Fights are another big threat. Thirty-three people died in fights last year. The most dangerous brawls break out underground, when one group's dynamite blasts into another's territory. Miners and bosses alike say that the mania to find tanzanite stones makes miners especially aggressive towards each other and defensive of their territory. While one boss reports that the miners are organised into committees to adjudicate fights and deal with problems below the ground, others laugh when asked to confirm this.
Myriad miners die from a wide and miserable array of causes.
Typhoid and malaria are two. Death, it seems, is everywhere. A fitting backdrop for the promise of paradise, especially in one of the poorest countries in the world. Moses, a young miner from the Sekei neighbourhood in Arusha who only gives his first name, answers questions about his experience over the past year and a half working at the mines. Like the others, he is evasive when asked about how much he makes.