The gold digger

By JENNIFER WIEBKING

09/11/2018 For almost 30 years, Ariane Golpira has been washing gold out of the rivers on the other side of the world.

Interim balance of a jungle life.

A

riane Golpira loves the sound of the helicopter.

The propeller goes chick-chick-chick, and for them it's the sound of excitement and rescue at the same time.

"First you're happy when the helicopter drops you," she says.

In Papua New Guinea, in the jungle.

Where it takes days to fight your way 100 meters through the jungle.

When the helicopter drops Ariane Golpira, she's gone for six months.

Really away, far away from civilisation.

Sometimes it's eight or nine months.

If she wants to make tea in the jungles of Papua New Guinea, she first has to go to the river to fetch water.

She has to carry it back, make a fire and heat the water.

For a cup of tea.

Of course she doesn't have a mobile phone in the jungle, only a satellite phone from which she can call every now and then.

“And suddenly the helicopter comes back and picks you up.

This is so great.

Then you have a hot shower, a bed, a Coke, a switch-on light instead of a kerosene lamp, waste oil or candles.”

This has been her life for almost 30 years.

Ariane Golpira and her partner Michael are gold diggers or more precisely: gold panners.

They extract gold from the river instead of blasting it out of mountains, which is a not inconsiderable difference for man and nature and will become important later.

The couple have worked in the South American rainforest in Peru and in the jungle of Papua New Guinea for the past several years.

There were 27 expeditions.

At the first Golpira was 31 years old, since then there has not been a year without it.

"For me, the year starts with the expedition, in March, April, and it ends in September, October."

Ariane Golpira, who originally comes from southern Germany, is now at an age when other people in Germany are starting to think about retirement.

Has she also let it go through her head, last year.

When she's not working in the distant jungle, her roots are mainly in Düsseldorf, and so she's now sitting in the Düsseldorf kitchen of her 34-year-old daughter Gisa on a warm day - but she's almost on the go again.

Freshly washed: Ariane Gopira extracts gold from the river.

Photo: private

It's not like Ariane Golpira then shoulders a backpack and sets off.

She takes 45 kilograms of medication with her.

“When I go shopping for an expedition, a truck follows me, we have to have everything there for months.” A ton of rice, 400 kilograms of sugar.

Seen in this way, it is not even an ordinary helicopter that drops Ariane Golpira in the jungle.

It's a cargo helicopter, packed with everything you need for at least six months alone in the forest: equipment, flour, oil, petrol.

Because at the end of an expedition, Ariane Golpira and her partner Michael want to come back with gold.

It is their livelihood.

The gold they mine is in the Natural History Museum in Vienna.

It goes to collectors, who then display their nuggets like trophies in a walk-in safe.

Ariane Golpira says she has very rich and very humble clients.

Those who wait two years for a bracelet because there aren't the nuggets they want, and those who save for two years because only then can they afford it.

The most important buyer of the gold is her daughter, Gisa Golpira, who has been making jewelry from nuggets for five years.

"When I go shopping for an expedition, a truck follows me."

ARIANE GOLPIRA

Also their past is the jungle.

She was there when the mother was just beginning to be a gold panner.

"I couldn't speak Spanish, I couldn't fish, I couldn't hunt, I couldn't pan for gold," says Ariane Golpira.

“You only know in such a situation that snakes, mosquitoes, cockroaches are everywhere in the forest.

You're going under a tree, and suddenly something falls down, and it's a ten-foot snake.

Three seconds earlier and that thing would have been a new necklace.” How was that for her?

"Terrible." Ariane Golpira laughs anyway.

Anyone moving into the jungle with a child – her daughter was four at the time – needs strong nerves.

"And you change without really noticing it." Here, the nail polish and the shoes have to be right.

"That's pointless there." Or shall we say: almost.

Because Ariane Golpira can't live without make-up, she has been wearing make-up since she was 14 years old.

Even in the jungle.

Strong nerves: When searching for gold, Ariane Golpira sometimes comes across a snake.

Photo: private

She is still together with the man who introduced her to this life, her life partner Michael.

