Rock Quarries

(Tuesday, June 15) On the first of our long, early morning walks in Uganda Gabriel, Agustine, and I stopped a rock quarry halfway up to Lookout Ridge. Up, up, up. Gabriel said that climbing uphill one mile was like walking two miles. Up, up, up some more. We added this extention to the walk so that the distance would be just over 10 miles.

Five or six men were breaking down the stone. Quarries are plentiful in Uganda, those I visited seemed to contain quartz. Gabriel began a conversation in Luganda with the men working in this quarry as if he’d known them forever. To me, he described the life of a quarryman and showed me the difference in quality between various cuts.

He also described the difference for women who work in a quarry as compared to men. Women, he said, were paid the same as men but had to hire men to do part of the work for them. For example, some of the stones are too heavy for women to move so they must pay a man to move it for them, thus reducing their net salary.

You heard about Grace, the old lady working in a quarry with her family. You also heard about Eseza, one of four children whose mother died in a rock slide while working in a quarry. After discarding a stone I picked up, I discovered an inch-long cut oozing blood…surprise. "Mzungu’s are soft," said Gabriel. Quarry work is dangerous, is at the bottom of the pay scale, is highly competitive, and is often the only work available.

Before we left, Gabriel selected a fine piece of stone and later gave it to me as a keepsake.