In Africa, there is a high-risk occupation, 2 times a day, 60 yuan a day, 3 years is enough to make people deaf and blind, what is this job? Why do Africans have to go forward and do it?
This is the African salt collector.
A salary of 60 yuan a day is a "high salary" in Ethiopia, and knowing what the consequences are, there are still many people who go back and forth to work in salt mining because they are too poor.
Ethiopia, like other African countries, has a very weak and underdeveloped economy, with most people struggling to survive on agriculture.
However, the town of Bello is blessed with unique resources – a 1.8 km salt lake.
In Ethiopia, salt is a precious thing, and they will make a lot of money by mining salt and selling it.
So the local tribes protected the salt lake and then mined it by local men.
Because of the corrosive nature of the salt at the bottom of the lake, no clothing could protect them, so they simply went into the water naked, and every time they came ashore, they had thick white crystals hanging from their bodies.
From sunrise work to sunset, the salt mined on this day can net earn about 60 yuan, the daily salary is "high", and the cost behind it is also heavy.
The high corrosiveness of the salt lake invades the skin of salt collectors, and people who have been in the water for many years have white crystals that cannot be washed away, and they look like Caucasians from a distance.
This is not a good thing, it means that the surface of their skin has been destroyed, so that various skin diseases will find them, and even the whole body will fester.
In addition to the skin, the more serious consequences lie in the eyes and ears.
Salt collectors enter the water in order to collect salty mud at the bottom of the lake, and if they want to fish out the mud in the chaotic water of the salt lake, the eye becomes the most important weapon.
But the lake water will deeply corrode the eyes of salt collectors, and people who work in the lake for many years will be seriously injured for no more than three years, and if they can't see things clearly, they will never see the light again.
Since the lake water can corrode the skin and eyes, how can the ears survive.
It's no use for salt collectors to plug their ears with homemade tools, they have to work in the salt lake all day, and the water of the lake will definitely flow into the ears and cause damage.
Over time, the ears will become more and more inaudible until they are deaf and can no longer hear.
However, in order to support their families, some people continue to go into the water after losing their ears and eyes, and the cycle continues over time, and the average life expectancy of locals is getting shorter and shorter.
The salt collectors are not unaware of the consequences, but they still choose to go into the water to collect salt, only because of poor families.
Ethiopian families are made up of husband and wife and seven or eight children, and the high income from salt mining not only feeds the family, but even has spare money to send the children to school.
This is the only way to change the fate of their children, and adults put their future on the next generation, so they desperately collect salt, just so that their children can have a stable life.
Exchanging one person for the happiness of a family is, in their opinion, the most cost-effective deal.
Overcoming the difficulties of salt mining, they also had to fend off invasions from outsiders from time to time.
The salt lake is so big, with yours there is no mine.
Although the local tribes held ownership of the salt lake, they had to fend off other tribes almost every other time.
Young people have re-taken up arms to defend the ownership of the salt lake, and the old people have tried their best to make trouble in the salt lake, and there are not a few who directly grab the salt soil. Both sides used all kinds of tricks to fight for the salt lake.
In this way, it will inevitably develop into a large-scale armed struggle, and in severe cases, people will even die in the fight.
Both sides are a bitter battle for life, a war that will not be won, even if the salt lake swallows up their health and even their lives.
On the Internet, the keywords of "Africa" and "salt picking" are searched for by their blood and tears.
Their suffering will not end, poverty is like a mountain pressing down on their heads, but no matter what, they are trying to survive.
