Con trasts In Morocco

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30770, 7 June 1965, Page 2

Con trasts In Morocco

Morocco presented sharp contrasts in all ways of life: deserts and forests; kasbahs and sky-scrapers: handicrafts and modern industries, Mrs B. C. Penney said at a meeting of the Timaru High School Old Girls’ Association in an address supplemented by coloured slides and taperecordings. Signs of a long struggle towards equality and opportunity were at present evident, said Mrs Penney. Nevertheless, Morocco was a delightful country, and was capable of great development both from mineral wealth and from the soil itself, she said. She showed pictures of the shadeless beaches of the Atlantic seaboard, new, palmfringed streets in Casablanca,

luxury hotels and modern homes of the rich, and narrow souks in old Medinas. Mrs Penney described Berber tribesmen in white and coloured costumes, many on horseback, varied dwellings including clay-brick houses, tents and caves inhabited by gypsies, shepherds watching their small flocks of sheep, donkey and camel traffic, and shops opening off narrow ways, containing beautiful handwork in brass, silver, leather, wool and other fabrics finely embroidered in silver and gold thread. Mrs K. E. Nicholls thanked Mrs Penney for her talk. Hostesses for the evening were Mesdames J. Butler, J. B. Hair, J. McDonald and C. Hibbard.