ecologics – newsletter story

A Chiefs Greeting Sun 6 Mar 05

Travellers in Africa should observe the ancient protocol of making their presence know to the elder of the area they are in. It is both polite and very rewarding as the elder is the custodian of the history of his district and will usually tell all you wish to know of it. As the oldest member of our group, the privilege of being greeted by the chief was mine. By some mysterious sequence of events, I am known to the chief as "Mr Roc". I don't mind at all. The chief told me that his district, Kangaba, is where the culture of Mali began. The Egyptians came to Kangaba to mine gold, and the huge volumes of gold the Egyptians lavished on their kings, came from this district. He was pleased that our group was also there for gold, once he knew our aim was to improve things for the local miners.

The purpose of being in Kangaba was to demonstrate Ecologics small scale mining equipment in the local mining situation, firstly to establish it was appropriate to the conditions and secondly to establish it was accepted for its ability to ease the miner's workload and improve their results. In our party were two representatives of UNOMIN Mali who represent small scale miners throughout Mali.

They were very keen to introduce improved mining equipment to small scale miners in a bid to make the miners lives more prosperous. With the miners operating our equipment themselves, they achieved a much improved result for their efforts. Also travelling in our party were two representatives of CSIR South Africa, who are collaborating with Ecologics to tailor the equipment to serve the needs of African small-scale mining and who had arranged this field study with the Mali Mining Ministry.

CSIR has an interest to assist small scale mining through all Africa and were encouraged, by their independent laboratory testing, to observe field trials and analyse soil samples taken from the trials. Once the analysis is complete the CSIR findings on the performance of the equipment will be made available on this site.

For me, meeting the chief, getting the opportunity to give our equipment serious field testing and working along side hard working small scale miners has been a huge experience. Perhaps the only thing that could have made the experience better would be not to have crashed the four wheel drive. ( We don't talk about that.)

- Rod McNeil, ecologics

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Home Newsletter Small-scale Mining Small-scale Irrigation Step Action Pump Gravity Concentrator Accessories Downloads Contact Us	ecologics – newsletter story A Chiefs Greeting Sun 6 Mar 05 Travellers in Africa should observe the ancient protocol of making their presence know to the elder of the area they are in. It is both polite and very rewarding as the elder is the custodian of the history of his district and will usually tell all you wish to know of it. As the oldest member of our group, the privilege of being greeted by the chief was mine. By some mysterious sequence of events, I am known to the chief as "Mr Roc". I don't mind at all. The chief told me that his district, Kangaba, is where the culture of Mali began. The Egyptians came to Kangaba to mine gold, and the huge volumes of gold the Egyptians lavished on their kings, came from this district. He was pleased that our group was also there for gold, once he knew our aim was to improve things for the local miners. The purpose of being in Kangaba was to demonstrate Ecologics small scale mining equipment in the local mining situation, firstly to establish it was appropriate to the conditions and secondly to establish it was accepted for its ability to ease the miner's workload and improve their results. In our party were two representatives of UNOMIN Mali who represent small scale miners throughout Mali. They were very keen to introduce improved mining equipment to small scale miners in a bid to make the miners lives more prosperous. With the miners operating our equipment themselves, they achieved a much improved result for their efforts. Also travelling in our party were two representatives of CSIR South Africa, who are collaborating with Ecologics to tailor the equipment to serve the needs of African small-scale mining and who had arranged this field study with the Mali Mining Ministry. CSIR has an interest to assist small scale mining through all Africa and were encouraged, by their independent laboratory testing, to observe field trials and analyse soil samples taken from the trials. Once the analysis is complete the CSIR findings on the performance of the equipment will be made available on this site. For me, meeting the chief, getting the opportunity to give our equipment serious field testing and working along side hard working small scale miners has been a huge experience. Perhaps the only thing that could have made the experience better would be not to have crashed the four wheel drive. ( We don't talk about that.) - Rod McNeil, ecologics << back to main newsletter page