Mining men-on-pause
What I almost told the sand mining gathering about placemaking
This is Part 2: A Mining Corporation, Eastern Cape Villagers and the Mineral-Rich Coastal Sands. For reasons that will soon be obvious, as you read on, I entitled it Men-On-Pause.
This week, I picked up where I left off last week, with the story of a proposed sand mining project in the Eastern Cape.
Alan Webber, author of the Rules of Thumb, is correct, “Stories are how we learn.”
Hence, I thought this week I should share an interesting short story within the bigger story from last week.
The short story is about menopause, women-only cooperative, and seaweed harvesting.
In South Africa, development has always been synonymous with mining. To deny this would be foolish.
That said, let me repeat what I said last week.
I don’t think that every mineral-bearing landscape in South Africa should be surrendered to the ambitions of opportunistic fortune hunters. Some of the landscapes hold homeplaces, memories, stories, livelihoods, and ecological rhythms that cannot be reduced to just minerals or profit margins.
Ill-advised mineral extraction can cause severe irreversible damage. The promise of value to be created for banking elsewhere can wipe out the very real value already being generated to sustain the everyday lives of local people.
Too often, conversations about development are fixated on what will be built or created by the so-called experts, while neglecting to consider what will be lost by the indigenous local people. Progress is narrowly defined as creation, even when it comes at the cost of destroying something else.
This is very wrong.
Stepping Into The Venue
As I stepped into the Wesley Community Hall two weeks ago, I immediately noticed that the concrete floor was damp throughout. I assumed the stagnant pool of rainwater in front of the hall was the source of the problem.
Inside, the meeting was well attended. From community representatives to non-governmental organizations and other interested parties.
As expected, the gathering opened with a hymn followed by a prayer. The prayer was led by a woman whose words brought to mind Louisiana Dunn‑Thomas, the African American poet and farm‑tenant mother from Siloam in Greene County, Georgia.
In her soulful poem, A Brighter Day Has Dawned, written more than 90 years ago, Dunn-Thomas wrote:
We are tenants of the Almighty
Entrusted with a portion of His earth
To dress and keep
And pass on to the next generation
When evening comes and we must fall asleep.
The poem offered an eloquent meditation to the question posed by the woman who led the prayer: “What kind of stewards shall we be if we permit the destruction of our local environment and our sources of livelihood?”
That question sets the tone for what many in attendance would subsequently vocalize as impending destruction — by Vendicom Minerals Beneficiation Group — of their local beaches, sand dunes, rangelands, and seaweed habitats.
In response to a proposal from the chairperson of the meeting, it was agreed that the meeting would be conducted in isiXhosa. To accommodate the white attendees, I was asked to be an unofficial interpreter.
The Unexpected Story About Menopause
Midway through the deliberations a middle-aged woman pulled me to the side and politely asked, “Tata, may I have a private word with you?”
I agreed and we immediately stepped outside.
“My name is Nomilile from the coastal Phozi village, on the banks of the Tsholomnqa River. I value the fact that you are an older Xhosa man. You strike me as someone who will truly understand what I wish to share with you.”
Before she could continue, I asked if I could record our conversation to help me remember it later.
“Yes, you may,” she agreed.
Then, without any disrespect intended, she asked me, “Do you know anything about menopause?”
Her question caught me completely off guard, so I chose to respond cautiously.
I said, “Of course, I know about it. But I must hasten to admit that, unlike women, I have no memory of ever experiencing it myself. So, take whatever I tell you with a pinch of salt.”
She explained further:
For most women, menopause is a very stressful and deeply emotional time. For rural women like me, it is even harder when the subject is treated as taboo. That is why, some years ago, in our coastal village, we formed a women-only seaweed harvesting cooperative. Its purpose was not only to harvest and sell seaweed, but also to provide mutual support for those of us navigating menopause.
Our cooperative is our refuge where we discuss issues affecting us. In my opinion, the meaning and significance of our seaweed harvesting cooperative cannot be reduced to monetary value alone. It should embody our midlife womanhood and emotions — things that only women can truly understand.
With this in mind, I need your quick guidance as an elder.
How do I explain to a group of unfamiliar men — inside this hall — our menopause story and its emotional connection to the seaweed along the coastline that they hope to dig out? How do I explain our unenviable struggles, as middle‑aged rural women in a patriarchal society, to sustain our livelihoods and ways of life without entirely relying on our men? Will they understand? Will they even care? How can I make those men understand that mining will destroy a support structure that we hope to pass onto our daughters?
As I write this note, I’m still grappling to find satisfactory answers. Because sharing is caring, I would love to hear your own thoughts on these vexing questions.
For now, what I can think of is the this:
What stories of this nature tell us is that there are many factors for which “account is not taken in the conventional financial calculus” of development projects. Such factors will most certainly not be modeled into the fancy calculations of the proposed sand mining project.
Holding My Horses
There were moments during the gathering when I felt the impulse to speak. But the voice inside my head kept reminding me to hold back my horses.
By choosing to remain silent, I created space for the local people to voice their own aspirations — for themselves, for their children, and for the Wesley village they call home.
I remembered the advice that Caryn van Stone gave Louise van Rhyn when she said: “I need you to know what happens to me when you are so certain. My voice goes completely silent because there is no space in your certainty for my voice to be heard. What I need you to do is to keep certainty more lightly.”
I, too, wanted “to keep my certainty more lightly.”
Collaborative Landscape Design
If I had summoned the courage to speak at the meeting, here are some of the things I would have said in the gathering about placemaking without mining.
You are better off with your coastline intact.
Echoing the words of Edward Said expressed in his memoir, Out of Place, I too would have asked the local community: What if living a rural lifestyle along this coastline is “a form of freedom”?
Mining will not make you — Mamfengu namaGqunukhwebe, who remain the spiritual and cultural caretakers and custodians of your homeplace — flourish by destroying the natural resources upon which your cherished way of life depends.
Mining may bring you some development. But what will be lost, as a result, will live an eternal emotional scar in your psyche. The debris and legacy that will remain after 20 years of mining is not worth the risks involved.
More than sand mining, what your community truly needs is Collaborative Landscape Design — a place-based approach to “placemaking” for all of Nature, including the humans who call this place home.
Urban Studies at MIT describes placemaking as “the deliberate shaping of an environment to facilitate social interaction and enhance a community’s quality of life.”
For now, I think that what this moment calls for is a clarion demand to place the mining men-on-pause until such time the local people have decided what "they want of the places where they live, work, learn and play - for themselves and the next generation."