The Andilana Avaratra quarry is certainly home to riches, but the wages paid to its operators are far from commensurate with the dangerous nature of their work. Operating in tandem with their “bosses”, who give them instructions and supply them with food, the workers descend into the quarry without helmets or oxygen.
After a berrylium rush until March 2021 that drew thousands of people, Andilana Avaratra illustrates the image of a decadent site where insecurity, danger and poverty rub shoulders with immense wealth. The Andilana Avaratra quarry, in the Amparafaravola district, has created a unique ecosystem, with thousands of miners from all over the world trying their luck. It’s a human hive that gravitates around the camps at all hours of the day and night.
There’s no time for digging in search of a good vein: here, we go down into the holes, day and night. Around ten men take it in turns to dig each hole, which goes down to over 50 m below ground. “This is the ideal depth for finding quality stones”, they say. Digging a hole with a diameter of one metre that goes down to 80 m underground takes them more than a month of hard work, using only the strength of their arms. Of course, no one wears any special equipment to protect their heads, hands or bodies. Worse still, they have no oxygen tanks at their disposal. Instead, the stone diggers use cellophane bags which they transform into makeshift bottles: one person is permanently dedicated to this job, to avoid suffocation. The slightest carelessness is fatal for the whole group. In four months of operations, the Andilana Avaratra quarry has seen a number of deaths in such difficult conditions, a consequence of the lack of safety in these artisanal operations.
Know-how and experience
Digging in the earth to extract these stones has to be done in teams. Using a rotating system, each digger takes turns using a crowbar and shovel. It’s best for diggers to have some experience before embarking on this adventure. Generally speaking, they are men who have already embarked on the quest for stones in the past, and who decide to continue their activities from site to site. “You have to know how to find the right vein before digging. To do this, we find out where the first stone was extracted in the quarry. It’s a secret known only to those who have worked in mines and quarries for years and have a good knowledge of stones,” confides Randriamandranto, 47. “The danger of digging without having an idea of how to proceed is that your gallery may lead to a large boulder, for example: your search will be doomed to failure and you’ll have wasted time for nothing.”
In this case, unless they have the right equipment, stone finders prefer to abandon the gallery and dig a new one. Otherwise, they use dynamite to blow up the obstacle. The sticks of dynamite needed to unblock a gallery cost around 400,000 Ariary: this is a special type of dynamite, used in mining, whose handling requires the know-how of an experienced technician. This type of dynamite stick has not yet been used in Andilana Avaratra.
Each to his role, each to his share
In the quarries, everyone has a role to play. The diggers, on one side, who go down into the galleries. Then, on the other side, those they call “bosses”. The latter take care of the former: they supply them with food and basic necessities, and give them the tools they need to dig. The smallholders follow their bosses’ instructions. The bosses can buy all the stones extracted at a modest price. They can also share the harvest with their men, who then sell their shares back to them at an equally modest price. Finally, the bosses can resell the stones to their customers, setting their own prices. How the profits are distributed, and whether the bosses take over the stones, depends on the negotiations between the diggers and their bosses. But one rule is immutable: diggers don’t get paid whatever they earn, and bosses don’t get reimbursed if the gallery doesn’t have any particular stones.
In general, they agree to divide the earnings proportionally. If there are ten men in a team, the harvest is divided into eleven shares: ten for the diggers and one for the boss. Sometimes, groups agree on a 50% distribution: half the harvest goes to the workers, regardless of the size of the crop, and the other half goes to the boss. Finally, the rule of thirds is also applied: a first third of the earnings is given to the digging team, the second third is taken by the owner of the galery and the last third goes to the boss, who supplies food and equipment. Workers are then free to sell their stones to any potential customer. Expenses allocated to each team are estimated at three to four million Ariary every fortnight, not including the cost of the weekend’s drunken fun.
Tricks and tricks of the trade
Not all galleys are able to give stones systematically. Not every miner is destined for a pharaonic payoff. Some dig for years, moving from quarry to quarry, region to region, without ever stumbling across “the” stone that will change their lives. Most of the time, they come up empty-handed. This Russian roulette opens the door to little tricks, some of them outrageous. Some decide to swallow the small stones they find and evacuate them the next day through the saddle: a “trick” that allows them to conceal their finds. Others decide to cut a relatively deep wound in one leg with a blade to hide the tiny stones, before stitching up the wound themselves or with the help of an accomplice. They wait until they leave the quarry to reopen the wound and retrieve the stones.
The most common method is to hide the stones in a corner of one’s clothing or lamba: but this technique is so obvious that no-one dares to use it any more, as it’s the clothes and fabric that will be the first to be searched when leaving the galleries and quarries. If a man is caught by his peers in possession of concealed stones, the penalty is severe: the offender risks paying with his life. And as we all know; these places often escape the control of law enforcement agencies. And then there are those who have trouble managing their earnings. Givan, 28, from Antsirabe in the Vakinankaratra region, talks about his experience. ”At one time, I found stones worth 30 million Ariary. But despite this huge sale, I wasn’t able to invest in anything lasting. I had fun, spent money and squandered it all in this way”. Today, Givan is back in the Alaotre Mangoro quarries, looking for new stones to make his fortune. Unfortunately, the young man teamed up with some thugs who reneged on their deal after extracting the stones from the gallery.
Cover photo source: https://www.iied.org/
