nice picture of two of our participants

[movie zombie]

Vincent Pardieu and Richard Hughes can be found at:

http://www.agta-gtc.org/2005-11-15_madagascar.htm857185&bodyPart=2&tnef=&YY=8303&order=down&sort=date&pos=0&view=a&head=b&VScan=1&Idx=0

interesting article, too!

peace, movie zombie

 

[valeria101]

Thanks!


Liked the funny intro:

"When most people go on vacation, they flee from work. Not so for the staff of the AGTA GTC, for whom work is their muse."


''Heck, can you blame them !!?

My field reports are not making anyone day-dream like theirs...

 

[mogok]

Hi,

Well it was a great trip and a real pleasure to travel with Richard Hugues. It was one of my oldest dreams that became true as it is thanks to Richard excellent book that I decided to progressively change my profession from tour guide to gemologist... But I was happy to somewhere come back to my old ways and help Richard on this trip to Madagascar!
The photo you see was taken on our way back from Andrebabe which is a blue sapphire mining area near Andilamena which has produced some beautiful sapphires. This place which is a very special area in Madagascar as its habitants are told to be the oldest inhabitant of this huge island. They are described by other Malagasy as a tribe of sorcerers which has the hability to desepear. Somewhere we dont even know if these people are really existing or not but we heard many stories about how blue sapphires were discovered there. There are many taboo in Andrebabe area which make the mining difficult. As a result most miners who were seaching for sapphire there left to mine in Moramanga carriere for rubies. But still we could see some nice blue sapphires from Andrebabe at Andilamena gem market... Many stories are about old tribemen coming to wood cutter camps, bringing a magnificent big blue stone, asking for a high price... and then if the answer was no vanishing for ever.
When we arrived there we saw few people running away and we could only see places were people were searching for gems... But we could not see anybody working! We were told that there were few workers but they were hidding to seach for sapphires in remote places in the jungle as the place is all but safe. The thing is as this area is very remote people there are affraid to make a bad encounters and when they saw our group with our police escort in military uniform it is easy to understand that they were not really feeling secure to come to chat with us. I was nevertheless able to find a nice small blue sapphire and many indicators while searching in the gravels left by the miners who have left the gem washing area. This find was worthing for me the day!
Anyway it was a really hard walking day as it was all up and down and our knees were really painful the day after when we started our 3 days walking trip to Andilamena ruby mines!
But Richard was impressive in his will to reach the "Moramanga carriere" mines. We could do it but I think that Richard and Dana will remember this trip for long.

For me it was very interesting to visit Moramanga again as the miners were mining in september a new hill which was still untouched on my first trip there in June 2005. Many new stones were bring to Andilamena gem market.

I'm preparing currently a report on this field trip with some details and many photos, but you will have to be patient a little bit as Richard decided me to change my website photograph formet to 500x375 instead of 300x225... So I'm really loaded with a lot of work. But I've send to colored stone a report about my first trip that will be published soon I think.

All the best,

 

[movie zombie]

thanks for the personal update, vincent!

peace, movie zombie