June 17, 2017 – Mine, Mine, Mine!
It was supposed to be a tour of one of the largest sapphire mines in the world with a Swiss geologist providing insight into the history of sapphire mining in Madagascar along with the qualities and grading of the stones themselves. What it turned out to be was a short hike to a big hole with a supposed digging excavation operation and a brief translated talk from a local “expert” who may or may not have been Swiss by way of Madagascar.
It was still interesting and certain details were jawdropping and amazing and humbling… but it all felt a bit… staged. We had an armed escort who would shoo away the curious local kids who may or may not have been looking for handouts but certainly seemed intrigued by these caravans of tourists traipsing through the dusty fields.
Apparently the standard operating procedure is this bucket brigade hole digging process that hopefully leads to a sapphire vein strike. If precious gems are discovered, a “trusted” team is brought in to excavate, overseen by an owner/operator to prevent the strike going walkabout. The diggers we saw in the “untrusted” manual labor team were said to earn seven cents an hour. Seven cents an hour. It all feels so very… exploitative? And later we saw the shacks of individual prospectors who hoped to strike it big on their own; all I could think about were the myriad movies I’ve seen chronicling the hard lot of miners chasing that big score.
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This was somebody else’s joke that when they picked up a mineral rock and I chose to remake it with mom:
Caption reads: “Getting stoned in Madagascar!”
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Ilakaka is the name of this town in the sapphire fields, which means the place where an ancient river named Lakaka flows. In 1998, a Frenchman came to the area looking to mine for granite. What he discovered sent him scurrying back to Tana to do some more research; he returned to found a town with 1000 workers for he had discovered sapphires aplenty. Seemingly overnight, the town exploded like a boom town in the old west… complete with prospectors, crushed dreams, guns, and exploitation of workers for the benefit of the few who made it rich. But the mine endures, operations stretching far and wide which as I said above have proclaimed Madagascar as having the largest sapphire mines in the world.
As with most jewel tours… or perhaps with any time-share designation… there is a price to be paid for a tour. And that price is the hard sell shopping detour. I was under the impression we’d be hearing a bit more about the history of the sapphire fields here in Madagascar and a lot more about the quality and characteristics of sapphires in the showroom. Instead it was all shopping and no info.
Basically, this tour sucks. It felt like a bait and switch bamboozle.
I snapped a photo of the workers as the candle light station reminded me of a time I was in a showroom and the salesperson proved to me the jewel was genuine by running it through a BIC lighter’s flame. I guess that really is a test and wasn’t just a bit of showmanship.
Around behind the shop was a small pineapple field and a gaggle of geese. I was far more interested in trying to capture a selfie with said geese than in perusing the shop… but there’s only so much time you can spend snapping pics of geese. And the hour-plus at this tour “stop” was an hour too long.
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In the late afternoon, Karen and Jeff distributed our bib numbers. I think it was alphabetical… but whatever the system used, I’m bib number 16.
Thom then held a course overview meeting. Line of the night? “Is that clear enough?” Dead silence as we all take in the myriad twists and turns and curveballs of the “mostly flat course” that now involves knee high deep water crossings and A LOT more sand. “Yeah, I know it’s not clear at all… but it’ll make more sense tomorrow.”