Her daughter was three years old when Ariane Golpira separated from her father.

She had previously run a hotel in Düsseldorf-Oberkassel, and by the time she was 20 she was self-employed.

Then the daughter came and she was looking for a new professional challenge.

“I was interested in purchasing at Immotex, a clothing wholesaler.

During the conversation, they said they were sorry, the position had already been taken, but I should get up and walk three steps.” A short time later, Golpira was hired as a house model.

“Clothes sell better on a living hanger.

I quickly made a lot of money.

I had my child and told my mother that a man would no longer come into my house.

It wasn't long before she met Michael at a fashion show, who had previously worked as a designer and panned for gold in Peru.

"I looked into those blue eyes for a little too long.

Within five months our relationship deepened so much that I flew to Peru with him for three weeks to see this life.

I didn't want to go into the forest for love.

It had to be right.”

It was true for Golpira.

Three weeks later she came back to Germany, removed her daughter from kindergarten and moved to Peru with her.

"We then got our jungle driver's license together." That's what it's all about, finding your way around in the jungle.

“If you put a native from the jungle here at the wheel of a Mercedes and sent him onto the autobahn, he would be dead within a few minutes.”

Ariane Golpira and her daughter Gisa had to learn many new things.

And they had to speak Spanish.

It was easier for Gisa, as a child she understood the jungle intuitively.

Unlike her mother.

Partnership: Ariane Golpira with Michael Photo: private

When the daughter reached elementary school age, the mother began to teach her in the jungle.

She taught her to read and write, add and subtract.

"When we took the school test here, Gisa was always ahead." The daughter remembers how they practiced the alphabet in the canoe.

The jungle is a good place for children, they both say.

Values ​​and morals would be right, and you get a feeling for nature.

At the same time, the jungle is a hopeless place for children.

"What do you do at the age of 20 when you can talk to animals but not go to university," says Gisa Golpira.

In the second grade, the girl therefore moved to her father in Meerbusch, a tranquil suburb of Düsseldorf.

The moment when the mother separated from the daughter was so difficult that the mother still does not want to talk about it today.

After all, after each expedition she returned to Germany.

Before it starts, before Ariane Golpira arrives in the jungle with 45 kilograms of medicine, with 400 kilograms of sugar and a ton of rice, before a team of gold diggers is put together with whom she and her partner work, it only starts for the two of them.

"With a pickaxe, shovel, frying pan and tent, just as you imagine it." For this, too, they can be dropped off with a plane, with a Cessna, and arrange a meeting point a few weeks later.

Until then there is no communication.

So the Cessna couldn't come sooner than Ariane Golpira once fell down a three meter steep cliff during a tour in the late 1990s.

When she talks about it, it doesn't sound like a serious accident at all.

"I couldn't bend my knees forward anymore and I thought about

How do I make it to the rendezvous point now.

We had to get out, so it's about finding a solution.

Otherwise you can lie down and die.” Golpira's idea: “I went backwards.” She could still do that.

All the way out of the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the village where they had an appointment to meet the pilot.

"There they looked as if we had fallen from the sky."

Ariane Golpira and her team get the fish themselves on the expeditions. Photo: private

Values ​​and morals are right in the jungle, think Ariane and Gisa Golpira.

'Photo: private

In the jungle you get a feeling for nature, says Ariane Golpira.

Photo: private

It will not only have been because Ariane Golpira could only move backwards, but also because the Cessna had not arrived.

“The pastor in the village knew a little English and offered us to stay in the house.

But we had the tent with us.” They struck up a conversation.

"I asked what he believed in.

Then he looked at me and said: 'Now I know, you are the test.'

He then told me the entire creation story.” For hours.

It was night.

“I always said it was okay, but he said no, he would tell me all this now.” A missionary once told him that one day someone would come and ask him about it.

When the Cessna came the next noon, the pastor was still talking.

If you and your partner find what you are looking for in an area, you plan the operation.

The most expensive expedition once cost 160,000 marks, and a good 25 people were involved.

