In a fleeting moment of solace from the cacophony of machinery he and twelve other men were employing to extract gold from a mountainside in northern Afghanistan, Homayon tore off a chunk of moldy flatbread and took a drink of tea.
The 30-year-old joined forces with other jobless guys to try their luck making a life in the steep mountains that dominate Badakhshan region after finding little success as a mechanic in neighboring Faizabad city.
“Five, six of us were jobless, we came here to see if we can find anything,” Homayon told AFP, as the handful of men finished their break and returned to work at the small-scale mine they had set up.
Even though they spend a lot of money on labor, gasoline, and equipment, their four tunnel excavation projects have yielded little results.
According to Homayon, the promise of a windfall outweighed the hazards of debt, so they continued digging because other mines in the region had proven productive.
The other miner, Qadir Khan, cautioned that the losses might be substantial.
“There are people who went into debt and were not able to find anything from these kinds of tunnels,” he said.
“They lost two to three hundred thousand (Afghanis, or roughly $2,800-$4,200), and there was nothing to do but try to find different work, make money, and come back to pay their debts.”
