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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Exeter Times-Advocate, 1975-11-20, Page 17BARGAINS TIME While' They Last RADIAL Whitewalls Winter or Summer GR70-15 or HR70-15 $44" each FREE INSTALLATION TIRE BALANCING Static $2.00 Dynamic $3.50 STEEL RADIAL WHITE BELTED Winter Ban FREE INSTALLATION Winter Ban POLYESTER Summer White G78-14 G78-15 $3275 each FREE INSTALLATION Snow Blems each CASH & CARRY 600-13. 650-13 645-14 695-14 B78-14 F78-15 NEW 4 PLY WHITEWALL INDSHIELP b78-14 E78-14 HR70-14 1R70-15 $ 1 C)83 each FREE INSTALLATION ALGOIVIA 'TIRE 1.1111166 MAIN ST, NORTH OF HWY, 83 235-0330 • • 1. • " st the` SP tsootsit 235al 153 esAN%- Mcon St , Exeter Mon. to Sat. 10-6 Friday 10-9 Open Wednesday xxxxxxxximixxxxxxxxxi o • • o. 044 • • Couple return 000-0 TUCKEYS VISIT AFRICA — Mr. and Mrs. Benson Tuckey recently returned from a three-week trip to Africa where they visited the nations of Kenya and Tanzania. Here they pose with some of the beautiful ob- jects that they brought back with them. The couple said that they had a great time bartering with merchants in the colourful market places, where no object has a fixed price. T-A photo For those of us who still have the impression that Africa is an entire continent lost in the bachroads of time, inhabited only by half-clothed natives, thatched huts, and wild animals in dense jungle settings, Mr. and Mrs, BensonTuckey of Exeter can son set the story straight after their three-week odyssey to that exotic area of the globe. The couple recently returned home from a trip which topk them to two of Africa's young natioffs, Kenya and Tanzania. Their travelling companions were the Earl Park Square Dance Group from Saskatchewan of which they are both members. According to Mr, Tuckey, the club managed to do some dancing on the equator and he has some pictures to prove it, The equator cuts a line right across Kenya, "I was really delighted with Africa", Ara belle Turkey recalled. "I enjoyed every mile of our trip. We had a great time in the flea market in Athens." When she was asked to relate the most significant thing which she could remember of her travels, she said, "Our cab driver, Joseph, was such a gentleman that a person could never forget him," Joseph, they learned, was a descendant of the fierce Mau Mau tribe which went into the jungles when the whitemen first began exploring the continent and staged a fairly successful war against them. Joseph became a friend and during the Tuckeys' stay even had them to his home as guests. Speaking perfect English and entertaining the couple in his small frame house, the only thing which reminded them of his ancestry was his immaculate appearance. According to a travel guide that they had spoken to,. the Mau Maus were very attentive to their grooming. "Joseph was a perfect host", Mr. Tuckey said. "He had two little boys, seven and eight and they were as sharp and as polite as could be." "Having him for our driver during those three weeks probably made a difference in our impressions of Africa", added Mrs. Tuckey. She said that Joseph was not the ex- ception, however, as various members of their group had similar things to say about their own drivers. Their tour included several cities. They spent considerable time 'in Kenya's capital city, Nairobi, which. contaihs both • elements of modern civilization and traditional ways, such as the market place. Bartering is still the order of the day when one wants to buy something from one of the numerous and colourful stands. But when Mr. Tuckey went to take a picture of a woman who was selling millet, she proceeded to jump up and motion frantically to him. "She wanted me to pay a shilling before I took the picture." "The natives are Very tourist conscious", Mr. Turkey observed with a grin. The Tuckeys' dining room attests to their enjoyment of the market place. It is filled with beaded necklaces, intricate carvings, jewelry, and clothing which the couple brought back. "You just have to barter with them", grinned Mr. Tuckey. Otherwise, you're a sucker, because merchants always ask a price that is above the value of the object and then proceed to come to a compromise with you after you have mentioned a lower one, Very seldom will you see a stand with a sign stating that prices are fiked." "Africans are very nice people, jolly and congenial. A lot of them work very hard. There is still very little mechanism there and most of the work is done by hand. The women do a great deal of the work, especially farming, while the men tend to the cattle of which there are huge herds in Kenya. Frequently we saw women walking down the road, carrying baskets on their heads, heading for the market." Kenya is home to the fabled Masai people, who tower over most other humans, reaching heights over seven feet tall. They are cattle herders and Mr. Tuckey pointed out that even now retain their custom of being nomads, wandering the plains of east-central Africa. The Masai still build their homes from mud, straw and dung, When it comes time to leave a location, when the herds of cattle have depleted the store of grass, the tribe simply loads their belongings on the backs of mules and burn down their empty huts, moving to greener pastures, As free and uncomplicated as the Masai seem to live, they have adopted some modern customs and speak fluent English as do the majority of Kenya natives, according to Mr. and Mrs. Tuckey. "The day of the thatched hut and the loin cloths is pretty well gone. Many people will talk quite treely about the way they used to