"Then you have to talk to the people there: Do you even want us?" You need a permit from the Ministry of Mines and protection from the clan.

What you don't need: Fear.

"Fear leads to misconduct," says Ariane Golpira.

“In Peru, for example, machos still rule.

I like that better in Papua New Guinea.

Everything is organized in the family clan, and if you are accepted into it, you are a wantok.

That means: You speak our language.” It is meant literally, because no other country in the world has more languages.

There are almost 850 tribal languages ​​for a population of 8.3 million.

Every 30 kilometers there is sometimes another one.

Kassensturz: Nuggets from the Jungle Photo: private

Ariane Golpira and her partner are often the first gold diggers the locals see.

In the expedition they usually work together with men of the appropriate clan.

They always take one or two men with them from the capital, where they work with the villagers who own the piece of land on which they are prospecting for gold.

About 15 people are then busy in the camp mining the gold.

For months they only have each other.

“We always try to be above the mosquito limit.

There are malaria mosquitoes up to an altitude of 1,200 meters.” Gold panning requires machines, especially dredges.

“Basically, it's like a vacuum cleaner: The dredge stands in the river, filters the rock.

Gold is heavy and gets stuck, the stones flow back into the river.” And you need petrol.

“As soon as the first tank is empty, we turn it into an oven.

Then I bake once a week.

Always on Saturdays.”

Ariane Golpira builds a new oven for every expedition.

And she grows radishes.

"They need six weeks, so you have to plant them in the first few days." They also take live chickens to the camp, sometimes piglets.

There is enough fish to catch.

But you have to smoke it right there to keep it going.

"If you want to eat something, you have to take care of it yourself."

ARIANE GOLPIRA

After deducting expenses, they divide what they produce by two.

Half goes to the Klan, the other half to the initiators, Ariane Golpira and Michael.

It is also a counter model to mercury gold mining, also found in Papua New Guinea.

One ton of mercury is often used for one ton of gold.

People and nature suffer as a result.

Children have to live with deformities because the mercury damages the mother's genetic material.

"Tails instead of feet," says Ariane Golpira.

Especially in Peru she has seen bad things.

There is a reason why gold mining is so controversial.

The gold that nature releases anyway, that drifts down the rivers from the mountains and is washed out by Ariane Golpira and her partner is therefore also called green gold.

"You totally fall into this world and then you come here and it's like a horror," says Golpira.

"For me, the cars drive so fast that I can't even recognize the car brands." When there was a ticket machine at the main train station in Düsseldorf, she didn't understand them.

"But I know how to kill a chicken with my bare hands."

Self-help: In the gold panners' camp, an empty petrol drum becomes an oven.

Photo: private

Ariane Golpira is responsible for the people in her camp and for the people around it as well.

Because of her long red hair, she quickly becomes the healer there.

"I also operate in the jungle," she says, who never studied medicine.

But she has helped lame people, removed worms and even saved the life of one woman.

At that time they were in Peru, with the Huambisa Indians.

“There came a canoe with a man and his wife.

She had just had a baby, rolled her eyes, was barely responsive.

The man said she had something between her legs and they didn't know what it was.

Now they are here because they have heard from me, from the redhead.” Ariane Golpira examined the woman.

"The labia were barely visible, instead there was a blister the size of a ball." A bruise as a result of childbirth.

She always has a local anesthetic with her.

"Just when you touched the spot, the woman had to scream."

What was missing that year, however, was a scalpel.

So she took a razor blade and wrapped it in scotch tape.

At that moment, her partner asked what exactly she was up to.

"I said I was preparing an operation, we had to intervene here, otherwise the woman dies.

And he said if I knew where we were, namely with the Huambisa Indians.

They would cut off our heads if this went wrong.

We would end up shrunken.” Ariane Golpira persuaded him to act anyway.

"And then I lost heart." Golpira instructed her partner what he should do.

It went well.

"The woman let out a sigh of relief and we knew then that we were on the right track." Golpira disinfected and bandaged the wound.

"And do you know

What was the first thing the man asked?

'When can I use it again?'"

