Post whisky early start for our Society of Malawi day trip was not fun, but the day itself was. A bunch of us had been invited by Tony Patel, the willowy, beyond eccentric, owner of a mineral mine 1.5 hrs north of Blantyre, for a visit.
We thought it may be a gold mine, but apparently that is further up the Rift Valley. Instead we've learnt all about the unusual properties of this carbonated volcanic plug and the uses of the very highly concentrated Monazite found in the hill (this particular form is pistachio green, not yellow – so there you go.) Optical fibres, paints, car exhausts, glass and control rods for nuclear reactors, this is valuable stuff. But the (lack of) planned, rational, exploitation of it seems to be a tale of woe.
The Australians have started mining uranium in the north of Malawi (Karonga, where we're headed next week, for unrelated reasons). Rubies and sapphires are being sporadically mined in the near by hills and apparently its possible to 'collect' Zircons from the top of another mountain range. There is probably oil in the bottom of the lake and diamonds are not unlikely. But none of these seem to be on the scale to make commercial exploitation truly viable and, unsurprisingly I suppose, mineral exploitation is very very political.
So Mr. Patel continues to sit on his terrace, wrangling to Escom to get proper power supplied, and treating occasional visitors like us with excellent hospitality, whilst staring back at his hill full of radioactive treasure.
F x
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