THE NEW GOLD RUSH

Driven by a changing global order, the new clamor for gold brings ready cash, and deadly costs

- By Charlie Campbell/ Kumasi, Ghana

DRIVE AN HOUR SOUTH OF KUMASI, GHANA'S BUSTLING second city, and before long the dense jungle gives way to denuded hills peppered with rickety timber frames.

On every slope, gumbooted workers shovel the tawny earth down to muddy pools in the furrows, from whence the sludge is pumped to the frame's zenith to gush down a shallow ramp lined with webbed plastic matting. At the base, more workers sweep the outflow with metal detectors.

Several times a day, the incessant din of diesel engines pauses while the mats are delicately removed and placed in outsize tubs for washing. It's only then that the glistening purpose of this toil materializes through the murky soup: gold—tiny flecks, yet with global prices breaching a record high of $4,000 an ounce, valuable enough to render any other labor foolish by comparison.

"I've worked galamsey for 15 years," says dad of five Steven, using the local term for wildcat gold mining, as he rests wearily on his shovel. His work here earns 1,000 Ghanaian cedis ($81) each week, he says, or eight times the national minimum wage, "I also work as a driver and grow plantain, cassava, and coconut on my family farm. But the money here is so much better."

Profitable, but illegal—which is why Steven requested TIME use only one name. Yet galamsey is no secret in Ghana, whose colonial name "Gold Coast" offers some measure of how this precious metal has long been interwoven with people's lives. Early Arab traders exulted in the extravagance of the Asante court in Kumasi, including royal guard dogs adorned in gold collars and officials whose wrists were hung with nuggets so large they had to be supported by boy attendants.