live." Although Kenyans are proud of their heritage, they have become Christianized and have adopted many western habits, from dress to naming their children, Joseph's sons are Samuel and Daniel. In addition to traversing Kenya's cities and rural areas, Where they saw many small farms which were owned in- dividually, the Tuckeys took a six-day tour through some game reserves, which represent the last bastion of wild Africa. Much of their time was spent on the reserve of Tsaroo, which spans an incredible 850 square miles and contains much of the wildlife that one thinks of when they envision the dark continent in their mind's eye. Seeing the animals was in- triguing", Mr. Tuckey remarked. The elephants were the first thing that struck your eye. They move in bunches, sometimes nine and sometimes as many as 40 in a group, especially if there is a waterhole nearby. The rhinos bossed everything. When they moved in, the other animals would move out of their way, There were a lot of zebras and they all seemed to be fat, even though they eat very little. Just eating the dry grass which makes up a great deal of their diet, they become fat." One night while the couple was resting in their lodge cabin, built upon stilts as most of the tourist lodges on the game reserves, a large group of elephants gathered at a nearby waterhole and proceeded to shake half the continent as they sprayed themselves with their built-in nozzles, The ceremony went on most of the night. Of the experience, Mrs. Tuckey was not the least bit scared, adapting to Africa on the first day of the trip, said Mr. Tuckey. The lodges are on stilts to prevent tourists from the roaming animals below. At night, they are most active and sometimes walk between the stilts below the cabins. The animals of Africa are not all big and ferocious. Some of them are cute and cuddly, such as the dik-dik, a member of the deer family but only the size of a jack-rabbit. It was Mrs. Tuckey's favorite. "The national reserves are there to keep some parts of the country the way it was before civilization came along", Mr. Tuckev'explainect "It helps to control poaching and some natives live there in the fashion of their ancestors." Tourists see the reserves from open-air mini-buses which proliferate the country of Kenya. The drivers are charged with the safety of their passengers, and no one is allowed out of the bus, once it has left the area of the lodge, unless in the driver's discretion it is safe to do so. There was only one occasion when Joseph allowed his charges to get out and that was when he had spotted a dying elephant the day before and then returned to let his passengers have a closer look. Ivory hunters still exist in Africa and much of the poaching that goes on is for the tusks of the elephant. The game reserves help to cut down on this sinister trade, but poachers still manage to obtain enough ivory to satisfy a hungry black market. The elephant that the Tuckeys viewed, however, had died of natural causes — starvation. Just as there is a policy in this country now, to let certain stands of timber succumb to a naturally caused fire, Kenya is not at- tempting to provide food for all of from Africa safari its elephants on the reserves, because according to govern- ment officials, the task would be monumental, Apparently there are just too many elephants, even for the vast space of these national wildlife parks, and simply not enough of the natural food which the elephants eat, to sustain them all. The bark of certain trees makes tip a large proportion of art elephant's diet. On most of their trip, Mr, and Mrs. Tuckey saw positive things in the newly ;emerged nation of Kenya which won its in- dependence from Britain in 1961. However, along with the fact that natural life, though protected on the game reserves, is threatened, even there, was another discouraging discovery.. According to Benson Tuckey, the English-speaking newspapers noted a familiar hazard ex- perienced on our own continent — pollution in the cities, The other country of Africa, that they saw was Tanzania, which more recently gained its independence. "We spent only one day in Tanzania," said Mrs. Tuckey. "Things were a little tense there as if there were eyes staring at you all of the time. At the border entering Tan- zania, one man on the bus was ordered to surrender the film in his camera becaue of pictures he had shot. The Tuckeys felt that there must have been a government informer on the bus, because it was the only way that the border guards could have known that the man had been taking pictures. "Once inside the border, we had no trouble, but we were relieved when we returned to Kenya", Mr. Tuckey remembered. The majority of their problems were of a minor nature, however. The shilling devalued during their three weeks in Kenya, reflecting a public concern with inflation as in Canada. But most of their trip was sheer pleasure and inspiration. "One of the most memorable sights of our stay was an island inhabited by flamingoes", reflected Mr, Tuckey, visualizing them as he spoke. "To see those pink flamingoes, and there must have been thousands of them soaring above us, was a sight that was just out of this world." Refute impressions of backward culture Times-Advocate, November IQ, 1975 Page SA ,:iiimilinwilmoilitii,iiimiiiiiimititiiii.molimiommtwitt wItimiiiiiiimiiimiiiimoimoo = .= = ▪ Notice ,... . ANNUAL MEETING, Huron Country Playhouse Saturday, Nov. 22 ,.11 GREEN FOREST Grand Bond / IMPORTED FROM HOLLAND for Available at Dutch Canadian Store MAIN ST. 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