Iron Hands - Guinea Conakry
In the “Dar es Salam II”, more precisely in “Compossed”, there’s a rubbish disposal where everyday many trucks deliver one part of the 700.000 people’s city rubbish. The rubbish dump has two faces: one is at the gates, and the other is in the inside. The first one is a landscape of mountains of rubbish where kids, elders and women seek and peek what ever can be useful for them. In the other one, there’s a whole different attendance of boys that meet everyday for work, seeking every kind of iron scrap, hopping to make some money out of it. This reality is considered a source of job for a non less number of young people. A group of boys are workers, hopping to surpass poverty; sacrificing day by day digging bunkers and pursuing this precious material, in a country where working opportunities are less every day. Working day is endless, oppressive and even worst considering the burning heat of these desert lands. Sun to sun, their only tools are their hands and a pair of shovels, plus the spirit and desire of leaving behind poverty, and so be able to fill a plate with food for their homes. The iron that’s under earth is their since the time of Amed Sekou Touré, the first president of the nation after the independence from France occurred in 1958. In this place, remaining of broken machines where left behind, but with the pass of time this site became a rubbish dump and a cemetery of metals under the earth. The commercialization of this material in European countries, and also in Asia and America, it’s used to produce cars and machines.