South African Diamond Mine 1982

We walked along the base of the ancient mountain that was now mostly worn into a hill, out from under which underpaid men died digging diamonds.  Some of them died digging them out.  Some of them died being caught in the act of stealing them.  We walked past young men, presumably of the army, protecting their government’s diamond mine with only their machine guns and superiority.  One of them nodded at me and I had the absent-minded notion that Harder Security should scorch the area and abscond with the loot.  I winked at the soldier, who smiled back – human after all.