A cloud of dust flies upward as Nontutuko Shebi strikes at the bedrock of the “Marikana” quarry‚ her hand clutching her hammer as each blow joins the clinking chorus of tools against rock that echoes all around her.
Her nine-month-old daughter Okuhle – bound closely to her mother with a blanket – is unperturbed by each strike.
Shebi has come to the shale quarry set in the hills of rural southern KwaZulu-Natal hoping that “gold” locked in the hillside may change the destiny of her youngest child‚ otherwise bound for a life of poverty.
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