Manasse Lomachar was looking for a missing goat when he wandered towards a seasonal riverbed near Cheporor in western Kenya. What he encountered there was not what he had expected. A group of women were washing mud and sand, carefully searching the sediment for tiny traces of gold. Lomachar joined them and soon found some himself. As reported by the BBC, a few weeks later, he had sold three grams for 36,000 Kenyan shillings, about $280. The find helped turn a little-known stretch of grazing land into the centre of a sudden gold rush. Thousands of people travelled to the remote area after stories of larger discoveries began circulating.
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