Gold-diggers of Burundi

On the eve of the opening of Bweyeye School and in the middle of the preparations which were well behind schedule, the local government executive decided to take me to see the Burundi border. Admittedly this is only about 1 km away and on the Rwandan side consists of 2 soldiers and a pole across the road. We duly drove across to find that the Burundi side was similar except that there were no soldiers. 2 men without any sign of official status let us through after some discussion about a drink.
Passing through a small trading post, we soon came upon this group of gold diggers. They were very keen for me to see what they were doing and to take photos of them.
The mud was being dug from a hole about 6m deep and then “panned”. This was producing a little gold - I was allowed to hold a piece, which was about the size of a letter "i" on a typical page! The photo indicates that this area is producing few millionaires, as for most gold-mining, I suspect. It turns out that these guys earn about 1000 Frw per day, probably about twice what they could get from digging fields, but it's obviously tough and dangerous work. They had started to tunnel under the road, but there was no sign of any supports or the intention to use them. Another group of people who are cheerfully struggling to make a living in the remore centre of this continent.