The Coca Pit
- 13 Nov 07, 11:53 AM
Posted from: Louisiana
7.20 am: We walk 10 minutes up through the woods and come to a small clearing with a wooden house. A very poor-looking mum and dad with six scraggly young children greet us. They look somewhat puzzled by our motives and the driver quickly reassures them so it’s happy hand shakes all round.
They have every reason to be cautious - if caught by the authorities, cocaine paste manufacturers will receive a four-year prison sentence. They clearly make very little money from this business and the dad explains that he works this trade and lives this hidden existence in order to try to make enough money to send his kids to school.
We walk another five minutes deeper into the jungle and the lad who had joined us earlier helps carry some large bags of coca leaves they have hidden in the bushes. Another five minutes walking and we end up at a pre-dug deep pit, a metre deep and about three metres by five metres in dimensions. They carefully cover the bottom and sides of the pit with one huge piece of plastic sheeting and then cleverly, using a piece of drain pipe, divert the flow of water from a nearby small stream into the pit.
By letting us film them the men are undoubtedly putting themselves at risk from both the narcotics police and the drug cartels so we have agreed they will not be identified on camera by either avoiding their faces through careful framing or pixilation of their faces on the edited programme.
Once six inches of water fills the pool they add some chlorine and empty in the first bag of coca leaves. They then stomp the leaves with their feet and empty in another bag of leaves. For the next three to four hours they beat the leaves with large sticks until they are a wet mulch – it’s back-breaking work.
The great thing about filming with Bruce is that he never just watches and if the characters are doing hard work then so will he. On this occasion however, because it is an illegal activity we are witnessing, he must not help so watches on and, as they work, asks them to tell their story.
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