Clip description
The other griot sings about equality and that you can have rights even if you are poor. Men address a meeting and one calls on the women to speak. A woman speaks forcefully about the military hassling the miners, that there isn’t enough rain in the fields so the women go to the pits to help the men but the whites use the military to chase them away. The old village chief feels in the dark about what’s going on. He maintains that the spirits who used to protect Africa have abandoned them. He says if the military keep chasing them away, they have no choice but to steal. People looking for gold at the mine are arrested, with the manager explaining it’s for their own safety.
Curator’s notes
After the woman speaks up, there is laughter. It may be embarrassment because she is so passionate and vocal or it may be because she is as demonstrative as the men. She is obviously speaking for all the women. The mine took over much of the land where they used to pan for gold, so there seems no other choice than to steal. The women are the main ones doing the illegal gold panning because there is no other source of cash for them. They use the money they make for food for their children, to send them to school or buy school clothes. The immense extent of the mine is visible in the arrest scene.