By U AC
Off to be born free
“Born free, as free as the wind flows.
As free as the grass grows.
Born free to follow your heart.
Born free, and life is worth living.
But only worth living.
'Cause you're born free.”
Whenever we hear the above ‘Born Free’ music, we cannot help but remember the spirit of lioness Elsa roaming the wide plains of Africa. We had the unique opportunity to be there to experience the soul of Africa by going for the first time to Arusha, Tanzania, attending the World Press Council Assembly and the North Africa Media Councils summit.
Arusha is a city in East Africa's Tanzania, located at the base of volcanic Mount Meru (fifth fifth-highest mountain in Africa). It's a gateway to safari destinations and to Africa's highest peak, 5,895m Mount Kilimanjaro, lying some 100 kilometres northeast. To the west lies Serengeti National Park, home to wildlife including lions, rhinos, giraffes and leopards. Annual migrations feature huge herds of wildebeests crossing their plains. The city claims the title of being the fourth-largest city in Tanzania.
We were there close to a week, meeting many media colleagues across the globe, discussing media issues of the day, while exploring the various natural beauties of the country around the city.
The best way to a man’s heart
It is said that ‘The best way to a man’s heart is through his stomach’. And we do not have it easy in Tanzania. The key issue is that in Africa, rice is not the staple food. For five days, our diet suddenly changed from rice-based to tuber and root-based staples. Instead of alternating between Basmati, Jasmine and Brown, we had the enviable selection of alternatives among sweet potato, yams, potatoes, and Ugali (a thick porridge made from maize flour). This sudden change of menu is something that we had not expected beforehand.
Another surprise constituent on the table is banana dishes. In our whole lives, we are totally unaware of the fact that bananas can be cooked into dishes. Hot banana soup, banana curry, banana with beef, banana stew, you name it, they’ve got it. We could not help but wonder how such a tasty fruit, such as a banana not be eaten directly and had to go through such an arduous process to turn it into something that was not incrementally better off.
Jewels of the Nile
Tanzania is somewhat akin to Myanmar in the sense that it also produces precious stones, despite most of them being of questionable quality. Yet there is one type of precious rock that can only be found in this great state of Tanzania - the Tanzanite. The name itself indicates its origin.
Contrarians might ask ‘How about Tsavorite?’ Well, Tsavorite is found across the East African region, including Kenya and Tanzania. So it is not exclusive to the latter.
The last King of Tanzanite
How would the trip to Tanzania be complete without a tour of the famous Tanzanite experience? I visited three out of four such places.
The first one is next to the Africa Arts Gallery, one of the major must-visit places in Arusha. The two-story shop there is as big as the gallery itself, selling everything from stationery to souvenirs to stones. There, we managed to speak to the self-proclaimed King of Tanzanite. He apparently supplied all the tanzanite to Tiffany and to the 47th Street jewellers in the Big Apple. A businessman of Indian origin, his family business is not just a global business, but an engagement in personal and corporate social responsibilities. The gallery itself was mainly sponsored by him, and he teamed up with the UNOPs in many of the projects that help the less fortunate African children. Bravo indeed.
He is, in fact, very knowledgeable on the Tanzanite and jewellery business in general, always highlighting that it’s a matter of marketing. Maybe under the incessant spell of De Beers diamond advertisements. He did agree that the future of diamonds as a precious gem is in doubt due to the oversupply of both mined and synthetic diamonds.
He brought out his transparent side by stating the Tanzanite prices openly for raw stones and those atop crystals. The former was being priced at $100 per gramme and the latter $70 per gramme (one gramme = five carats). And no discounts were being offered to anyone, he said. But he did show us lots of raw stones and crystals for us to rummage through and select the stone of our choice. We selected a couple and let him have the honour of choosing the best one. We bought 3.5 gramme of uncut stone at $350 ($100 per gramme). When I got to Thailand upon return, I went to the JTC (Jewellery Trade Centre) near the Surasak BTS station to countercheck if we had overpaid the King. Much to our delight and surprise, there is no shortage of dealers who would take the rock at $100 per gramme. Even though we did not make a quick profit, we were pleased that the King of Tanzanite played fair to us. At the end of the day, our first and only purchase of Tanzanite turned out to be an equitable trade after all.
The second shop was uniquely named ‘Tanzanite experience’. The shop does not sell uncut stones, but polished ones and jewellery adorned with Tanzanites and Tsavorites only. Tanzanite is of a blue colour base like Sapphire, but Tanzanite is a blue-violet variety of zoisite, while sapphire is a blue variety of corundum. Tanzanite is generally less expensive and not as durable as sapphire. Sapphires are known for their intense blue colour and exceptional hardness, while tanzanite can exhibit a wider range of blue hues, including violet undertones. Sapphire hardness is nine, just like rubies, but Tanzanite hardness is at 6.5 on the Mohs scale, making it more susceptible to scratches and damage. But the value of Tanzanite goes up due to its rarity of being found exclusively in Tanzania. People of Myanmar and around the Southeast Asia region are spoiled with good quality sapphires from Moe Goat mines so much that they do not think of wearing Tanzanite as bijouterie. For the first time in my life, I discovered Tsavorite in that shop too, albeit in limited quantities. They are also being sold in finished stone format as necklaces, bracelets, earrings and brooches. Tsavorite colour is similar to Emerald green colour. Tsavorite, a type of garnet, offers a brighter, more vivid green and greater brilliance due to its higher refractive index. Tsavorite is also significantly rarer, particularly in larger sizes, and can be more affordable despite its rarity. Emerald is slightly more brittle, despite both of them having a hardness of around 7+.
The last shop I visited was in the central market area of Arusha. The shop sells similar items to the first shop, but more expensive, with limited stocks. I missed out on our chance to visit the Tanzanite Museum nearby due to time constraints.
Hotel Arusha
The three-star Lush Garden hotel that we stayed in, in Arusha, was of reasonable quality. Rooms were sparse with amenities, yet acceptable. It is in a desolate part of the city, hence we do not have much of a chance to explore outside of the hotel compound.
The only complaint would have been the weather. Who would have expected Africa to be this cold! None of the delegates were prepared for 10 °C temperatures at night and less than 20 °C daytime temperatures, and most came down with symptoms of cough and cold before the end of the event.
The room, without a working air conditioner (and hence heater), feels like a morgue at times, especially in the middle of the night.
The missing Lion King
During one of the afternoons, we ventured out into nature in search of a lion king. We unfortunately went to the Arusha National Park, which apparently has no lions within the giant park.
Mount Meru was equally impressive, standing tall at 15,000 ft, being the second-highest in Tanzania after Mount Kilimanjaro.
The press must be crazy
What is the World Press Council's thinking of in relation to the media today? The topic of the day in 2022 has been fake news and how to tackle it. Now the falsehoods are already there, but with somewhat diminishing impact as people wise up in their judgement on plausibility.
The discussion topics focus on AI and how to effectively utilize the AI to write, edit and monitor news stories. All the participants agreed that AI is still at a nascent stage, and an average intellectual is able to distinguish whether an article is written by AI or a human. Dangers of AI are also elaborated with a discussion on whether to make AI disclosure compulsory for newsmen and media personnel.
