Diamond miners hope fate will shine on them one day
Text and photos by Ali Budiman
CEMPAKA, South Kalimantan (JP): It is the stuff that dreams are made of for residents of this village, 50 kilometers from Banjarmasin.
Haji Ahmad Bohari discovered a two-carat pink diamond worth Rp 260 million (more than US$30,000) this year, a spectacular find that fueled hope for other diamond miners that fate will shine on them one day.
They hold onto this dream as they wrestle with mud, their bodies half-submerged, searching for diamonds in scorching temperatures often reaching 33 degrees Celsius. Their hopes do not fade even though they work day in and day out, five to 10 people in a team, with their small finds usually only enough to cover the most basic of expenses.
Muhammad Fahmi is one of those who holds onto his dreams.
The 13-year-old boy is obsessed with becoming a Formula One Ferrari driver, but deep down knows that his head is in the clouds. He watches his favorite racers on his neighbor's television, and three small posters of them hang on a faded wooden wall in his tiny room.
It is easy to figure out what a young boy like Fahmi would do if he came upon a miraculous find -- go on the haj pilgrimage, then buy a sports car.
Fahmi, who left elementary school in 1998 due to a lack of money, leaves every morning at 7:30 a.m. for a field not far from his home. It is enough for this lanky, dark-skinned boy with big eyes to return home with Rp 10,000 (US$1.20) paid for by the diamond dealers who come to the site.
Once the stones have been polished, the diamonds are revealed, one day to take their rightful place in a necklace or ring.
Hundreds of people have made their living at sites like Cempaka since the Dutch colonial era, yet few wish to discuss the ecological damage that has resulted from the activity. More than 10 large excavation sites now scar the valley, evidence of the exploitation of the land with no thought for reclamation.
Every day of the week at about 7 a.m., a line of young and middle-aged men, their skin baked from working in the sun, sets off from simple plywood homes for the site, about two kilometers away.
They have their own working groups. There are only one or two women who are willing to toil in the mud and heat.
Each group has its own chief, usually the most experienced of the men and someone who made a valuable find in the past. He generally has enough money to pay for the group's meals on days when they come up empty-handed, and to cover the cost of the gas for the excavation machines and water pumps, which are vital for the operation.
Although nothing is written down, the groups hold to a defined system for the division of labor and the sharing of gains. The owner of the land receives 10 percent and the owner of the machines and the workers divide the remainder equally. Some of the land and machine owners belong to a team; there are also dealers, who often hold onto gems until the market perks up before they sell them in Martapura or Banjarmasin.
Pandi Ya Anci, a 38-year-old father of four, is one of the workers. His group found gems worth Rp 18 million in May of this year. From that amount, Rp 1.8 million went to the owner of the land, who is also Pandi's father in law. The rest was divided between the machine operators and the group of eight excavators. Once extras for food, drink and cigarettes were paid for, each of the men received Rp 1 million.
Great finds are few and far between; the workers scrape by with their daily earnings.
A 30-year-veteran of diamond mining, Haji Sain, said there were distinctive signs of the presence of diamonds.
"Diamonds always have a 'friend', the patimahan stone, which is gray like lead, or the emparan, which is a blackish-yellow," said the 65 year old, adding he had never suffered from rheumatism or skin diseases despite the harsh site conditions.
"It's as though the two stones are drawn by a magnet to diamonds. That's why I take extra care when examining gravel containing the two stones. If I see something shiny among them, I hit it with a stone. If it breaks, then it isn't a diamond."
Before they are sent to jewelers, the uncut diamonds are polished by expert hands. Tunggul Irang area, in the southern part of Martapura, has gained a reputation for superb diamond polishing.
Syamsudin, 46, operates from a small plywood house on Jl. Melati. He is passing the skill down to younger generations; the oldest of his four children, Syaifullah, 23, is already an experienced diamond polisher.
The value of a diamond is judged on several factors: from its weight in carats, to its rarity and color, based on a descending hierarchy of pink, blue, white and yellow.