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Page 4

THE WILLIAMS

LAKE TRIBUNE

Wednesday, June 10, 1959

Sylvia Baker’s Letter Home

Travellers spend si
wandering in North Africa

Here I am on my third con-
tinent, Africa. We came across
the Strait of Gibraltar by ferry
from Gibraltar to Tangier. Mor-
occo is fascinating. I know you
must think that I am crazy the
way I get so enthused’ about
each country I visit, but each
one is different and has so much
to offer. It is amazing the dif-
ference a border makes over
here. The people’s customs and
money all change.

Morocco is by far the most in-

triguing country I have visited, |

it is so vastly different to any
thing I have seen. I have the
feeling that I am watching a
Biblical movie. All along the
road there is a steady stream of
traffic, not of cars but people.
The women as a rule are riding
_burros and usually have a baby
in their arms or slung over their
backs, papoose style. In the
cities women all wear long loose
robes, usually a dark color and
they are completely covered ex-
cept for their eyes. They all
wear veils, the married women
with their veils under the nose,
but covering their mouths, the
single girls have just their eyes
showing. In the country most
of the women wear white robes.
The men are also decked out
in robes, but they differ in that
they have pointed hoods and are
usually made from a burlap tack
type of material. A lot of the
People on the road are bare-
footed and their feet are all
calloused. The ones who do
have shoes wear a slipper-type
affair or sandals.

As soon as we stepped off the
boat we noticed a vast differ-
ence in the people. Here men
wear a fez or small skull cap
and the oddest baggy pants. It
looked like a long skirt hiked
up in the centre to make pants.
Most of the men have mous-
taches and goatees, after all the
the clean shaven men of Spain

into Morroceo, but after about
three hours of fiddling around
and a few thousand francs we
managed to get the necessary
papers for the car, but none of
us have visas, we have had 72
hours granted us. We are going
to spend five days anyway and
hope all goes well. The five of
us girls sat in the car at the
wharf for three hours while the
boys went off with a young Mor-
roccan to set things straight. I
thought he was being extremely
nice to be helping us, but when
we offered him 2,000 francs
(about $2) for his help, he re-
fused it and said his wage was
2,000 francs an hour. Boy, are

x days

worthwhile paying him though,
We would still be on the docks
if it hadn’t been for him.
I-have seen a lot of camels
since Tangier. They are used
in the fields to pull plows and
I have seen them walking round
and round wells pumping water.
In Spain burros and horses were
used for this. It is a cruel job,
the animals are blindfolded and
walk in circles all day. It is

have an S.P.C.A.
animals,
odd, they have long tails and
are spotted.
home have short tails?
they are all one color.

since we arrived here.
chanting.
turbaned figure squatting before
a basket of snakes. I don’t care
for the music as it is rather de-
pressing.

DESOLATE COUNTRY

It is all

blanca, heading for Nogador.

we learning. However, it was

teresting here, it is so desolate
How the people are able to
seratch a living from the ground
I don’t know. The land is very
flat, dry and mostly rock and
clay. Their living must be
meagre for they appear very
poor. None of the people in this
area wear shoes and their feet
are as tough as shoe leather.
They walk over sharp rocks,
thistle, cactus and never wince.

Last night was the first night
that I felt a long way from
home.
have camped have been similar
to the country at home, but last
night it was really different. We
camped in a gravel pit with the
Atlantic on one side and desert
type country on the other. We
must be on the outskirts of he
Sahara Desert, there isn’t a tree
in sight. We just passed
through Safi, the centre of the
sardine industry. It is an inter-
esting town, far from being a
tourist. centre. I enjoy places
like this far more than the
cities. You can really see how
the people live. Everywhere
you turn you can see a perfect
Biblical scene, with veiled
women, old men with deeply
lined faces and ragged children
running around. There are a
lot of very young children tend-
ing herds of cows, sheep, goats
and camels. They don’t appear
to be any more than eight or
nine years old and they wander
along the roadside all alone.

They are the most tattered
Kids I have ever seen.

CELEBRATION

Yesterday afternoon we were
fortunate enough to be passing
a village while a celebration was

too bad these countries do not
Speaking of,
the sheep are quite

Don’t the ones at
I know

We have been getting the
wierdest music on our car radio

You can visualize a

I began this letter in Tangier
but we are now south of Casa-

The countryside is very unin-

Most of the places we|™

going on. The whole village
Was on the scene to watch the
activities. We watched one
competition but were unable to
figure out what was going on.
The tribesmen, mounted on
horses, galloped across a field,
pulled their horses in and fired
ancient rifles. It was all very
exciting and I got some terri-
fic pictures, everyone was so
eager to be photographed.

