Tanzania continues to pour forth riches. This was the beginning of a news item in the Jewelers' Circular-Keystone in July 1970. The article goes on to say that in addition to tanzanite and chrome-tourmaline (which were then new materials for jewelers), Tanzania had produced a new type of garnet "gleaming red at night and green in daylight".

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Those who have read Out of Africa or An Ice Cream War, or remember Bogart in The African Queen, will know that "The Great War" was also fought in Africa. But they are unlikely to have heard of the Battle of Merkerstein, a minor skirmish in the northern part of Tanzania, which was then part of German East Africa (Deutsch-Ostafrika).

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Even geologists rarely appreciate the great age of East Africa's Rift Valley System. Rifts are formed and are later completely filled-in by erosion as their shoulders collapse and wash down into the valley below.

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The first gemstone deposit to be found in East Africa was the ruby deposit at Longido, Tanzania. Other ruby deposits were discovered in Tanzania subsequently, most of them of the anyolite type, as at Longido, but production was generally small or of poor quality gems or of rubies which had been fractured in attempting to free them from their host rock. Then in mid-1973, our father received a visit from a Park Ranger from Tsavo West National Park.

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While organizing their trips, the AFG told us that they intended to participate financially in some type of local development project, perhaps in the field of education, but not necessarily linked to the world of gemstones. After assessing different options, we decided to build an extra classroom on the grounds of the Komolo school.

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In mid-2007, a large ICA group (50 people) came to East Africa for a 10 day gem-safari, spending five days in Kenya, followed by another five in Tanzania.

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