How much can we get for a wonderful trash-“Rolex”, donated by our colleague Erwin Posarnig? Momo le Magnifique was not sure. No, he preferred to get Eur 10,- for bringing us to the metalworker cooperative, even though his own wristwatch showed the same time since we´ve met.
Momo brought us to the outskirts of town, where the metalworkers have their workshops. About 1000 people work there, collecting old cars etc. to make something new, like the pots and stoves we knew from Nouakchott. The president and vice president charged about Eur 10,- for filming and photos, this was money for the cooperative, and we were glad to support them.
The cooperative was founded in 1991 by “GTZ - Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit GmbH”, an enterprise owned by the German government to support third world aid policy. Now they get no more support, and it is hard to survive. The workers work there every day, morning until night, they eat there, and have their siesta in their workshops. Most of the time they work really hard, you see it on their muscles. Some children start hammering metal at the age of 8, and when they are 12, they are strong workers already. The president hesitated to tell this, children should go to school, of course. Mali is one of the poorest countries in the world, and priority is getting something to eat.
There are lots of women working there, some are cooking, some are collecting and separating plastic waste. The president told us, that many of them also work with metal, but now it is Sunday, so there are not so many women around. A little girl was “playing” with a colourful plastic basin, a second look revealed, that she was washing clothes. Later on I met her playing in a rusted car wreck.
With all their work, they earn just enough money to survive on a very basic level.
Igor exchanged a half-finished watering can for another watch we got from Erwin in Graz, and we bought a few products. There was one artisan, and Stefan bought a crocodile made of iron.
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