Namibia!
List
Grid
Chinese minerals were getting repetitive, and to be honest the prices these days are just not worth it in many cases….so i took a trip.
While most mineral dealers have switched to buying at shows or on social media, I still feel that there is no substitute for going there yourself, to say nothing of the learning opportunities it provides--nothing straightens out locality confusion quite like spending hours driving between the place names on the slips of paper that accompany specimens. Of course, the success or failure of such trips depends on luck to a far greater degree than shows where dealers bring preselected stock. No matter how diligent you are chasing down leads, ultimately you are at the same mercy of chance as the miners themselves (though detached from the physical toil). What you find depends on what they are finding, and they can be finding good stones, or nothing at all.
During my previous trip, Erongo itself was less productive, save one hole with small fluorites, while the neighboring mountain/ boulder Rondeclip (which is not generally distinguished from Erongo on labels— more on this below ) was highly active— this is where the better schorl comes from. This time however, multiple holes on Erongo were producing at the same time and Rondeclip was a bit slower.
I will digress here for a moment to go into a little more detail about what the labels you see on “Erongo” specimens mean. Erongo is a large granitic intrusion— viewed as a satellite image (bottom-most right image) it looks like a big circle, viewed from the ground (top-most right image) it appears as multiple large chunks of rock. Erongo itself is the largest, most workings are on the southern, slightly western face of the mountain, where the granite is exposed. On the slightly eastern portion of this southern side is what appears (from the ground) as another largely separate boulder, this is called Rondeclip, and next to this is a third described by the farm name “Ameib.” Which adds to the confusion: Sometimes labels list farm names, sometimes just “Erongo.”the best way to describe this is to think of the circular Erongo cluster divided into irregular wedges and sectors (as if someone ran a pizza roller over a pizza and wasn’t even trying to make properly shaped slices) , with the bulk of the workings occurring within two particular wedges (farms) called Hohenstein and Ameib, which encompass most of the specimen producing granite on the southern side of the Erongo mountain/ hill cluster. To illustrate the point, compare the yellow portion of petrological map (granite) with the map of farm boundaries (I have boxed Ameib and Hohensiten's names in green], and the 3D google map image where I have more-or-less boxed the primary specimen working areas. The names I have written beside the red, green, and blue boxes are how the miners refer to them.
I personally find using the farm names to be a little redundant for the majority of Erongo minerals—they do tell you which particular wedge the specimens came from, but most most minerals only come from a couple anyway. Moreover, the miners themselves generally either give locations as coming from “Erongo,” (which generally corresponds to Hohenstein farm) or “Rondeclip”(which would be in Ameib farm) with exceptions for the few that come from unusual locations/ sectors — for example amethyst from the more eastern Neuwoute, garnets from more northern Tubusis, or jermejevite from granite within the bounds of Ameib though not on Rondeclip. They usually combine this with a general term for the elevation where it was found. Minerals are found on other farms, for example Bergsig or Davib Ost, though I have not personally heard any miners use these place names-- this may also just be due to the areas currently being worked, or because generally speaking the farms themselves are just hindrances to their ability to access the mountains.
Unfortunately the “holes” as the various individual workings are called don’t have names either— their entrances are sometimes just mere meters away from each other, and are typically described according to the name of whoever currently has possession. Tunnels can be anywhere from a few meters to a couple hundred in depth, snaking around inside the mountain following the pegmatite, with both horizontal and vertical shafts. I am told the largest of these (one of the few that has a name) is known as “Harambe” and is big and confusing enough that one can get lost for several hours if not already familiar with the layout—and God forbid your headlamp battery dies. I heard the story of one inexperienced miner who entered sometime in the morning, got lost, and didn’t come out until sundown. Not a potentially deadly maze like Ojuela, with its gas traps, sudden drops, and many miles of shafts, but still a testament to the thousands of man hours spent excavating these tunnels in the hard rock, over the last 20-25 years.
It has been interesting to note the changes in the market for these minerals over that time— as a kid in 90’s, minerals from Erongo were nonexistent, there started to be a trickle in the early 2000’s and they remained somewhat exotic until the last couple years, when local exporters seem to have started flooding the market via online sellers based outside the country, not just with Erongo material but Goboboseb quartz/ amethyst (marketed as “Brandberg) as well. I think Goboboseb has faired more poorly— much as with Pakistani minerals there isn’t that much variation, meaning that only the top pieces escape supply and demand pressures— and this has also been compounded by Chinese buyers who import lower grades in quantity and then crash prices.
