Tanzanian Tales I: First Impressions

Below is the first of my newsletters from Tanzania. It joins a collection of newsletters that began in Uganda and continued on to Malawi in an on-going project who's aim is to share my experience of Africa with interested folk around the world. This latest was posted to approximately 150 interested e-mail subscribers on 18 October 2005. Stay tuned for the next post very soon.

Williamson Diamond Mine, Mwadui, Tanzania

Despite several such arrivals in a new country over the past few years, this arrival did not fail to arouse a familiar mixture of anxieties and anticipations. The pleasures and challenges of adjusting to living in a new place are both unique to a location and era of one’s life while also being inevitable consequences of a big move. In this case, anxiety in particular was suddenly compounded as our small internal Tanzanian commuter airplane touched down on Shinyanga’s gravel runway. It was as smooth as possible a landing by an obviously experienced pilot but the less than solid feel of the gravel under the airplane’s landing gear was a new and unsettling experience for me. I’m told it is even more fun when the runway is awash with recent rain. It was however, a real pleasure to get a bird’s eye view of our new home right away as we circled for the landing.

We’ve landed on a rather flat plain where the only topographical feature of note is the chain of mountains that have been raised around the mine. These can be seen from several kilometers away when the dust haze is not too thick. The dune-like hills are the mounds of dirt that have been dug up, sifted and otherwise processed and then piled over the six decades that this mine has been in operation. The older ones are covered in the natural grasses and even some shrubs and trees that are natural to the region.

This area of Tanzania (Shinyanga Province) awaits the rains that will signal the start of the growing season. The landscape is therefore rather barren looking at the moment. The colour palette is predominately drawn from shades of brown. Freshly turned earth of prepared fields tend towards the red end of that spectrum while the dry pans and river beds crack open to reveal greys and blacks.

It may be a rather desolate, dusty time of year but where there is water, life teems. Thanks to regular watering of the plants, our garden is yielding bananas and papaya with which we feed Simon in addition to ourselves. We also have a mango tree which is heavily laden with green fruit. The little green mangoes, which were barely the size of my thumbnail when we arrived a month ago, are now half the size of the palm of my hand and increasing in size almost perceptively day by day. We not only share this produce with the two people who work in the house and the garden but also with the amazing variety of birds and other creatures that populate the yard. Our house is old but open and airy in the typical colonial style of the era and area. It is comfortable but somewhat in need of repair due to some neglect as well as the almost daily earth quake it endures as a result of the blast from on-going mine operations.

So here we are in Mwadui. This is the town that J.T.Williamson built to house the people that work on the diamond mine he established here almost 60 years ago. It is a town full of colonial style buildings and even more history. Each building has a story. There is still a technical mining college in addition to at least 8 other (mostly primary) schools. There are apparently at least as many churches as well. There are tennis and squash courts and a standing up/falling down yacht club beside a man made dam. Williamson stocked the dam with fish and birds he imported for his employees’ pleasure. Many generations later, the fish are feeding the local population of people as well as the descendants of the pelicans and other water birds he brought in. Two little courtyards of small stores that once might have supplied many luxuries now sell basic commodities. The swimming pool by the Managing Director’s house sports a fountain in the shallow end as well as a change rooms with a bar. Williamson’s beautiful stone walled house is connected by an underground tunnel to the (now abandoned) original diamond sort house. The present occupants of the house very kindly showed me around and even pointed out a couple of the wall safes where the notoriously secretive and shrewd Williamson stashed fortunes in diamonds.

The mine “plant” from which issues the mountains of tailings, lakes of “slime” and small packages of diamond concentrate runs 24 hours a day 7 days a week and 362 days a year. It lays down a background noise whose clatter sounds like a freight train passing in the distance. There are two types of mining now going on here. In the original open pit work continues on the main diamond pipe that Williamson discovered. Meanwhile a certain radius of the immediate area is mined for alluvial diamonds that have been washed away from the main pipe over the past million or so years. In alluvial mining, the surface layer of topsoil is methodically removed to expose the second layer of earth which is also removed and processed in much the same way as what is mined from the main pit.

Mwadui is relatively busy compared to other isolated places I have lived in Africa. There is a resident herd of milk cattle that provide us with a daily litre of fresh milk delivered to our door early every morning. We can also buy other basics such as tomatoes and onions and laundry soap in the aforementioned markets. If we get there early enough, the Mwadui bakery might still have a loaf of bread to sell. However, there is no restaurant or grocery store per se. For almost everything aside from beer and “cooldrink” (sodas/pop), we travel to Shinyanga or Mwanza or even further to Dar es Salam.

Shinyanga is our closest town. It boasts a tiny grocery store that caters specifically to the muzungu (white ex-patriots/foreigners) who work on the mine. There we can buy things like fruit juice, chocolate and cheese. Between this provincial capital and the mine is a notorious township called Maganzu. There one can observe the work of local native miners who have bought claims to mine alluvial diamonds that might have washed this far – some 10km or more from the main pipe. The claims appear to be a couple meters square and I imagine that finding even a single gemstone in these tiny plots must be akin to winning the lottery. The principal is the same for alluvial mining within the mine area but here all the work is done by hand. Each tiny pit is ringed by the topsoil that has been removed to expose the second layer. However, these are the legitimate fronts for the illegitimate business that keeps Kobus busy as a mine security manager – illegal diggers on the mine, the so-called “wabeshi.”

The mine area is not fenced but after several generations it can be said that it is generally known who belongs where and who has the right to dig in a place or not. Desperate people come by day and night to try their luck at finding diamonds in both the pit and alluvial mining areas. The layer of earth in question is exposed in these areas, making it rather more likely that there are stones to be found more easily. However, it is dangerous work. The wabeshi most often work under cover of darkness with very little light. They are liable to get caught in cave ins among other hazards, not least of which are disturbing resident spitting cobras or other less than friendly wildlife. They seem to work in groups of a handful to a couple dozen. When they are spotted and chased by roaming guards, they often try to hide in swampy areas where they know the guards won’t follow. Unfortunately, a few have drowned over the past few months. The illegal diggers are not just individuals with a taste for riches that overwhelms their sense of self preservation. They are organized and sent in by diamond dealers who are well known but difficult to catch in the act. Who’s to say that a specific stone came from a legitimate claim or has been filched from someone else’s?

I’m not one to place much store in first impressions. I try to keep an open mind and to find the good in everything for as long as possible. So far this hasn’t been too much of a challenge here. There’s obviously a lot to learn and do around Mwadui if one has but a bit of interest and time. I feel fortunate to have both.

Of course the demands of motherhood are keeping me rather happily busy but it appears that I’ll have lots to write and think about as I get the chance. As always, questions and comments are most welcome and I do try to respond to all personal responses that these newsletters inspire. Thanks to all for your good thoughts and wishes.