Crushing rocks with your hands – for a living

Under normal circumstances, quarry work is done with the aid of heavy-duty machines. But in the Zimbabwean town of Chitungwiza people have become human granite crushers.
By Misheck Rusere, Chitungwiza
Standing under the boiling sun with sixteen-pound hammers in hand, the men, women and children of Chitungwiza, a town 25 kilometers outside Harare, are trying to wiggle themselves from the jaws of poverty. They’re crushing rocks – with their very hands. The finely ground stone is used in heavy construction and for household purposes.
Six children, two siblings
“Life is really unbearable. My husband and I have found it fit to turn to this hard task to feed our three children, lest we all wallow in poverty as the government can’t provide any jobs for us,” says Memory Kaitano. She has been crushing rock for over a year and now enlists her young children Tatenda and Tanaka to help.
Just a few meters from Memory’s worksite is Liberty Sofala. The 22-year-old was retrenched from a local firm where he held a job as a driver. His wife Grace has joined him at the quarry. In fact, they have mobilized the whole family to assist. “It’s not easy working like this as a family,” he says. “I have to send all the six children and two siblings to school, and if we don’t do this I may fail to provide for them.”
No upturn
These are people living on less than a dollar a day. They say they can make as much as 90 euros per month by selling a full wheelbarrow at 1.50 euros. Breaking these huge boulders, they can produce about three wheelbarrows on a good day. But then they must wait – and hope – for buyers.
The granite crushers expect no upturn in their lives, even at a time when the government is serving up a cocktail of policies designed to turn the impoverished country into one of bounty.
Indigenization and empowerment?
Ironically, this antiquated form of toil occurs just as the Minister of Youth Development, Indigenization and Empowerment is promoting the Empowerment Law. The regulation is meant to help locals like Memory and Liberty, who have been living on the fringes since Zimbabwe’s independence in 1980.
Memory is very aware of the indigenization policy, but believes it falls short. “They say ‘indigenization’ over and over again, but the policy is not actually compliant with the so-called ‘ordinary’,” she says. “If the government was anyhow concerned about empowering the citizens, they would simply donate or sell, at subsidized costs, small stone-crushing machines for use here, and we [could] carry on with our jobs without much of a problem.”
Cracked palms
Luxurious mansions are popping up across Zimbabwe. While the town of Chitungwiza grows bigger, the future looks dim for the very labourers who have helped build the economy. Their cracked, sore-ridden palms no doubt contrast with the executive hands of the few politicians who are actually in charge.
It seems these ordinary Zimbabweans will never enjoy independence. Yet they are prepared to continue working for as long as they can still lift the hammer.
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