It has now become a ritual for Iue Tjitemisa, 42, to wake up every morning and look towards this abandoned mining structure in the distance and curse.

For years, residents of Botlhatlogo, Sehithwa and Toteng, were among the poorest in Botswana; in 2014 the government-run Statistics Botswana found that 46.2% of the district’s residents lived in abject poverty. But the 2010 advent of the first ever copper mine in their midst raised hopes that perhaps things would turn out for the better. But that hope has all but fizzled out.