A gem in the rough

A group of young children clutching colourful stones bigger than their fists run towards the main road when they notice a cloud of dust created by cars travelling on the Uis gravel road. Silhouetted against the blinding sun, children of all ages wait for many hours a day along the main road between the coast and the Damaraland interior for curious tourists to stop and buy their stones. With hundreds of stones neatly packed and glittering on a tin barrel and the backdrop of the Brandberg Mountain – the country’s highest peak – the children with no knowledge of English start negotiating the prices of their goods. The semi-precious stones come in different shapes, colours and sizes. Some are colourless, other green, blue, pink or deep red. Zolarto Gurirab, 12, is one of many children in the area who wake up at the break of dawn to sell his rocks and minerals to traffic passing through the area to help feed his family. He says he travels over 20 km to the Brandberg Mountain in search of rare stones found mainly at ground level rather than at the top of the mountain or deep underground. The mountain is also home to the famous ‘White Lady’ rock painting, said by some to be over 20 000 years old. Gurirab says although he doesn’t need to climb high up the mountain to find the stones, finding them is incredibly hard work as each is picked by hand. “I walk to the mountain to get the rocks and walk back with them in a sack made from goatskin. I usually go alone, so I can’t take too many stones at once otherwise I will get too tired when carrying them back home,” he says. When asked where home is, he points to a clapboard building with a rusty corrugated-tin roof a distance away. “I stay there with my uncle and my five siblings. The money I make pays for my school fees and buys us food,” he says. Further along the twisty road I encounter a family of six, including four children under the age of 12. They are returning from a rock hunt on the fringes of the mountain. Communication is difficult as the family only speaks the local Damara language and minimal Afrikaans. The oldest woman of the group starts writing the price of each stone in the dirt, but explains that she is willing to take less as she needs the money to feed her children. As the road continues past the turnoff to Khorixas, the gems are replaced by crafts and more and more traders selling handmade goods start emerging. At Onwerwag, a few kilometres outside Khorixas, I meet Gerald Awaseb selling crafts at what is arguably the largest roadside craft shop in the area. According to Awaseb, his sister Aline Awases makes all the crafts by hand and sells them to support her husband, six children and her siblings who all live with her. “My sister’s husband is also unemployed and makes money selling firewood along the road. His business doesn’t do as well as hers though and so she is the breadwinner and this craft shed is really how we survive,” he says. At the curio shop is everything from handmade dolls in traditional attire, bead necklaces made from seeds and stones, and ceiling decorations made from dried plants and animal products. “She makes the animals on the ceiling decorations by using goat skin. Everything here my sister has been made by hand,” says Awaseb. Awaseb says although they occasionally use a generator at home, his sister does not have a sewing machine and sews the tough leather by hand to produce quality products for tourists. “The business actually does well. If we received more traffic along this road, it would definitely do better. The problem is we see about six cars in a day and not everyone is willing to buy something,” he explains. Awases also makes life-size traditional dolls that she places outside her craft market to attract tourists and passers-by. “Tourists normally stop along the road to take pictures with the dolls and this is generally when someone from the house runs to the craft shop to sell them something,” he says. DAMARALAND MERJA IILEKA