It has been described to me as a ghost village. Far away and lost on the Brazilian border, Ikabarú is a mining village that was founded in the 1930s. Today, mining is banned in the country and the village is a shadow of its former self. This is what they say in Santa Elena, the nearest town. The truth is that spectres have gold teeth and a hard life.

Juvenal doesn’t care. He doesn’t have a machine and doesn’t need to pay the military at the checkpoints in the area. The mine holds no secrets for him. He has been working there since he was ten years old. At almost seventy,
it’s just a formality. He knows all about the little streams that hide their secrets and the paths that lead to the most beautiful diamonds. He shows me two or three of them, only small ones, I shouldn’t get any ideas…

Juvenal works about five hours a day. He comes back at about 1 p.m. but nobody knows. He wants his quiet time. He has time to do his business at home, to fix what is broken, to feed the puppy and to teach him to scare the cows… His hut looks like him. Like him, it is not very big, rather humble and full of wrinkles. His father built it a year after the creation of the village and he has never left it. Like her, he sneezes as soon as the breeze rises, making the sound of a worn-out hoover… He has all his teeth. Not all of them are real and most of them have a nice yellow colour in his mouth that gives a mischievous look when he smiles. This rarely happens now, there are always those who look too closely and then it starts to hurt…
With what he has saved, he could have changed jobs, bought a taxi and even a small house in Santa Elena… But he reserves everything for his children. In any case, the mine does not leave it. He is the last of his generation. All the others died a long time ago of old age or during a fight…

I think they are the ghosts of Ikabarú. Friends and colleagues that nobody can forget. In the mine they all know that they are a bit of a prisoner. There is always a big rock holding them back… On the way out of Juvenal’s house, I pass a ghost. He died yesterday from a bullet in the abdomen. His throat is dry and he asks me for some rum.