Two weeks at the mine, two weeks with family: in Australia, nomadic workers face grueling daily lives

Reportage

Every week

Letter from elsewhere

For two years, Manon got up every morning at 3:30 a.m., in a prefabricated room measuring three by three meters, on Groote Eylandt, a mining island in the Gulf of Carpentaria on the north coast of Australia. Some of his colleagues worked in the manganese mine. She was assigned to housekeeping, in this camp which houses the employees. Its pace: three weeks in a row, seven days a week, 12 hours a day. Before flying to Darwin – 600 kilometers away – to rest for a week. Then leave again.

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