June 28 - Tanzanite

Tanzanite is a rare purple-blue gem stone that is apparently only mined within a 6-10 km diameter area just south of Mt. Kilimanjaro. On Sunday morning we met with a man named ‘Innocent’ in our hotel. Innocent was referred to us by our Africa-based trip coordinator as an ‘honest’ dealer in Tanzanite (and who knows what else?). We had spent some time with an official Tanzanite dealer located in the hotel earlier, so we had a small amount of knowledge to work with in our deal with Innocent. As he only accepted cash I ended up traveling outside the hotel on a tour of nearby ATMs, loading up on wads of Tanzanian shillings (1,000 Tsh = 1 USD). We closed the deal and wondered how we should handle customs on our return.

Note to readers: Having been appointed his sponsor, I happen to know that young Brian also assumed this gem merchant's name, "Innocent", during his confirmation a few years back. Because of this coincidence, I am almost certain that the tanzanite he was peddling was probably not mined using child slave labor, nor were the proceeds from the sale used to support al Qaeda terrorists -McQ