Ribeira da Barca beach is not referenced in Cape Verde guides. No more than that of Rincao or Cancelo. These three beaches of Santiago, the main island of the archipelago, are missing. And in Cape Verdean memory, we don’t remember the last time we saw a tourist’s towel there. The huge piles of black sand, the heaps of pebbles, the craters, the comings and goings of the trucks on the track cut into the mountainside: the landscape is more reminiscent of a quarry or an open pit mine. Very far from the paradisiacal postcard of stretches of white sand as far as the eye can see and the emerald water of Sal and Boa Vista, the two popular destinations in this little piece of Africa which bathes in the Atlantic, off the Senegal.
In Ribeira da Barca, as in Rincao or Cancelo, the “minors” have one thing in common: they are almost all women. In Cape Verde, they are known as the “thieves” where the “looters” sand. An illegal practice tolerated by the authorities. Slave labor that allows them to survive by reselling their loot at bargain prices to intermediaries in the construction sector. Here, no dredger or mechanical shovel. Their only tools: a bucket and their whole body.
This morning in June, there are ten of them throwing themselves into the water and going back and forth with their bucket on their heads. After years of extraction, “black gold” becomes rare; you have to go deeper and deeper into the sea. So much so that today two men came to lend a hand. Standing waist deep in water, the two fellows frantically fill the buckets with shovels. The women squat as much as possible to make it easier for them. Sand and water trickle down their faces. The maneuver is as trying as it is perilous. Most can’t swim. You have to resist the waves, fight against the current, then climb the shore and its pebbles which slip away under your feet. Up to 40 kg per bucket, only propped up by theordija, the traditional turban twisted by African women on their heads to transport everything that would seem impossible to others. Sand robbers are tightrope walkers, not one don’t fall.
On the shore, the pile of volcanic sand grows to the rhythm of the rotations. Later, a truck will pick him up. « Cape Verde for everyone » : the red t-shirt of the 2021 presidential campaign of the victorious party equips several workers. With half a metal plate, they scrape off the huge black mass to fill their bucket and then transport it, still on its head, still in single file, to the truck. Overturned beer crates serve as a step to reach the dumpster. This one has a capacity of about three tons, so three “galuchos”, from the brand name of the Portuguese manufacturer, in the language of sand collectors. The heap is higher than the women. It’s hot, the sun is burning.
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