Home » Namibia » Namibia - in the search of diamonds - 1998

Namibia - in the search of diamonds - 1998

Namibia - in the search of diamonds - 1998

Jacek Pałkiewicz
2006-06-18 22:40:07

Displayed times (last time: )

be placed inside, but not to be extracted. The foreman wrote down the worker's name since he would receive a gratuity for his find. The raw diamond, which was as big as a nut, looked like a fragment of glass. It would lose a third of its weight when it was cut, but even if it weighed just one carat, its value would be between 100 dollars and 10,000, if it was very transparent and contained no flaws.

The five sections of the Oranjemund mine produce half a kilogram of diamonds a day, which is it worth about 1,500,000 dollars on the London diamond market. Extraction costs are much the same here as for mines which produce industrial diamonds, but the value of the gems found there is about 100 times greater. It is easy to imagine the size of the profits being made
At three in the afternoon most of the mine shut down for the day. I stopped on to take photographs in the sectors which worked around the clock. When we finally left our blue car with its company logo sprayed on the side in the internal car park we were directed towards the exit of the building. We walked along a long corridor until we came to a gate which had to be opened by a plastic keycard. One at a time we entered. I stopped in the little room with the mirrors while the security guards scrutinized me. If they have no doubts about your being "clean", they leave the computer to open one of the two exit doors at random. In my case it was the left-hand door, which meant that I could go out without further scrutiny. The South African technician behind me in the line, however, was directed to the other automatic gate, where an x-ray machine was stationed. He was given a curteous, but thorough frisk by one inspector, while another studied the image his body registered on the x-ray screen for the twenty-five seconds he was standing there. A dark mark at chest height turned out to be his cigarette lighter, while another mark on his head was his cap badge.

Only a small part of the 5000 ...

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 [10] 11 12

My youngest son was born in Oranjemund in 1972. We left there in 1974 having enjoyed all the facilities there at the time. Many a time my son has expressed a wish to return to his birth place, out of interest,To see his roots. There certainly was a high divorce rate there at that time, but we found it a friendly place. We left our Bull Terrier dog with one of the security families, & often wondered about him. He was called 'Buzzy' & the children missed him loads. Unfortunately the ill health of my mother lead to our return to the uk.A good move...Maybe ....who knows, it was a lovely rugged country, with good education for the younger children, fantastic health provision, & great opportunities to enhance ones status, carreer wise. We never kept in touch with anyone there, but no doubt they have all moved on by now. With the security still so very tight, I dont suppose my son James will ever fulfill his wish. It would be nice though.If there is a possibility, & anyone could help, we can be contacted via 'gsmith404@btinternet.com' Very interesting article.

Pat Smith, 2007-03-28 23:39:34