VISITORS FROM TANGANYIKA

Press, Volume XCIV, Issue 28080, 22 September 1956, Page 2

VISITORS FROM TANGANYIKA

Difficulties With Food

HIGH TEMPERATURES ALL YEAR Although many persons in Christchurch spoke about yesterday’s warm day as “cne out of the box,” a young English couple were not as impressed by it. They are Mr and Mrs A. W. Monks, wh have lived for three years in I ar-es-Salaam, Tanganyika, and are visiting Christchurch as part of a world tour.

“We do not get a day as cold as this even in our winter; the whole year, except for six or seven weeks when we get our average rainfall of 36 .nchrs has a temperature about 95 to 100 degrees, with a humidity ot 9f per cent.”, they said.

Mr and Mrs Monks are not returning to Dar-es-Salaam, where Mr Monks was manager of a company If they find a place as congenial and not quite so hot during their tour they will settle again. Mrs Monks found the heat and housekeeping great probems. Because of the neat shopping had to be done twice a day; food that had been bought t: the markets or shops in the n.orning would not be edible at the evening meal. “Weevils get into the flour, ants gei into the sugar, and it is not uncommon to find a type of maggot in the chocolates. Your shoes and clothing in the wardrobes go green with mildew, and once cockroaches ate two kapoc pillows in a cupboard overnight. My husband would go back there to live tomorrow.” said Mrs Monks. Locally-crcwn vegetables were not of a very high standard, she said The poor soil and the long distance they nad to be transported over dusty roads did not make them very palatable. Milk was flown from Nairobi. €OO miles away, and various cuts of meal came once a week, also from Nairobi The mo-’ succulent meat they tasted was New Zealand lamb, which arrived once in three months by refrigerated ship. She had a staff of four boys, but preferred to do her own cooking. ‘Because of the heat, native labour is employed in the homes, with the result many European women are constantly fighting against boredom,” sain Mrs Monks. “There is any amount of voluntary work to do. and the majority of the women do help in this way.”

Mrs Monks said that she was a member of the Red Cross Society and the Council of Women, an organisation simi.ar to the Country Women s Institute in . New Zealand. She also did shopping for patients in the European hospital and sewing for the native hospital.

One of Mrs Monks’s most vivid memories of Tanganyika is of attending the trial of two witches, which lasted tor three days. The witches had been convicted of killing and eat ing their husbands, and they were h. nged. Mi Monks is keenly interested m yachting and owned his own yacht in Dar-es-Salaam. He and Mrs Monks spent most of their leisure time visiting uninhabited islands from five to 80 miles offshore.