"I can remember the time," she
said wistfully, "when all the fields
around this village were green and the
harvests good". Her outstretched arm
described a complete circle as she
stood in the morning sun. "Then they
built those monsters, those……." Her
voice spluttered in anger as she shook
her fist at a collection of ominouslooking
black buildings on the horizon,
covered in a low-lying shroud of thick
smoke. "They said that factories need leather to make shoes, handbags and clothes. They
said our menfolk would get jobs. They said we would all become rich."
We stood silent, each thinking our own thoughts. Yes, they told you all that. But
there is so much they didn't tell you. They didn't tell you that to change animal skins
into leather - which they call tanning - uses as many as 250 different chemicals,
including heavy metals such as cadmium , arsenic and chromium. They didn't tell you
that these chemicals are discharged into the environment from those chimney stacks and
fall to earth for miles around, polluting the earth below. They didn't tell you that
this would poison your fields, so that nothing will grow.