FROM EGYPT

Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 147, 18 March 1937, Page 4

FROM EGYPT

Visitor Tells of Native Life Visiting New Zealand with her husband and two children is Airs. B. St. John, who. for the past 13 years has been living in Egypt, with occasional holiday visits to England. Ou her arrival in the Dominion, she said that after living for so long in the East it was a wonderful feeling to be able to make herself understood immediately. She felt as though she were learning to be English again. Airs. St. John already lias spent three weeks touring in Australia and will remain a year in New Zealand. In Egypt, she said, she was very interested in the establishment of mothercraft clinics in the native villages. Alany English girls were working among the people ti ying to teach them healthier and safer ways of living. The native population was largely Arabic and French-Arabic and did not take kindly to teachings in cleanliness.

The girls went out into the many little native villages in pairs and sometimes alone. Before anything could be begun toward founding a clinic thej’ had to gain the friendship and confidence of the natives. Alany were very superstitious and often some trivial event would make the whole project impossible. AVhile the clinics were being established and for some time afterward they were visited several times a week by one of the health officers or a resident doctor. One of the hardest tasks was to teach the natives to be clean. They had to be shown the necessity for washing, for keeping cuts and scratches clean, and for eating off clean dishes. They were also shown how to split date palm leaves and make cots for their children instead of leaving them to sleep upon a very dirty floor or upon the ground. Airs. St. John said Egypt was a glorious country in which to live for a while as it was always full ot a strange, rich beauty. One soon became eager, however, for grey clouds, green paddocks ami mud.