Wanna’ Go Up To The Uranium Mine?

Yesterday started off as a typical Saturday. I slept in a little bit, woke up, leisurely made breakfast, and then found myself in the hammock at the end of our veranda to do some reading. Then our Jim, who works for the Uranium mining company nearby, showed up. We asked him what he was doing in our neck of the woods, and he responded by telling us that he had to bring some food up to the mine and had two extra seats in his car. He was wondering if any of us wanted to go for the ride.

It’s not everyday that you get asked to go to a Uranium mine, so I was all in! He’d be back in a few hours, and we had to dress in long sleeves, long pants, and laced-up, close-toed shoes. Sweet!

The drive up to the mine takes about 45 minutes to an hour from our house. The road is pretty rocky, very curvy, quite a climb, and treacherous at times. Jim informed us, however, that, even in the month or so that he has been here, the road has improved dramatically. Considering the fact that the Uranium will be coming out along this road in a few months when production starts, they will have to get it into pretty good shape.

When we arrived at the mine, we had to check in with security, put on some reflective safety vests, and pick up our visitors card. Jim warned us that there are a couple upper level executives at the mine who wouldn’t be too happy to see unnecessarily visitors checking out the mine, but he said that the fact that we were transporting food, a much needed and desired commodity at the mine, was a pretty good excuse for us to be there; if we didn’t bring the food, they wouldn’t have any.

Since we were only there to bring food to the dining hall, we didn’t have much of an excuse to be peaking around, and we were there for only a short time. Nonetheless, it was really cool to actually get inside the mine campus. We drove past the actual processing mine, which is still being constructed, and headed towards the living and dining quarters. It was a bit of a shock to see so many white people—definitely the highest concentration of white people in this region of Africa—and it was impressive to see all of the heavy machinery, fancy quad-cab pickups, and state-of-the-art living facilities. Approximately 350 people live on the site of the mine. Those 350 are mainly Australians and other non-Malawians who will be working in the mine after it is constructed. Another 1300 people are involved with the construction of the mine; this is where the majority of Malawians hired by the mining company come in. Unfortunately, in three months, when the construction is completed, most of the Malawians will be out of a job. There is no doubt that this temporary job is an incredible opportunity for those who were lucky enough to find a position, but in no way will this mine provide any long term improvements in employment for the Malawian people.

After dropping off the food, we made our way out of the mine, and then stopped at the Health Center in the shanty town outside of the mine. The shanty town is where the 1300 or so temporary workers are living, and the Health Center is Jim’s assignment. In order to save face, the mining company has to provide some kind of development for the local community, and Jim was hired to establish a functioning health center. The mining company could probably care less about how it’s done, but luckily, Jim and his wife Robin, have some awesome experience and seem to be going about the process in an incredibly sustainable and developmental way. From what Jim has told us, the mining company just wanted Jim and Robin to come in and start providing some services to the people who were there. Instead, Jim and Robin are looking into what kind of health services and workers are already in the area, and then they are using those services and workers to develop the health center. This means that even after Jim and Robin are gone, and even after the mine runs out of Uranium and disappears, the local community will still have a solid health center set up and developed to sustain itself after everyone else packs up. Jim and Robin are pretty awesome people and seem to be the good guys working inside a big-time company, which, obviously, is more interested in dollars than it is in development.

Though I didn’t see too much, I never thought I’d see a Uranium mine, even from the outside, so that’s pretty cool.