years now, I keep postponing
My exit from the galamsey scene.
Said I’d go back farming after a while
Seem to lose my nerve whenever the time draws near,
Guess I’ve been seduced by the mine shaft.
I now understand Kofi’s love affair with dirt,
Guess I’ve now got dirt in my veins,
Cut me now and I just might bleed dirt.


I harbour fears of being buried alive
But that looks more attractive than my former life.
Family’s doing well now
I’ve got plans for the future too.
Set aside money
Bought acres of land
Built a few houses
Among other things.
One day, the ground might take me away,
Some day, the dirt shall swallow me whole,
Make me a home in the belly of the whale.
I pray come that time,
I would have left behind enough
For my children and their mothers.
I love the mine, totally embraced it now
Not even the law can part me from the mine,
Till death do us part, that is when we shall part,
I forever remain a man of the shafts.