Most of our time yesterday
was spent wandering through
Casablanca. It is a lovely city,
the new section is ultra. mod-
ern and all the buildings are
white. Only a few blocks trom
the downtown area is the old
market section. It was fascin-
ating walking through here.
Again I had the feeling that I
was at a show. There are open
stalls along the winding streets
selling food, clothing and native
wares. What a place to do your
shopping, fruit and vegetables
are dirt cheap. Speaking of
shopping we really goofed the
other day, instead of buying
jam we ended up with apple-
sauce, and our sugar came in
cubes. You should see us
struggling with the sugar on
our cereal. Great fun. Back to
the market, there are some real
sinister-looking characters along
the winding streets. They
“psst” at you and in broken
English try to sell you watches
and pens. It is easy to talk
them down to almost nothing.
All the time you are walking
through the bazaar you hear
|the weird music, it is like being
in an entirely different world.

We have just stopped in an-
other village and there are hun-
dreds of people here. Another
celebration is on and the same
competition is being run off.
Music is playing, there are
veiled women, turbaned men
and kids everywhere. We got
out of the car to take pictures
and I was a little nervous,
people formed a circle around
s and stared and we had a few
kids throw stones at us. It is
an odd feeling being stared at,
you don’t know where to look.
I wish I knew what was going
on, as far as I can make out it
must be the sultan’s birthday
for there are flags everywhere.
I wish you could be here with
me now. It is so fantastic the
things I can see, and it is so
hard to put to words the sights
|There are so many different
types of people, men trying to
charm snakes and having no
success, children with shaven
heads, except for a hank of hair
on the side of their head which
is braided.

BEGGARS PITIFUL

The beggars you see in this
country are really pitiful, they
squat along the streets with a
hand poking from under a tat-
tered robe. There are old
people all crippled and men and
women holding babies and small
children in their arms,

Some of the other sights I
have seen are men praying to
Allah in the middle of fields and
I also saw a man scrubbing his
clothes with his feet. He was
dancing up and down in a pool

trying to

Don’
RING OFF

after using your telephone

When your call is finished, hang up the receiver
and turn the crank vigorously for about three seconds. This
will let the operator know that the line is free so she can disconnect

t forget to

REMEMBER: the RING-OFF is important. Otherwise
the operator will report your line as “busy” to anyone

call you.

OTHER IMPORTANT TELEPHONE POINTERS

BEFORE RINGING: If you are on a party line, lift the
receiver to find out if the line is in use. Then replace
the receiver gently.

TO CALL: With the receiver on the hook, give one Jong,
vigorous ring of about three seconds duration.

BRITISH COLUMBIA
TELEPHONE COMPANY

of water. There are a lot of
little girls around seven carry-
ing babies on their backs. The
babies look really uncomfortable
hanging in a heap. I am glad
I wasn’t packed around like
that. A while back we passed
pyramids of salt along the
ocean. I didn’t know our salt
came from the ocean. The salt
hasn’t been refined yet but it
still tastes like ordinary salt.
The houses in this part of the
country are very different. They
are made from straw and some
of them have stone bases, not
exactly the type of thing I
would like to live in. Marg and
I investigated the interior of a
mosque today and I was dis-
appointed. There is absolutely
nothing inside them except for
straw mats. The building has
a mosque-like roof.

We are now in the market in
Mogador and it is the cleanest
market I have seen yet. We are
all rather disappointed as we
came down here espepcially to
see goats climbing trees for the
tasty leaves and we didn’t see
one—just our luck.

From Mogador we drove to a
river 25 kilometers outside
Marakesh and.camped. Water!
I washed my hair and clothes
and when it was dark warmed
some water in a pot and had a
bath. I lost most of my tan
but it was worth it. When you
are camping you could do with
a bath every night but we go
days with only a wash. It is
sure a chore washing out of a
tin cup. The last bathtub I saw
was in Madrid and that was 16
days ago. Iam not sure I
would recognze a tub now. It is
surprising how we have ad-
justed to washing in creeks,
ponds and puddles, I’m nearly
a qualified camper.

TENT COLLAPSES

Iam going to go backwards
and take you back to Gibraltar.
We will never forget our last
night there. It stormed all
night, the wind travelling over
50 miles an hour and the rain
teemed down. All’ was going
well until five o’clock in the
morning when the tents col-
lapsed. What a sight we made,
holding flaps and sides of the
tent down and I was supporting
& pole that had snapped off. At
0 we gave up and packed the
car in record time and sat in
the car until the stores opened
and we had breakfast. Those
were the worst hours I have ex-
perienced on this trip. I was

for free home delivery, phon :

ready to chuck the whoie thing,
pack my bags and run for home.
It was the wrong attitude to
take but I was tired and ter-
ribly grubby. I'll look back and
laugh at the incidént, in fact I
do now, but at the time it was
terrible.

Boarding the boat was an-
other memory. The five of us
girls made a beeline for the
Washroom, where we rolled our
sleeves up, filled the basin with
HOT water and had a wash.
What a sight! Us in dirty jeans
serubbing our faces, necks and
arms in a public washroom, Can
you believe it is me? It is. I
have to take advantage of lux-
uries such as hot water and
toilets, they are so few and far
between these days. Boy, will
I appreciate home after this.
Janet and I also did a little
washing of clothes after we had
removed a few layers of dirt
from ourselves. Well-dressed

Women were coming in and out
throughout all this, but we were
in no position to be embarassed.

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