How did I discover this place of Mica &Tanzanite?
On a hunt at the Blue Mountains, in the year 1957, a Maasai tribesman came to me and asked me to hunt and kill a buffalo that fatally gored a woman and killed some cows. He said that he speared the buffalo but disappeared in the thickets. While following the wounded buffalo in the thick bush I came across an outcrop of crystallized rocks on a rough slope and noticed a book of mica protruding from the rocky ground. When I eventually found the wounded buffalo he was lying down. As soon as he noticed me he quickly stood up and charged towards me. With my double-barrel .475 rifle, I shot him through the head, and fell just two feet from me. I saw then that he had on him the twisted spear stuck in him, which had penetrated its side and this made him aggressive. The Maasai who had accompanied me, thanked me for killing this brute, and then he took his double-edged big knife, the ‘simi’ as they call it, and cut the side of the buffalo and removed the spear, and although it was twisted, he said that he will be able to remake it.
I then removed a small book of Mica and took it back home. I still have this original find at home in Athens, together with other minerals from the mines.
Within the preceding week I applied and obtained a registration claim for an eight square mile concession and Mbuguni Mines was established under certificate of registration as mentioned above. The Maasai herdsman whose name was Lendimi, who had his boma (village) within my concession was employed as a watchman (askari) of the mine.
The mica I extracted from the ground had excellent cleavage and was of the Ruby Muscovite Mica, transparent, lightly tinted and the specific gravity was given at 2.78-2.88, and occurred in pegmatite and metamorphic rocks. I then employed Mr. Vassiliades as an overseer of the works, who had a good experience and knowledge of mica, as he worked in the past in mica mines in the Uluguru range of mountains, near Morogoro. Elias Zagoritis undertook the marketing of the product.
When the geologist Lupeken of the Nairobi University took the specimen rocks from Mbuguni and forwarded samples to Tiffany’s New York, and who perceived that it was a rare stone and named it Tanzanite, we begun searching and excavating more trenches with veins of the then thought zoisite. We began producing Tanzanite but not for long as I described above.
During the rush by many claimants a Goan by the name De-Souza who was a friend of my father and a tailor in Arusha and who used to do the tailoring of all our cloths came to the mine and asked my father to survey for him a claim adjacent to our concession, and of course I did the survey and plotting as required for the Mines Department. George Tsakiris was also dealing in gemstones. I met him when he was dealing with others in mining and buying gemstones from Africans. I gave him a portable (sectional) aluminum house I had in the Mbuguni Mines, but I never asked him for any payment for it.. They all had the same luck as we had when all mining activities were suspended by the Mines Department.
Costa Sideras was also occupied in the gemstone dealings in Arusha. Later when all went bust in Tanzania he and his son Reno established a registered lapidary enterprise in Nairobi, Kenya, and with claims he had obtained in the Tsavo area for certain gemstones. He succeeded in making the largest lapidary in Nairobi, Kenya. His son Reno went to Germany and learned the science of gemology, which is concerned with gemstones, a branch of mineralogy. He attained the knowledge of recognizing the nomenclature and classification of gemstones and the outstanding characteristics, as well as the fascinating work of colored stones and to cut them into the required sizes and shapes with circular saws set with diamonds. When recently the government of Tanzania changed their policy, Reno went to Arusha and established a lapidary in Arusha and a jewelry shop at the New Meru Hotel in Arusha, as most of the East African gemstones are now mined in Tanzania.
In 1995, when Benjamin William Mkapa undertook the Herculean task of uplifting the country from its economic stagnation, he steered the country out of its communist path and bringing the country and transition from socialism to capitalism, then the Tanzania government had asked the Europeans who owned properties to return and reclaim them. Although the Title Deeds were still in the names of the original owners, the government wanted us to pay a considerable amount of money to reclaim them. The majority did not accept the offer to return. We were afraid the government may change again and loose our lands once more.
The above prospecting and mining activities are also referred to in my book “Our Lives in East Africa, 1910-1998. PAGES 399/400
