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Cameroon’s enterprising jewelry designers find their gemstones — and their customers — where they can. By Nji Renatus Che

It was pitch dark when I stepped outside my hotel room. My wristwatch said 5:20 a.m. All was still wet and calm after the inch of rain the previous night. It was time for me to prepare for my trip to the Buea Central Prison’s jewel designer's corner. I had booked an appointment the previous day at the Prisons Administrator's office. This prison is found in South West Province, the English-speaking zone of Cameroon.

I was overwhelmed with sorrow when I arrived at the prison yard. The place was overcrowded, with about 1,800 inmates living in a site designed for 600 people. A guard led me into the main courtyard of Buea Central Prison; he introduced me to the main designer.

“I'm Seydou,” he told me bluntly, shaking my hand. I began to shiver at the intimidating looks some of the inmates threw at me. My guide, the prison guard, asked me to be bold else they would keep intimidating me and would expect me to pay for the information I was hunting.

An African amethyst necklace. Photo by Nelson Bonglimnyuy. TOP: A tea farm in Cameroon. Photo © Robert De Kraker - FOTOLIA.

Seydou was a tall, dark figure in his mid-40s. He had a granite look with a broad face. He had lived in Angola for eight years, where he studied gems and designing before returning to Cameroon. He had only practiced the trade for two years before being convicted of murdering a prostitute in Douala, the country's economic capital. Even though he had been given a death sentence, Seydou seemed to be more interested in his designing than his execution date.

Seydou makes good money designing jewelry in jail. His products are sold at many jewel shops in Douala. He has no workshop and works under a tent which he has erected in the prison's main courtyard, to keep out the scorching rays of the hot equatorial sun.

“I buy gemstones from a supplier who comes in from Douala,” he explained. “He sells at expensive prices because he knows I have no option. I only have to buy at his price and sell at high prices to make profits.”

Seydou relies on the local market. He is illiterate, and has no opportunity to benefit from foreign markets directly. Because he is in jail, it is the middlemen who buy his products from Douala’s major jewelry shops to export to Europe and the United States at far more expensive prices.

Seydou’s designs are inspired by foreign watches. He has hundreds of photographs of watches and other jewelry, whose designs he copies. For example, he might use a gold Swiss watch as a model for his bracelets. He says he hopes to develop his own designs inspired by African art and culture in the future.

A Cameroonian designer polishes a necklace. Photo by Orock Etta.

He has 12 apprentices around him who curiously watch him work and assist him in burning or cutting gems of every kind to desired sizes. “I want to pass on what I learned in Angola to others,” he says. “I don't know when my turn [for execution] will come, so I have to be fast to impart my knowledge on to them.”

Pierre was the youngest of the dozen apprentices I met. He is 19 and has been in prison for four years, although he refused to disclose what he was in for. “I want to study designing so that at the end of my [prison] term, I can go to the big cities and open my own workshop,” he told me.

Another apprentice, a 21-year-old named Jean Claude, is incarcerated for contempt of court. He is the most industrious of all the apprentices. “I only have six months in here,” he says. “I want to do everything possible to learn all what I can. I will complete my apprenticeship elsewhere when I am released.”

Jean Claude is lean and feeble. He looks underfed, and spends his time running up and down under the working tent. At one point he was using chisels to shape metals into different shapes, and later he was using a jigsaw to cut metals to desired sizes and shapes, producing squeaky sounds. He told me, “When I just came, I had no experience. I could not properly design anything. Seydou didn't bother to scold me. He kept on teaching me the right thing, and I can now do something good.”

Sitting under the warm morning sun some 20 meters apart, as if unconcerned, is Mohamadou, whom every one in jail calls by his nickname “Osama Bin Laden.” He has a long beard like that of the infamous terrorist and is a Muslim who has been to Mecca. He is 26, and a member of Seydou's designing team. He is busy designing a simple bracelet, which he says he will adorn with sapphire, or “blue stone,” as he calls it.

“I enjoy designing, but would like to go abroad to study gems,” Mohamadou says. “If you have good knowledge of gems, you can make real money buying very cheap in countries like Angola and South Africa, and then selling at higher prices in Europe.”

A harbor in Cameroon. Photo © Robert De Kraker - FOTOLIA.

He adds, “I like to design using existing samples other designers have done elsewhere. When I do my own work, I like to add something from my own imagination, that way I get something wonderful at the end, quite different from the existing product.”

Another apprentice named Joshua, 34, moved up to me and presented a bracelet made of enamel and gemstone. “Do you like this?” he asked me.

“Oh, yes, I do.” I replied in all sincerity. It was a dazzling bracelet.

“Buy it; your wife will like it.”

Truly, it was a wonderful piece and I thought it could serve a wonderful birthday gift. “How much would you sell it to me?”

