Artisanal Gold Mining Mali

not much and work hard

wow.. God bless them.

so the river is full of cold. let's call it the River of Gold.

wow, they make a good job. Are they work for somebody, who pay them for jwork, or they work for themself?

They work for themselves. A gold buyer comes to the local market every Friday and apparently pays them a fair price. Thanks for asking.

This is the way the world is at the moment, all about the profit.

Huh? These folks live on a dollar a day. Try that for a day and see if it feels like profit.

@HumboldtMike

these african guys must be pumping iron at the gym

not a beer belly in sight.

aren't they afraid of a crocodile floating down stream and joining the party

@orangedac Good question. I knew one guy who had a picture of himself with a large croc they had killed when he was a lot younger. But these days they only see a few crocs in very remote areas. I never saw a sign of one in two years, even in remote areas. There are a lot of fishermen in that area who would probably notice if a croc were hanging around, so I don't think the gold panners worry too much. They were more concerned about electric catfish and hippos.

@orangedac The blacksmiths pound iron at the forge… Life there is its own gym. Also, no beer.

damn he is fast!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

@Ganbareg
This river is rich.

@orangedac real graft, us westerners are fng soft

Where is there? i want go to find gold

@tomspeed2005 Upstream of Bamako — but it's a heck of a lot of work for a dollar or two a day…

Ok, Thanks a lot my friend, so is best i go find a Treasure or gold with my metal detector )

I am a prospector myself and I am wondering; Why not prospect in smaller streams in the jungle? This river may be rich, but I would think that more gold would be yielded with the same, if not less energy expended.

There is a show called "The History of Gold" which shows some MAJOR gold being excavated in the jungles. The process is very damaging to the landscape, but smaller scale mining could still process amazing results without the damage.

@GalderIncarnate It's a very arid landscape, so there aren't any streams or jungle. When they dig wells away from the river they hit a clay layer before groundwater and will dig the clay out to look for gold. There are also some deep well-like pit mines in the hills. But the only place where the clay layers are exposed near the surface, and where there is water to pan it during the dry season (when they have time from farming to look for gold) is in the river channel.

Ahh I see! Yeah, that clay layer sounds pretty nasty. Thank you for your timely response, I was quite curious.

Incredible video, such a good insight.

@OMFGWTFBBQKKTWNTY Thanks for the positive comment. It's amazing how many idiotic racist comments I have to delete. I get tense every time I get an email notification for a comment on my Mali vids, so it's a relief to get good comments…

COOL!!!!

@shakiin000 I'm guessing not much on 1-2 dollars a day!