"In Papua New Guinea everything is organized in the family clan," says Ariana Golpira Photo: private

Golpira said not at all at first, and not six weeks later either and only if the woman wanted it too.

A few days later, the family who had stayed at the camp up until then simply left.

"The woman was gone, the baby, the man, the canoe were gone.

It bothered me a bit that they didn't even say thank you.” Then, the expedition was almost over, the canoe arrived again two weeks before departure.

"They asked if they could name their baby Miguel.

That's how they finally said thank you."

In almost 30 years of expeditions, Ariane Golpira also carried a firearm with her for a long time.

She no longer needs them today.

"I'm trained to kill with my hands," she says.

She has a steady gaze.

Self-confidence is also self-protection.

Nevertheless, will the jungle soon be over, after almost three decades?

"Last year I said: never ever." Then the expedition she is about to face should be her last.

My health didn't keep up, my feet.

Ariane Golpira was also in Germany this early summer to have an operation.

Everything went well.

"When my health is restored, when I no longer have to go on expensive exploration tours and take a small helicopter - who knows what that means up there.

Maybe I'll do this to my last breath.

I have faith in God.”

The daughter Gisa Golpira now runs a jewelry label

Gisa Golpira Photo: private

G

isa Golpira still remembers the day she landed in Lima with her mother.

She was four years old at the time and Ariane Golpira's partner Michael was not alone when he conceived her.

He had a monkey on his arm, Isauro.

"That was my first boyfriend," says Gisa Golpira.

"He accompanied me."

The jungle taught her to communicate with animals, interpret sounds, read shadows.

And 25 years later, crossing the jungle, she came up with the idea for her own label that continues her family history.

Making contemporary jewelry with gold nuggets – this idea drove Gisa Golpira into self-employment quite soon, five years ago, after completing his studies and a first job in the purchasing department of the department store Galeries Lafayette.

Since then she has been making necklaces and bracelets, rings and earrings from the nuggets, which she mainly gets from her mother.

No two nuggets are the same: rings and earrings from Golpira Photo: manufacturer

The 34-year-old jewelery designer's nuggets are sold at Andreas Murkudis in Berlin, for example, and are worn by fashion-conscious women.

"Nuggets were rediscovered in the 1990s," says Golpira.

"Until then, they were mostly melted down, which was nonsense." Because no two nuggets are the same, thanks to nature.

And most importantly, it's not dirty gold.

Photo: manufacturer

The nuggets are wash gold, which is always more environmentally friendly.

"You don't need mercury.

With my parents I can be sure that I can trust them.” The only problem she has is that her mother will eventually retire.

Verifications and certifications are only of limited help.

"I want to see for myself." Gisa Golpira has now found fine gold from Finland, the only country in Europe where gold diggers still find gold using the traditional washing method.

"When my customer asks me where my nuggets come from, it's important to me to be able to show the entire production process."

Photo: manufacturer

Gold mining is considered one of the most criminal industries in the world.

Mined gold can destroy land and lives.

"There's a mine in Papua New Guinea so big that astronauts from space can see a huge crater." Chemical toxins are dumped into rivers.

Gisa Golpira is not the only designer who wants to do better.

Chopard has been using only responsibly sourced gold since July.

Golpira does not see this as competition.

"If consumers question what happens in the jungle, if they develop an awareness of it, that can't be wrong."

“I'm interested in fashion, I wear leather shoes, but at the same time I make conscious choices every day.

I'm also a little eco.”

GISA GOLPIRA

Fair trade gold is a first step.

The seal, which has only been around in this country for a few years, indicates that workers wear protective clothing, that they have insurance and an income even if they don't find anything, and that child labor is prohibited.

"But," says Gisa Golpira, "that's not yet fair mined.

There's still chemistry there.

Up to 18 tons of it is pumped into the river for a single ring.

When my parents go on an expedition, they travel with a total weight of 15 tons.”

Nevertheless: Gisa Golpira also says that every small step in the right direction is valuable.

“I'm interested in fashion, I wear leather shoes, but at the same time I make conscious choices every day.

I'm also a little eco.”