By Yuggu Charles
The hammers and chisels rise and fall on the huge stones, crushing them into pieces as the villagers race against time before night comes. They work at the site from dawn to dusk. To a visitor, it is a site to behold. But to villagers living in Rock City on the slopes of Jebel Kujur Mountain near Juba in Southern Sudan, crushing stones is a major economic activity that has attracted the interest of not less than 200 families.
While temperatures in most parts of Southern Sudan traditionally soar up to 37 degrees, residents of Rock City in Central Equatoria state have to contend with slightly higher temperatures which sometimes hit a staggering 40 plus degrees due to the rocky hills.
Despite the temperatures and the back-breaking work, the residents of Rock City see stone crushing as the only way they can get by from day to day. They are able to put food on the table, buy clothes for their children and pay their school fees from the proceeds they get from selling the ballast they produce from the crushed stones.
One of the residents – 25 year old Agustin Karanja Obola – who hails from Eastern Equatorial state is married to two wives and has four children, and he has been in the business for two years now. “I sell a heap of these stones at 250 Sudanese Pounds but, sometimes loaders charge 50 Sudanese Pounds which reduces my profit.
Obola is however worried because sometimes it takes up to three weeks before he gets another buyer for the stones which are used in the construction industry. “I am crushing these stones because there are no other jobs. It is hard but I have no alternative,” he said sadly. “After I sat for the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education, in Kenya, I tried to look for any job but in vain. So I have to do this work to sustain my family,” he said.
He said the work was hard and needs determination. “The stones are hard to crush; I have to buy fire wood and burn them for two to three days until they develop cracks, before crushing them,” he said, pointing at a huge rock. I have decided to do this work, because it does not require any capital to start unlike other businesses that require investment,” said Obola.
Obola said he was trying to save some money from his earnings to enable him to start a restaurant. “I will build a small restaurant so that I can cater for my family. I know it is difficult because it requires a lot of capital but I hope I will succeed,” he added.
In the meantime, Obola is asking the government to open up more vocational schools for youth like him so that they can study basic entrepreneurial skills.
Another villager, Fatina Loing, 40, a mother of seven, has been involved in the stone crushing business for six years. She told ‘The People’s Voice’ that she buys the stones from some middlemen in big quantities and crushes them for sale. “I buy these stones at 100 Sudanese Pounds. I then crush them and sell them at 250 Sudanese Pounds a heap,” she narrated.
Loing, however, expressed a worry that there is a decreasing market for her stones. “Construction companies used to buy the stones but, they no longer come because they now prefer stones crushed by machines.”
She noted that at one stage the government taxed their businesses at 75 Sudanese Pounds for three years but, later stopped when they complained. “We complained that we are very poor people who can barely survive, so they stopped levying taxes on our businesses,” she said.
Loing added that there used to be 30 women in the business but, this has since reduced to 12 because of the hard labour involved. “I am among the few women remaining on site. I can’t leave it because I have to pay school fees for my children and feed the family, as my husband is jobless.”
She appealed to the government and Non-Governmental Organizations to create more women friendly jobs. Like many other Southern Sudanese women, Liong did not get the chance to attend school because of the civil war between the North and South. Now, with Southern Sudan as an independent country, she hopes her children will get a good education and find good jobs. “I have been living here in Juba since 1990 so I was caught up by the war and I did not go to school”, she recalled.
Another labourer is Hanisa Juan, a 60 year old widow who lost her husband during the 1992 Juba massacre. She now lives with one of her grandsons and insists that it is only through this job that she can secure some little money to earn a living.