quarry

During my first week in Pokuse, I was able to visit the quarry that lies on the top of the town (village). I wasn't expecting to go, but my translater suggested it and all of a sudden I was walking through it. It's very hot and with little tree cover.

It's the lowest paying work that a person can find in this area. As a worker, you taking a hammer and knocking out large chunks of stone from the side of a large wall of rock. No big machines, just mallets. Families are working there. It seems to include mothers, fathers, elders and young children, not yet in school. I saw little children playing around the rocks and also using mallets to crush the rocks.


One scene I saw was a man knocking out big chunks of rocks. Hewas wearing street clothes and flip flops. The rocks were being picked up by a women. and loaded into a bowl and carried on her head. She dumped them in a pile and more people, (The grandmothers? ) were knocking the rocks smaller and then dumped into a piles of smaller rocks. Everyone was sitting on the ground chopping up rockes. There were a few piles of rocks, getting into smaller and smaller bits. Finally ,the rocks were pretty fine and into buckets. The buckets were carried to the truck where they were getting paid by the bucket full. They were making cement.

I was sort of taken off guard because I wasn't expecting to be taken to the quarry that day. It left me speechless. I didn't know what to say to the folks. I think I said something like, You sure have a tough job. Must be hard. (??, I just didn't know hwat to say.) They go up there everyday with out any safely measures ,w ith out shoes, with out googles and risk it. It's exhausting work for hardly any money.

I don't know how much they get for bucket, but for truck load the truck owner makes about 200 dollars a truck load.