The Goderich Signal-Star, 1974-08-08, Page 17•
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GODERICH SIGNAL.§TAR, THIJ.RSPAY," AUGUST A 1974—P4QE ''ailk
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Ron Shaw, formerly a rep.orter-pheitographer with The Goderich Signal -Star, is really alive and
well and living in Africa. He 'sends this picture. from*Markdi, Niger, where he and his wife Peg
are running a dairy test program on a flock of goats. According to Ron, his wife Peg finds her-
self !.'playing mother to 10 kid goats which must' be fed by bottle". * • .
Ron. Shaw
Another *letter has arrived tages of certain , things we
from Ron:Shaw, former repor- would, like but with a little
ter -photographer with The scrounging around we. always
Goderich Signal -Star who witk, Seem able to, come up with the
his. wife, Peg, is presently in, necessities at least.
Africa waking with' the "Our house is huge, much too,'
Canadian government on ,a hig for only two people but it
rehabilitaticin project there. was the ohly one available so.
BecaUseMr. Shaw has ,so there we are. I find my social
many friends' in Goderich - a-Ns'---4kconscience bothers
because so many readers have• somewhat that, here are my
asked about his work there - wife and I, living in this huge
portions , of his ,most recent house, when our guardian- •
correspondence have' been house boy lives behind our
selected for publication. * house in a little hut with his
Mr. Shaw writes: ' • ; two wives and a son. • . '
We are., now ',installed in a This guardian situation
house at Maradi and are begin-- makes , for ..some interestiI
ning our work et 'the -Centre moments. .He 'doesn't Ipeak •
'D'Elevage Caprin. I,.still don't .French or Er.iglish;' just Rousse,
have any cattle to work with tribal langiiege; so explaining
but I—am repeatedly assured thing i and making ourselyes -
that I will have in the next.four, understood 'often times
to six months. That will mean ' represents a bit of a ,,problern.
a move to a 'place called t ever let any one tell you .
Tahoua; further north into the about slow rnoving, lazy
desert,,: where, they aro' Africans. Even during the, heat
operating an experimental -cat- ,, •----of theday' this guy never. stops.
tle ranch. In the meantime I,• We. have a large garden (that
have Undertaken work here at('his various species of trees,a,nd
the center with dairy goats. Ad- many flowers) inside the corn-
mittedly 1 don't' know a lot pound fence which surrounds
about goats but whep. I was, "bur house -and Otto (that's the,
griming up' at home .we always English version of his name)
had. 70 Or 80 sheep and' there 'keeps it absolutely beautiful.
are many similarities. "By the time I roll out of bed
"Life in -Africa isn't-tplf bad at (,::30 a.m., which _L.:figure is
in most ways., We do findshor- pretty -early, he already has
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Well; 1 thought this column
wouldhave a fairly exotic date-
line: Amsterdam, CopenhaPt),
Stockholm, Rue de Something -
or' -Other- in Paris.' • •
That's what I had in mind
for the summer. My young ,
brother has an apartment, with
lots of sleeping space, in the
Black Forest of Germany, or
the, Schwarzwald, as we jet-
setters call it.
He offered it to us' as a base
for bashing around western
Europe. It was ideal. About
five hours from Paris, the same
from Switzerland, Denmark,
Belgiurn, Berlin. A day to
Sweden. A mere bagatelle to
Holland. 4*
I had irall worked out. A
.one -day trip to Zurich, a two-
day spree in Paris, a smash at a -
Munich biergarten (that's a
coffin where you have to keep
4now African goat herder
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everything half watered. Once a
day'he sweeps the whole ya.rd,
driveway and all, withalittle
homemade hand •wisk.
"As for food, Peg seems to
'manage to buy most things we
need. A,, trip. to the market is
really incredible. Orie is simply
surrounded by vendors trying
to sell their wares, but much of
the time a • chap will come
around to the door with.,
whatever fresh vjgetables he
has for sale.
"Fresh meat presents a bit
more of a problem. We did buy
some-, beef in ,the market last.
week and it was very good but
we are always • a little concer-
ned about its condition. Chunks
,of meat are justlaid out ona
bench and are' cove•red with
flies, The.f.lies we can take .but
what concerns Us more is how
l)ng, the stuff has been there.'
What we -did huy didn't kill us
though. , • *.• • -•
are fortunate in being
,able to buy freli eggs here at
the Agriculture Center where
we work , an yesterday we:
bought four hens Which Otto
killed and cleaned for us. We're
going to have one • for • supper
tonight and the others we put
in the freezer. • _
'IChas, rained only once. (and'
even then not much) sincekwe"
have been in Maradi although •I
saw one hig rain wheni was in'
Upper Volta and two or three
showers during,a 10 day stay in
Niamey, the capital of Niger.
Before :the rain Comes there is
almost always a: sandstOrm
..which has to be seen to. he
believed. The fain we had
ye.st'erday,,carste in the nick of
time -to save what .crops there
are here at th,e, center and on
'the surrounding farm plots. We
will need,,a great,deal more if
those crops are to survive and
grow to be harvested. This
country, although"suppokedly a
savanah.„ region, is . really a
desert and any redevel,opment
faces a long hard road:, ,
"The heat, during .the main
part of fheday, is like hell itself
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although the early morning and
the evening can be quite
pleasant. ,3edond to that the
Major feature that comes to
mind is the condition of the
roads. Granted they are not
really roads (although there is
some pavement on the major
arteries) but only tracks across
the desert. Driving our land
rover the three kilometers frosn
town to the center is enough to
shake your . teeth loose. The
problem is that much worse.
because to keep from getting
bogged in the sand you•hive to
'tramp the gas right to the floor
and the reAulting speed keeps
the jeep airborn at least half
the time.
