Garbatula, Kenya

A village side gig, and why the smallest rocks matter most

Near the town of Garbatula in Kenya's arid Isiolo County, villagers of the Borana people mine sapphires as a side income alongside cattle herding. From the 1960s until 2002, foreign companies ran a mechanized mine here and shared little with the community whose grazing land it occupied. Today the villagers work the deposit themselves with hand tools and shallow pits. Most adults pitch in when they have spare time, the pits are safer for cattle, and they even help the soil hold water after the rare rains.

Large crystals sell easily but are scarce. Buyers offered little for the small ones, because Isiolo rough comes straight from its host rock instead of being tumbled smooth by rivers, which makes it hard work to cut. That's a challenge we happily accept. Since June 2024, our local buyer has spent one to two weeks each month in the village, buying every good-quality small crystal at a fixed, fair price. Miners now dig for them with noticeably more enthusiasm, and we get a steady supply of gorgeous teal and green sapphires.