For women of Rusau, sand is big biz

Also, another section of the river that flows in-between the permanent site of the University of Jos and the students’ village also presents a means of livelihood for many. Women are more involved in the business of sourcing sand from this river to earn a living for residents of Rusau village. These women, numbering over […]

Also, another section of the river that flows in-between the permanent site of the University of Jos and the students’ village also presents a means of livelihood for many. Women are more involved in the business of sourcing sand from this river to earn a living for residents of Rusau village.

These women, numbering over 12 dig up sand from the river bed with their malen counterparts.

The women swim neck-deep into the river to source sand, which they sell to willing buyers waiting at the banks of the river.

One of the sites regarded as most profitable is located under the Farin Gada bridge. The women are always busy deep inside the riverscooping sand to transport to the banks of the river.

The women, who are of different age brackets ranging from 19 to 55, have a man among them who helps them in their vocation.

According to the leader of the group, Rhoda Malachi, 30, they have been doing the work for over a decade. “We started this work ten years ago in order to meet the basic needs of life, because we believe idleness will not solve our problems,” she said.

Another woman who introduced herself as Maleci, said on a daily basis, sometimes without taking their breakfast, they come out of their houses as early as 7 am to search for sand beneath the river.

She said they use large containers and shovels to source for the sand and sell it to waiting buyers who in turn sell it to people who are engaged in construction. “Sometimes, we sell in large quantities but in most cases, we sell in small quantity to people who are doing small repairs on their houses,” she added.

Nineteen-year-old Rita Sati said most of them do this out of despair and lack of jobs.

 “We have been engaging in a number of menial jobs but recently it has become hard to get any job to do. Some of us used to be engaged in restaurant jobs or selling food items but we couldn’t live on that because of the poor economy. As a result, we decided to engage ourselves in this business,” she said.

The river is deep, thereby posing a challenge to the women. “The search,” according to Sati, “is simple. What we do is to use our legs to step on various spots beneath the river or use the spades. That is how we get to know where sand is plentiful.”

The search seemes to be motionless as they move bare footed around the water slowly in order not to miss a lucrative spot with a large pan delicately positioned on their heads.

 “Once you see us sinking the container into the water, it means we have found a spot and the next thing is to start scooping the sand. Finding a spot means spending almost the whole day to exhaust the sand depending on its quantity,” Sati said.

She added that, “It takes like seven minutes for every trip to the banks and it takes 50 containers to yield a heap of sand that will cost N1,000.”  

While a heap of sand that will fill a tipper costs N3,000, it takes them 150 trips to be able to accumulate reasonable quantity.

“And it is not every day people come to buy the sand. We could spend like two or three days without seeing a buyer,” Sati said.

Thirty-nine-year-old Monica Habila said she abandoned an adult education class to join the sand job in order to raise money for her son who recently finished secondary school.

 “I used to attend an adult education class earlier, but I realised that my son needs more support in order to secure admission into the higher institution. That is why I dropped out of school to support him.”

“Our men are always on the farm. We are employing the method of division of labour by sharing responsibilities for the up keep of the family,” she said.

To this, Abila said  there is danger of being drowned, though “a lot of people do warn us that if it rains somewhere it could reach us without us knowing. But in the ten years we have spent doing this job, nobody has lost a life or gotten drowned in this river.”

She said whenever it rains heavily, they would not come out until a day after when the volume of water has subsided.

Their kind of work is physically exhaustive, Habila said.

“We do not go to hospital and we hardly get sick from this work, but we will like to appeal to the government to provide jobs for us so that we can leave this work, because even though we do not feel anything now we might feel the impact at our old age,” she said.

Weekly Trust also gathered that while sourcing for sand, sometimes the women stumble on some valuable items.  Sati and Abila said they have found a small kitchen knife and a used and dumped pot,apparently another avenue for making more money.

At about noon, when the women are already exhausted, they go for a break during which some of them breast feed their children who are with their sisters on the other side of the river.

Sandy, it may be, but the business helps the women of Rusau.