Ghana still shows its gold streak, and more

August 07, 2011|By Marta Zaraska, Globe Correspondent

OBUASI, Ghana - A pump roars on the muddy bank of the Ofin River, drawing its yellowish waters into nearby sluice boxes. Kwami, my driver and guide, stops the car by a makeshift roadside building. The structure is humble, but I’m still excited. After all, it is a real gold mine. I am in a country that for years has been known as the Gold Coast and which has one of the largest gold reserves on the planet. Today, I’m hoping to find some.

Ghana is dotted with thousands of small and mostly illegal gold mines like the one I’m about to visit. Foreigners rarely come here, and Hadji and Isaac, two local miners, are happy to show me around. Hadji leads me toward the river and teaches me how to use a gold pan - how deep to submerge it in water, how to shake it around and around to wash out the dirt. Then Isaac takes over. His job is to mix slippery mud with mercury in order to separate the gold. He does it with his bare hands. He hasn’t heard of mercury’s high toxicity, and grins widely as he shows me a tiny nugget he has found. A day’s worth of work.

Forty minutes later, as I walk toward the car across the yellowish mud of the riverbank, I glimpse at my boots. They are covered in gold dust.

The town of Obuasi, where I plan to visit one of the largest gold mines in the world, is only half an hour away. The road we take is almost empty, its sides swollen with greenery. Each time it rains, the gold from the soil gets washed out onto the tarmac, turning it into a harvest zone for the locals, a gold bonanza.

The first obstacle in Obuasi is finding someone to lead me underground. Although the South African mining company AngloGold Ashanti officially offers tours of its tunnels, they are surprised when tourists show up. The second obstacle is the gear. Almost everyone who ventures into the mines is male, and all available protective clothes are size XXL. So when I’m finally ready for the tour I look like a clown, dressed in a floor-length blue coat and boots that, at six sizes too big, fall off my feet.

Yet this fashion disaster is worth it. Led by two guides, I descend deep under the surface of Africa, stepping lower and lower into silent darkness. When we turn our headlights off for a few minutes, it’s so pitch black I can’t even tell if my eyes are still open. A strong draft makes it hard to walk, to talk, to breathe. As we reach the end of the rocky corridor, Nicolas, one of the guides, shines a light onto a wall ahead. The wall shines back: From top to bottom it’s streaked with gold.

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