Tanzania Africa - Gem Trip - July 2009
I departed for Tanzania Africa on June 30th along with fellow cutters and friends Peter Torraca, and Roger Dery from the Detroit Airport heading to Amsterdam. From Amsterdam, we switched flights and spent another 8 hours getting to Mt. Kilimanjaro airport. We were picked up by our main gem dealer in Arusha, Jamal, and take to our hotel. We couldn't see much on the drive of about 30 miles into Arusha other than a rough road, with endless speed bumps.
This first picture is the view out of my hotel window. These crude shanties were made of stone block and metal roof. I would suspect they consisted of a single room inside. Each household seemed to be occupied by a business man who would set up shop every morning on the street, selling just about anything from backpacks, shoes, to food. They would arise early, and haul everything out, then return it all at night.
This first picture is the view out of my hotel window. These crude shanties were made of stone block and metal roof. I would suspect they consisted of a single room inside. Each household seemed to be occupied by a business man who would set up shop every morning on the street, selling just about anything from backpacks, shoes, to food. They would arise early, and haul everything out, then return it all at night.
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Google Maps doesn't show too much detail in Africa, but if you follow the Arusha Himo Rd east out of Arusha, past the Arusha National Park, you will see a road going south and ending. Zoom in on this. This is the Kilimanjaro Airport Road. About 2 miles south of the end of this road are the Tanzanite mines, and Tanzanite One. (More on Tanzanite One later)
Further south is the village we visited looking for the yellow grossularite garnets. There are no real roads, just dirt paths for moving cattle and goats.
Further south is the village we visited looking for the yellow grossularite garnets. There are no real roads, just dirt paths for moving cattle and goats.
Jamal had informed many of the local miners and dealers that we would be in town, and by mid morning there was a line outside his door. Each person would wait patiently for the most part to get in and have the chance to show us his goods. Often the stones were just wrapped in toilet paper, and at times were just one or two stones, and other times large parcels. Jamal's assistant would allow one trader in at a time, with the others out in hall behind the barred door. This guy below doesn't look too happy about the offer Roger made him!
Quite a variety of stones were shown the first day, many types of garnets, sapphires, spinel and even some Amethyst. One of my main focuses on this trip was tsavorite garnet, and I was able to obtain some very nice pieces. The tsavorites I picked up will cut from just under 1 carat to over 4. Below is a picture of a few tsavorites from the first day.
We were informed that the Spessartite mine in Tanzania is played out, and there is no new production. However there were several large parcels of material shown. Most of it was what I would consider cab grade, however a few smaller parcels were very clean, the cleanest I have seen of this material. Of course, we bought the best pieces.
Below are some of the spessartite parcels we looked at and some tsavorite garnet.
I just was able to pick up the stones from Customs tonight. If you are importing rough stones with a value over $2000, you must get the package cleared through customs with a customs broker. The whole process seems silly since there is not duty to pay on uncut stones, I think it's one of those things to keep everyone employed in government.
We traveled one day out to the area where these yellow grossular garnets are mined. It was quite a journey, not exactly a road going out there, more a trail for the Maasi to move their cattle on. The Maasi are nomads who are herders of cattle and goats. On the way out to the mining area we passed several very small villages of these people. The following are a few pictures on the way.
We traveled one day out to the area where these yellow grossular garnets are mined. It was quite a journey, not exactly a road going out there, more a trail for the Maasi to move their cattle on. The Maasi are nomads who are herders of cattle and goats. On the way out to the mining area we passed several very small villages of these people. The following are a few pictures on the way.
The yellow grossular garnets below, are mined in this area. We had a look around, but didn't find the mine area. We felt bad for Jamal driving this far out and didn't want him to risk any damage to his vehicle as the "road" was getting pretty tough going, so we headed back.
The area where these garnets are found is called Lolatema, they say that the water runs out of the mountain and into the village here. Since the rainy season was over, we didn't see the any water running, just the dried up stream bead.
Here I am inspecting a few stones that we saw in the village. The color was pretty nice, but they were a bit on the small side for me. So I made a pretty low offer, and the owner of the stones wasn't too happy. We did buy a few bottles of soda from the guy, I have no idea where they came from, and I bought a package of cookies from him that I gave to some little children near buy. Seems this guy ran some kind of general store out there in the middle of nothing. That building you see in the back ground is his store.
A company from South Africa took over one of the tanzanite blocks, block "C" and formed Tanzanite One. This is a large scale mining operation, with automated equipment. The locals were not too happy about this, as it eliminated a large area for them to mine. You can read all about Tanzanite One at their website. Seems they are trying to get tanzanite controlled similar to what is going on with the diamond trade.
In the photo on the bottom right, you can see the the area that Tanzanite One dumps the digging after they have been gone through. The locals will go into this area and look around for anything that was missed.
A local cutter in Arusha, working on an American made faceting machine.