Erongo however, is not like Pakistan in that its production is replete with mineralogical curveballs, and the formations and combinations encountered there are often far more unique, at least in my opinion. Also unlike Pakistan, good specimens far more uncommon, limited by the collecting methods employed, the arduous hikes necessary to bring supplies to and specimens from the dig sites, and the vastly smaller mining area (a small corner of one cluster of mountains vs. scores of localities spanning hundreds of miles and two countries— with more likely undiscovered in the neighboring nations).
One of the main drivers of production has been the economic situation in the neighboring towns: to be blunt, there isn’t one. Neighboring Karibib has a couple quarry operations and a gold mine that employs many (with the associated trickle down), but in the other nearby areas there are few options except working on the mountain.
Fortunately for Namibians, there is an interesting recent development: oil has been discovered off the coast, with rigs expected to go up in the next 3-4 years. For what I have seen in the past in other countries, the inconsistent payouts provided by independent mining (especially of pegmatites) tend to have less allure than stable paychecks, and for men and boys already accustomed to hard mining work in a country with a relatively small population , the pay and consistency of an oil service job will probably be quite attractive. Already one friend was making arrangements to receive training in South Africa. Locally you can also see the effect of a stable paycheck on specimen production: the gold mine in Karibib also produces stunning tourmaline, much of it suitable for faceting. Except collecting it results in immediate dismissal, so, almost none makes it out.
More generally speaking, partially due to personal choices (it’s a miner thing, regardless of nationality), financial literacy, life situations (which tend to compound themselves for those already at a disadvantage), and the unpredictable nature of the work/ geology, very few of the guys doing the hardest work are really making a lot of money off of this, except the white buyers in the big cities. This is not just limited to the mineral business. Apartheid in South Africa ended in 1991, Namibia gained independence from that nation the year before, but as in so many places, real economic change takes decades to trickle down.
One gets the sense that although the ethnic makeup of the government changed drastically upon independence, now dominated by Bantu Oshivambos from the north, control of the functional parts of the private economy did not— a telling statistic is the nearly half of the arable land is owned by a 6% white population. Much of the non-arable land is as well, including the farms around Erongo. In daily life, you see this in the distribution of drivers of the big expensive SUV's, the guests at the nice hotels, the managers of the bigger businesses. And while the government leaves more for its people than most other African countries, contrasting the nation's small population and vast resources with the levels of poverty, one can only conclude that those at the top of the government syphon the flow of wealth. So, between the black government officials at the top, their cronies, and the white economic elite, little is left for the average person.
Not to blame the system entirely: the "miner thing" I mention is a very real problem. Without extending this generalization to all, I have noticed a very unfortunate pattern over the course of my many trips: when you buy from a woman, a portion is reserved for expenses like school fees. A portion is used for daily life, and a larger portion is reinvested. More often than not she will be back the next day with new items to try and sell. But men, who account for a larger portion of mining work, are different. Small payouts are used for daily life, and to continue mining work. But when there is a large payout, one that could potentially change their lives, there is a sadly high probability that it will be blown on alcohol, "girlfriends," and when the payout is large enough, vehicles. Rare is the miner who reinvests his earnings to advance from digging to exporting, or into some other business. There are always a few, but they are small in number. Bolivia, Namibia, Peru or Madagascar, the stories are unfortunately similar. To some extent I get it: life is tough, enjoy the bounty while it lasts. But, this also perpetuates the cycle of boom and bust, dependent on what the mountain relinquishes. And so stability will always retain an allure over mining.
So to the greater topic of supply, (and it is purely conjecture on my part) I do think that the flow of rocks will decrease somewhat if more job opportunities open up— after all, the stability offered by large mining companies that bought up the old specimen producing mines was a large part of what decimated the Peruvian specimen market, and stability from mining quarry style materials (as opposed to pegmatite mining) along with safety concerns also seem to have shrunken the amount of specimens coming out of Madagascar. Demand does seem up however-- another American buyer arrived toward the end of my trip, I ran into a couple Chinese, and I heard that at least 4 other buyers arrived within one month of my leaving. Ironically, none of this seems to do anything for the situation of the miners-- again, the winners are the larger exporters. So it will remain to be seen how the various pressures effect the decisions of the diggers, and how this ultimately effects the supply of minerals.
But, those are questions for the future…. For now the flow of rocks continues and we can enjoy the new specimens.
