The Sunday Mail
For most, Mukumbura is best known as the country’s gateway to Mozambique.
With next to no industry to talk about, the staple business is confined to that of ensuring the easy flow of humans and goods between the two countries.
Besides its core business as a border post, fishing is the other major activity there.
Fishing camps have mushroomed along the Mukumbura River, just a stone’s throw from the demarcation lines between Mukumbura in Zimbabwe and the town of Mecumbura in Mozambique.
This industry has been the economic backbone and passage to a better life for many unemployed residents of the area.
However, alternating droughts and floods have changed the pattern of life, and very basic cotton farming has tried to augment incomes.
Now the discovery of the semi-precious mineral, quartz, in nearby Chimbiya Town, Mozambique, has offered a glimmer of hope.
The quartz has provided a gateway to economic survival for many, and Mukumbura villagers have been crossing the border into Mozambique to work in this “Eldorado”.
“Dombo iri rakaipa, mudhara, and rapinza munhu wose mugame (This stone is a lifesaver and has managed to bring everyone back on their feet),” said Mr Chiquinho Domingos.
House of Assembly representative for Mount Darwin North, under which Mukumbura falls, Mr Novert Mponora, said the “red stone” was attracting much attention and he had sounded out authorities on having a geological survey to ascertain if the quartz belt stretched into Zimbabwe.
But it is not all rosy.
Because of the mass movement of people, agricultural labour is erratic.
Further, most of the folk do not know the properties of valuable quartz, and they are often duped on prices by slick middlemen.
This is because many do not even know the uses of quartz.
Middlemen are doing what they do best: distorting prices locally and making a killing at the ready markets in Mozambique’s Tete and Maputo.
The Sunday Mail Extra has established, after commissioning two studies with Government’s Geological Survey department and the University of Zimbabwe Geology department, that the quartz belongs to the carnelian agate semi-precious stone category.
The geological survey says it is a variety of chalcedony (mineral of the quartz family), and the reddish colour is a result of hydrous iron oxides.
The Minerals Marketing Corporation of Zimbabwe says it does not handle local sales of quartz, but prices of such agates varied depending on markets and demand.
Presently, middlemen are paying US$7 for a bucket (estimated at 25kg) of the quartz, which they sell for as much as US$100 in Maputo and Tete.
The mining has had a ripple effect on the prices of just about all goods and services including prostitution in the Mukumbura/Mecumbura/Chimbiya area.
“Most of the women going there have found a lucrative market in the catering business with a plate of sadza and stew fetching not less than US$5 and a packet of maputi being sold for around US$1,” said Mr Domingos.
“Demand far outweighs supply and mining is going on 24 hours a day.”
Mr Domingos had no kind words for the middlemen.
“They get profits of ten-fold when they subsequently sell these gems at the ready markets in Tete and Maputo in Mozampique.”
However, many success stories of people who have managed to turn around their livelihood have been reported in the area.
Mr Gift Tsongola (31) of Mukumbura Village said he knows of several men and women in his village who have renovated their homes and acquired what he termed “luxuries” ever since they started partaking in the quartz trade.
He said there was no industry to talk about in Mukumbura and the climate is always working against farmers so quartz is truly like manna from heaven to the people here.
“The stones are easy to extract and in the beginning most people would just pick them from the surface.
“But now, just less than 30 centimetres down, an individual would have reached the belt where the quartz lies.”
