My tanzanite mining experience, albeit at a museum

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     Despite some properly high-rising buildings in Arusha, northern Tanzania, the majority of buildings are in a dilapidated state and telephone cables are seen crisscrossing like branches of trees in a thick forest. 
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     Development appears to be taking place, somewhat slow.
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     However, there is one building known as the Blue Plaza along India Street that is a symbol of hope.
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     It houses a company called Tanzanite Experience, which sells polished tanzanite.
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     Apart from its boutique store, the company has a tanzanite museum open to members of the public who are interested in knowing more about the blue violet gemstone.<br>
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<img width="650" height="366" title="tanzanite_2.jpg" align="left" alt="tanzanite_2.jpg" src="/upload/medialibrary/d2a/tanzanite_2.jpg">When I got to the third floor of the building, where the museum is, I noticed security was tight as was the case elsewhere in the town, perhaps due to the fear of the terror group, Al Shabaab that operates from the neighbouring Somalia.
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     The security personnel subjected me to a thorough search using a metal detector.
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     Upon clearance a bell was rung and the stuff inside opened the gate for me.
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     I was greeted by two staff members whom I quickly recognised.
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     They manned Tanzanite Experience’s exhibition room at Mount Meru Hotel, where the three-day Arusha Gem Fair took place from 21-23 April.
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     History of tanzanite
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     I made known the purpose of my visit to them and salesperson Thomas Nyaki agreed to take me through the tanzanite museum on the other side of the boutique.
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     The first port of call was the history section.
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     He said the story of tanzanite’s discovery largely remained a “mystery” although the Maasai communities have built their own legends around this miraculous find.
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     The Maasai believed that the tanzanite was formed following a bolt of lightning.
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     For them, it was the heat from this “magic fire in the sky” that transformed crystals on the ground into sparkling blue-violet gems.
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     “However, for us we say it was a geographical phenomenon…,” he said.
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     Nyaki said they understand that tanzanite, which is 1000 times rarer than diamonds, was formed beneath the earth’s surface more than 580 years ago at the foothills of Mount Kilimanjaro.
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     Experts maintain that the chance of tanzanite occurring elsewhere in the world was one in a million.
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     The only credible history about the “discovery” of tanzanite dates back to 1967 when a Maasai tribesman Ali Juuyawatu picked a blue-violet crystal while grazing his cattle in the Mererani Hills of Manyara Region.
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     He then shared his finding with Manuel de Souza (an American tailor by profession and prospector by passion) who was in the region searching for rubies.
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     Nyaki said at first it was thought the stones were unusually vibrant sapphires, but the new gemstones were more complex than a sapphire as their colour was more exotic.
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     Henry B. Platt, great grandson of Louis Comfort Tiffany (and later President and Chairman of New York’s Tiffany & Co) later named the stone, tanzanite and it was introduced to the world at Tiffany & Co in 1968.
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     Tanzanite, which was scientifically called "blue zoisite", was also proclaimed the world’s best-selling coloured gemstone in 1998 and 1999.
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     Today, demand for tanzanite continues, outstripping sales of all other coloured gemstones (with the exception of the sapphire), claimed Tanzanite Experience.   
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     Mining process
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     From the history section, Nyaki took me through a simulated underground mining process that miners go through on a daily basis in search for the rare gemstone.
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     “Here we are trying to present a replica of how tanzanite is mined underground,” he said as he opened a metal gate into the dark room, which has tiny lights with motion sensors.
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     I was shown what Nyaki called the mother rock of tanzanite that was bluish in colour and a brownish crystal that cut across the rock as if it was oscillating.<br>
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<img width="650" height="366" title="tanzanite_3.jpg" align="left" alt="tanzanite_3.jpg" src="/upload/medialibrary/893/tanzanite_3.jpg"><br>
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     Tanzanite was trichroic, meaning it shows three colors - brown, blue and violet concurrently.
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     He said the mined materials were packed in sacks before they are transported to the processing plant where a mineral rich concentrate is separated from rock.
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     “The concentrate is then mechanically sized in the sort house so as to obtain maximum efficiency during the state-of-the-art optical sorting process,” said Nyaki.
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     “The rough tanzanite is then hand sorted into gem and opaque categories. The gem quality rough tanzanite then undergoes a cobbing process where clean, facetable rough is crafted.”
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     The purplish-blue color of tanzanite is achieved after heating in a furnace.
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     Heating removes the brown or burgundy color component.
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     However, heating does take place underground naturally sometimes by metamorphic occurrences.
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     Nyaki said cutting and polished followed thereafter.
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     “We get different shapes of tanzanite after cutting and polishing,” he said.
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     Having been taken though all the stages of tanzanite mining, I said my good-byes, more knowledgeable about this rare gemstone.
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<b>Mathew Nyaungwa, Editor in Chief of the African Bureau, Rough&Polished<br>
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