He looked at my cell phone and portable computer as if to judge my status. “30,000 francs.”

I pulled out my wallet and paid for the jewel. Thirty thousand is the equivalent of US$60.

Seydou, the designing master, moved up to me and gently pulled the bracelet from my hands. He began to explain the reason why the product had such dazzling color. “Color and brightness is key to good jewel designing,” he said. “This bracelet is a combination of enamel and colored gemstones. The enamel highlights the color element while the sapphire adds value to the product.” The result of this combination is high-quality jewels at low prices.

A Tillerman ivory coral and black lampwork bead bracelet. Photo by Nelson Bonglimnyuy.

Enamel jewelry is relatively new in the Cameroonian jewelry industry. But because it can produce a dazzling effect at affordable prices — and is easy to work with once the designer knows the proper techniques — the country’s fashion industry has embraced enamel jewel products.

Consumers prefer well-designed enamel jewelry to the costly and more conservative gold, silver, and diamond pieces. Women dominate the jewelry market demographics in Cameroon. Unfortunately, they also constitute the low-income earners in this impoverished Central African nation.

“Designing jewels has to go with marketing the product,” Seydou told me. “It is worthless to design good-quality silver, gold, or diamond if it will end up decorating your shelves because of the price factor.”

The Gem Scene in Douala

After an interesting session with the Buea Prison designers, I sought out to examine the situation at the market in Douala. I visited a middle-class jewel shop at Akwa, where most jewel shops in the country are found.

“What kind of products do you have in stock?” I asked the shop attendant like a potential client. “I have good products of all shapes and sizes,” she told me. When I walked round the shop, I did not notice very expensive jewels. The prices ranged from $10 to $250. I talked to a client who had just bought enamel earrings. She told me, “I chose this one because of its dazzling nature. When sun’s rays strike them, they can drive onlookers crazy.”

Gemstone buying and selling in Cameroon is a typical black-market business. It is hard to determine the price of gemstones because they suffer from wide fluctuations. This is because the industry suffers from high taxes. Many designers are forced to operate in hiding so as to evade taxes. If you buy from people who pay taxes, your gems would be more expensive. The fact that there exist local and imported gemstones also account for the wide variations in their prices.

A young designer in Cameroon at a mobile jewel workshop.

Price hikes are also provoked by hoarding practiced by the major importers to create artificial shortage. The industry suffers from many laws that prevent nationals from importing gemstones due to the protectionist nature of Cameroon’s trade policies when it comes to importing gemstones and other industry metals.

Designers in Cameroon rely on Chinese traders to supply them with gems from Asia. Most of the gemstones used by local designers in Cameroon come from Asia, principally from mines in Myanmar (formerly Burma). “The quality of stones from these countries is excellent. We prefer to buy from Chinese traders rather than from those who import gems from other African countries like Nigeria, Tanzania, Democratic Republic of Congo, Angola, Cameroon, etc.,” Joseph Issa, a Douala-based designer, told me. “I would recommend gemstones from Burma for anyone who is getting into designing. Their stones combine quality and low prices at the same time.”

The most common types of foreign gemstones available in the Cameroon market are pink sapphire, emerald, and ruby from Myanmar, Thailand, and Sri Lanka. Many designers who are new in the field get confused and buy the pink sapphire for ruby. It is also the most expensive gem in the local market. This ruby represents the finest quality.

Local designers tend to trust colored stones from Asia more, even when they are of comparable quality with what comes from neighboring Nigeria and even within Cameroon. Sapphire is sold faster if you tell designers it is from Asia than when you let them know it is from Tanzania or Angola. Asian sapphire is sold at double the price of the local African “blue stone.”

A necklace with pearls. Photo by Nelson Bonglimnyuy.

Many local designers have different viewpoints as to what kind of stones are best for the market. While one designer insists on good-quality cabochons from Myanmar at low prices, Jean Yves, 52, who has been into designing for 18 years, had a contrary view. He is proprietor of the local “J.Y.” jewel trademark.

“There isn’t any need to spend so much money to buy expensive cabochons from Chinese traders,” he said. “I prefer to buy the cheap rough stones from whoever sells them and then work on them.” Jean Yves is one of the few designers who know how to treat rough stones in Cameroon. Many other designers buy the rough stones and pay experts like Jean to treat them.

When Jean buys stones, he cares more about the quantity than how they appear. He uses heat-treating to improve the gems’ color.

He has a small workshop attached to his house. He spends his day in his workshop with his apprentice shaping and fusing stones and metals together to produce jewelry of all sizes. “Each day I work, I have a dream to come up with a new design. Many artists come around my workshop to copy my latest designs,” he says.

September/October 2006 • Cameroon: Douala Days • Gem Artists vs. The Internet • News & Updates • In This Issue