"'Ourmajor forrici* of enter-
tainment- so far has' been
reading,playing a little rummy
and' fooling'ivith the shOrtwave'
radio. So far 1 have been able
to ,pick up. 'English, langua,ge
news- casts over the BBC from
London, Voice„of America froth
Washington, Radio Paris,
Radio Berlin -and *Radio
Moscow. To date I have had. no
luck in raising the CBCfrshort
wave service. ••• •
"T,he streets.here are covered
with beggars, man 9 of them
children, but also old inen,
women, , cripples,. the *blind and
sd on. As soon as you leave_the
jeep you are surrounded by a
chorus of "Cadeau, Cadeau
Patron, Cadeau'' (gifts:: gifts
patron, gifts). We try to give0a
'few francs tothe blind and the
crippled, especially the
children, but if you gave
something 'to themall you
would be reduced to begging
yourself. Furthermore . when
you do put some money in one
of their dishes the remainder
become evert more persistant. I
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(continued on page 4A)
your socka, up), with the oc-
casional foray into Frankfurt or
Harriburg.
'Unfortunately, most of our
forays this summer will be into
herriburg. That's all we can af-.
ford, and: that only once a'
week.
There's an old nur'sery-.
rhyme, which' doesn't even
rhyme, "For want of a nail, the
shoe was lost; for want of a
shoe, the horse was lost; for
want Of a horse, the battle was
lost; for want of a victory', the'
ktngdoni was lost." Cf,r•
*something like that. I'm
quoting from memory: I read it
in, the Book of Knowledge .
whenll was eight. And along
with all those nails and shoes,
a good bit of my memory has
been lost. .
At any rate, you get the
message: One thing leads- to '
another. Or something.
That's why •I'm not' writing
this column from the Eiffel
'Tower in Paris or God's Bad -
burg in Germany.
.._ It all started with t4eGood
SiAliritans; 'You •may recall
that I, wrote a column a few
weeks ago about some forther
students who came' around and
fixed my garage door for
nothing. They absolutely.
refused to accent a cent. It gave
me qu-ite a warm glow at the
time.
'That warm glow has, over
the intervening 'weeks, turned
into a blazing ulcer.
Not, their fault. ..It's my
wife's. She's. been. saying for
about two years, "Bill, we've
got to get the house painted."
I always agree. "Yep. -
Sweetie, next Slimpler for
sure.". Now, our house is not
something you liaint on a
holiday Weekend, .buy a case of
beer and getting ,some Of your
old huddies to come in ,'and
help.
It's a two -and -a -half storey
edifice of hrick. Driving past,
you might say, ",Hell, I'd paint
that for $85.00.", There's just,
-ythote-1 see. that needs painting,
Butthat is„some trim. There
are thirteen storm -windows,
thirteen screens, eleventy-four,
fat least twenty-s,even _black-
' birds in a fir tree.thet's before
you start painting the trim. •
Well,. in a,burst of sentimen-
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lathy, my old lady suggested we •
give "the boys' the. job of pain-
ting the trim.. I would have
given them a case of beer and'
felt I was all even..
The -trim'? is costing me
$500. Fair .enough, in these
diY.S. I could have done it
mYself. • but I'm not going to
climkva fifty-fdot ladder unless
there.'s a mighty fair damsel at
the top. And all they found. was
a hornet's nest.
Next..' The bosswho still
call s me "Mr. Smiley" . or
"Sir", bless hini, said, "Sir,
you've got troubles, with :that*
roof:." -My heart sehk. I've been
through ,it ' before.
Well, I don't have to go into
detail. Any home -owner knows
the rest. 'The roof is shot,
Kerything is rotten, though it
hasn't leaked a drop since we
came here. The only thing
leaking is the. doWnstairs toilet,.
just( after 'we've spent $16
having' it "fixed".
Farewell,— Amsterdam.,
Farewell, Copenhagen, Hello,
roof Hello, bank manager.'
I shouldn't complaip, 1 guesS.
Suppose tipose boys hadn't
come to fix my garage door. I
might have beenJAlling around
in Copenhagen, saying, "Pas de
nuit, cherie," instead of. an-
sWering the door ten times a
day • to loan the construction
gang a screwdriver.
going to be a.4000 sum-
mer holidey. At home. It turns
out that the garage has to be.
painted, too,. and the back,
porch. Rather bitterly, I asked
one of the "boys" if they
shouldn't paint the woodpile,
as well, to go with the deCor.,
Andwith a nice twist of wit, lie
said, "Would you like us to
paint the cat,, ,He
sleeps there. Why not? Green.
.Shutter green.. With a high
gloss.
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imagink the latest in fashion and it" l'0°/0 'savings. After our ° °
August Coat Event, thenext time you will be able to
• these coats .at a 'Saving will be. -January: You'll save in ' •
• .January IF the coat you' really want is still in stock and in,
your Size. Get the cpat YOLIWANT now and enjoy it Fall,
Winter and early, Spring. "
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