By Peter @Newton Bell, 20 October 2016.

Mohammad stood awkwardly beside his camel while a cameraman walked away and then turned to look at him. "Smile!" he said. Mohammad managed a weak smile, but was clearly uncomfortable with the small group of people looking at him. It was only the second-time Mohammad had his photo taken ever, and the first was tied to an unpleasant experience with the Egyptian police. Little did he know that this photo would soon go viral online as an example of what a junior mining company stands to gain by carefully working with the local people who need it most.

 

Mohammad had learned to live in the desert after leaving the city during the Revolution in 2011. He stayed in the desert after discovering that he was good at getting gold out of old mines. The same old mines that no-one seemed to know or care about, but which seemed to appear all over the Eastern Desert. It was hard work to go into these old holes and retrieve something of value, but he liked it more than begging.

One morning, Mohammad was packing up his tools from the night's activities when he looked up to see a white man standing in front of him. The man calmly told Mohammad something that he already knew: what he was doing was illegal. It was the first-time Mohammad had been caught and he was scared of what might happen, but he was also intrigued because the white man spoke Arabic with an Egyptian accent.

The white man told Mohammad "لا الشرطة", which meant "no police". Mohammad didn’t believe him, but listened to him anyways. Running could only make things worse at this point.

Apparently, the white man wanted to take Mohammad to his camp and show him what a proper gold mine looked like. Mohammad had seen a gigantic mine from a distance once before, but had no idea what was really going on there. He agreed to visit the camp and avoid the heat of the day with the white man, half expecting police to be waiting when they arrived.

The white man showed him great hospitality when they arrived. They shared breakfast and tea, American cigarettes, and even made Mohammad take a shower. He thought the shower was a pretty poor way to bathe, but appreciated it nonetheless. It was some of the greatest generosity that anyone had ever showed Mohammad in his life.

Mohammad spent the day at the camp and then went out into the desert with the white man that night. They visited an old hole that had lights and few dozen men working. Mohammad was surprised to find that they were basically doing what he had been doing himself, but with more people and better equipment.

"Would you like to work here with us?" The white man asked Mohammad.

"No, no. I am sorry. I cannot work here with you. I am too poor to work for you. I cannot do this work."

"Well," the white man laughed. "You can do this work, I've seen you do it! But I understand that you may need your space. Would… Would you like to keep doing what you're doing now and bring back information to me about what you find? You can keep all the gold you find and I will even pay you. You can help me greatly by looking in all of these places that I have not visited yet. I have a problem, you know, I have too much land here…"

Mohammad didn't quite understand what the man was saying. He looked to another Egyptian who seemed to always be near the white man and stammered a question. The Egyptian man told him that yes, this was real. No tricks. Mohammad's lowered his head and a tear fell from his face.

He lifted his head and looked the white man in the eyes. "Yes, I will do this for you."

They took the photo the next morning and posted it online with a brief description of the background story. It wasn’t until six months later, when Mohammad found the richest gold known anywhere on the property that people paid it any attention. It made headlines across the world as an example of "Corporate Social Opportunity," a new three letter acronym that challenged the old phrase "Corporate Social Responsibility".

Mohammad was thoroughly pleased by all the attention that he received after finding the gold. He learned to say the phrase "all in a day's work" in English and found that the reporters always went into a tizzy when he said it. The white man showed him some of the things that people were saying about him online and he could barely believe that people from around the world would ever care so much about someone like him.

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It is my pleasure to share another fictional story inspired by things that I have learned about the global mining industry. It is my hope that this story will educate and entertain you.

This story has two direct sources of inspiration. One is a brief comment from a respected newsletter writer that "artisanal miners" are often used in Western Africa as informal prospectors for mining companies. The other is Rick Rule's discussion about Corporate Social Opportunity at the Morality & Capitalism conference (video will be posted here at some point). Thanks to them and others who helped me write this short story.