Is it okay? can I take your picture? Yeah? okay.
This women has just panned her concentrates down, you can see the mercury in her pan
is it okay? yeah?
This is how they do it
She is rubbing the mercury around you can see it beading up
She just panned down all the stuff off the top
and she has her mercury
She has what looks like a steel washing dish, a steel washing pan
She is going to take the amalgam in her pan
and ring it out in that cloth
there comes the mercury
You speak Swahili or a local language?
she doesn't speak it that much
Doesn't speak it that much just the local language
How much gold is that Solomon you think?
0.15 grams approximately
0.15 grams
A tenth of a gram
approximately. Yeah
and than what will she do with that?
for it to go the yellow color of gold she must heat it
yeah, she must burn off the mercury
than it will go to the yellow and that is when
being bought by some people here
the brokers
they buy them
does she burn that off in like a open fire?
yes, on a open fire
will she do that now or will she wait till tonight?
can we go with her where she will be selling it?
yeah, i would like to
Solomon, how much ore did she run? one sack or two sacks?
just ran some tailings
she got 0.15 grams from eight sacks
and a sack weighs 50 kilograms. Yeah.
Does she have children?
One is just completing primary school and one is completing high school
One completing high school is 18 , the one completing primary school is twelve years
and how long has she been mining?
she has been mining for two years now
two years, two years, okay very good
This is the gold buyer
and she has brought her amalgam
1 gram is about 3,00 Kenyan shillings
One gram is 3,000 Kenyan shillings
It's like a little spoon rolled up
a spoon but the tip has been folded, yes I see
he is just standing over it burning the mercury off
there is children right here
they are all watching
because are mizugal, white people, we are white man
and the children are very interested
He put his rolled up spoon in there with the little bit of amalgam
and is going to burn the mercury off
and than he will weigh it and pay this women
for her gold, whats this womens name?
Monica?
This Monica from Migori Kenya
Solomon, can you tell us what they are doing? they are going to weight the
the gold now?
The little scale, yeah
They use the scale in measuring weight
so he is setting the balance
so he is balancing the scale
0.2 grams of gold
so he has no money currently
She will come back to get paid
How long did she work this morning for that much gold?
5am to now, what time is it now? 9?
So she worked 4 hours for 0.2 grams
She will come back to get paid
600 Kenyan shillings
yeah, okay
how much gold does he buy in a day? do you know roughly?
he takes about 8 grams a day
80 grams a day?
oh 8 grams, so thats about what he gets
per day from the local miners
Solomon is this nitric acid?
what is he doing now?
is this nitric acid?
he is taking his gold buttons
he is using nitric acid and that's
NO2, the dark brown gas
He is getting the rest of the mercury and the impurities out
the wind is blowing that way and there are all the children right down the road
He is cleaning the rest of the amalgam
and he is boiling it in nitric acid
Thank you very much, thank you very much
they collect the gold in Migori
and they sell it in Nairobi or Dubai
How much gold will they get in Migori before going to Dubai?
5kg per day
5kg per day, here in Migori
Some are coming from this way, some over there, some way out there
they can even get from 10 to 5kg
per day, they take it to the smelt in Nairobi
they take them and make them into gold earrings, necklaces and bracelets
They take those things to abroad, Dubai
They make it into jewelry
and than they sell the jewelry in Dubai
They go to Nairobi and make jewerly
and than they take it to Dubai to sell
ah I see, I see
it leaves Kenya as a gold product
not a gold metal, not a gold bouilon
not bouillon just as jewelry