Plane Conversations on Rwandair
He told me that Rwanda has the highest concentration of tin in the world, and that this tin is used in almost everything, including make-up. And the demand only keeps rising, with a ton selling at $20,750 as opposed to $12,000 just three years back. But the most fascinating resource were the Simandou hill ranges of Guinea, which are composed entirely of iron ore. But the Guinea government is unwilling to license mining, until they are built a railway from Simandou to Conakry. As I worried about the equatorial forest that covers Simandou, how the place will be stripped and tunnelled, he told me not to worry.
“Our company takes pictures beforehand. We restore a habitat to its original state. We are not like the Dutch. They abandoned this mine in Rwanda when the genocide broke out. Now that place is a disaster.”
He is going back to that Rwandan mine. It still has rich veins of tin that promise to deliver the highest recorded output for the next twenty years. Though, he would love the most to go back to Liberia. When, he was there, searching for iron ore, they would just find thick strips of gold intertwined with the ore, but they were unable to mine because they were still not licensed.
To him, China is the worst. They destroyed the steel industry in South Africa, by buying all the essential iron ore components from all over the world, and stockpiling, forcing South African steel companies to close down and lay off workers.
When I told him about Tullow exploring oil in Kenya, he was curious. But then he said Kenya should not be worried about oil, but water. The Third World War would be over water, he said. The world will fight over the Great Lakes of Africa. For water is finishing all over the world, with the levels in dams going lower each year. South Africa is even thinking about using the giant, underground aquifer that lies between Johannesburg, Pretoria and Northern Cape. Though, no cost-effective energy system has yet been developed to pull the water up.
“Oh look,” he said, finally. “Just one hour left before we land. I better nap.”
I was left wondering about a Third World War on water. Outside the window, the continent was asleep, dark, unknowable.
I think he’s right. I think that’s why so many companies are fighting for rights to bottle water. I think our schools need to start teaching our children how to grow and cook food. Great things to think about.
My RwandaAir seat-mate was a Nigerian man. He lives in Nairobi, has a Kenyan passport, and operates a business that has something to do with phones around Syokimau. He wanted to know why Kenyans were so hostile to Nigerians and see that he had friends who move houses every few weeks as the police often do swoops and round up many Nigerians for immediate deportation.
Yes, we need to go back to owning the entire food supply chain. That is how it has always been. Why did we allow corporates to take over!
Hello Bankelele. Yes, there is a bias that many Kenyans have towards Nigerians-even to the most petty (they steal our women 🙂 ). I think when the continent was divided into sections, without any intentions of making citizenry but to find efficient means of pillaging resources, unconscious biases and poisonous rivalries set in. Personally, I feel the poison will leak out if we lessen the strength of these boundaries. What do you think?