Africa

These are photos of the top of Mount Kilimanjaro in Kenya as we flew around it, and me in my new uniform at the hotel in Dar es Salam.

I was very excited at my first opportunity to visit Africa. My first flight was to Rabat, the capital city of Morocco. The Rabat Hilton hotel where we stayed was beautiful. The front lobby was decorated with blue, patterned tiles, the hotel staff was attentive and the atmosphere was different from anything I had experienced before. Those were the days before tourists started to roam the earth in large numbers. Those were the days when Morocco was exciting and mysterious.

Usually the whole crew stayed together in countries that Pan Am had designated not to be one hundred percent safe. The captain on my first flight invited the whole crew to accompany him to his favorite restaurant. The visit to his favorite restaurant was a magical experience for me. We sat cross legged on big, velvet cushions that were placed around a low table close to the floor. First we washed our hands in individual metal bowls filled with lemon scented water. The waiters gave us white napkins to dry our hands and then they started to bring the food. They brought a diverse arrangement of dishes to the table and we just helped ourselves to whatever we wanted. Utensils were provided because we were Westerners, but the captain, who knew the place and the customs well, ate without the use of utensils. He scooped up the food with his right hand and used his bread like a utensil. We usually spent the rest of the evening there, because there was some entertainment in the form of Moroccan, traditional music, but the meal itself took up most of the time, it lasted for hours.

Much of the time the hotel accommodations for stewardesses was double occupancy except for the two pursers who were always given their own rooms. There were always two beds and a private bathroom, but there were lots of occasions when I was lucky enough to get a single room all to myself. In the Hilton Rabat I always had to share, but on one trip my roommate and I had a strange experience. We wanted to escape the confines of being with the other crew members and we were able to do that by visiting a part of the Kasbah where very few Westerners went.

My hotel roommate was planning to get married and for her wedding she wanted to wear a white caftan. On previous shopping trips to the edge of the Kasbah, I had haggled and bargained with the shop keepers there, something that was expected of us before we settled on a price. I usually returned to base loaded with goat leather hassocks, handbags, slippers and fine embroidered caftans because they were so inexpensive to buy. Many of my trophies were intended as gifts to friends and relatives. My friend had been unable to find a white silk caftan on her previous trips to Morocco and so she asked one of the hotel maids where such a thing could be found. The hotel maid offered to make one for her and the maid invited both of us to accompany her home after work so that we could choose the right fabric for the wedding caftan.

We set off for the Kasbah, penetrating deeper and deeper until I completely lost my sense of direction. We stopped at a shop where my friend purchased the required amount of fabric and then the maid invited us to her home for dinner. I was feeling a bit uneasy by this time because it was late in the day and I wanted to get back to the hotel. The maid prevailed upon us to accompany her to her house. All three of us were conversing in French and I put up a silent prayer that we would be able to find our way back out of the Kasbah without getting lost.

 The maid led us through the dark, winding alleys of the Kasbah and finally we arrived at a small, very low-to-the-ground doorway that led through a blue-tiled hallway and then out into an open courtyard. In the middle of the courtyard the maid’s mother was busy cooking the evening meal over an open fire. Since it was Ramadan, a holy time for Moslems when everyone fasts until sundown, we were not permitted to eat with the family. The maid took us to her own room, an alcove set into the stone wall that encircled the courtyard, where she invited us to sit down until the food was ready. She reappeared twenty minutes later explaining that as soon as we heard the call she would bring us some food. Nobody was allowed to eat until sunset or until after the family said prayers, and her mother did not want us to eat with the rest of the family because it was a holy time. Finally we heard the call for prayers and shortly after that, the maid brought us some food on a brass tray and then she returned to eat with the family. We both tried to eat some of the food but it was not good.

“I can’t eat this,” I said to my companion. 

“Neither can I,” she responded.  “What will we do?”

We both knew that the Moroccan family would be insulted if we refused to eat their food and since we had already started to feel uneasy about being in that strange place, we were not going to take the chance of insulting them. The hotel maid seemed to have a lot of brothers. We wrapped up the brown oily mess in tissues and napkins and placed the food into our large Pan Am shoulder bags hoping that we could go undetected. All went well with the arrangements for the wedding caftan and thankfully the maid led us back through the Kasbah to the hotel. We bade her fond farewell, made arrangements to pick up the caftan on our next trip and then spent the evening trying to freshen up our handbags before our flight home the following day.

On the flight home we had a very important passenger, one of the wives of King Hassan II of Morocco. The Pan Am station manager at Rabat came on board, announced that the Queen of Morocco (she was not officially a Queen, but I didn’t know that at the time) would be travelling with us. The station manager asked who among the stewardesses could speak French. He tested my French language abilities before allowing the Queen on board but it was hardly necessary. The queen did not lower herself to speak to mere stewardesses and some of the people in her retinue spoke English.

Liberia was interesting but scary for some. After the abolition of slavery in America there was a movement to offer free passage to any slaves who wanted to emigrate to Africa. Some freed slaves did take up the offer and settled in Liberia, but many of them died during the voyage. The Republic of Liberia is a country in West Africa. It has a hot equatorial climate but when I was there it was beyond hot. It was so hot and humid that you could feel the weight of the air heavy on your skin especially while strolling around the Firestone rubber plantation. We were given a tour of the plantation which I enjoyed very much.

 The Liberian schedules were grueling but there was no shortage of stewardesses who wanted those flights, because in Liberia, gold jewelry was cheap. In the middle of the layover there was a twelve hour flight all the way across Africa, from Liberia to Tanzania. We touched down at most of the countries in between, and then after our arrival In Dar es Salam, we had barely eight hours to sleep before we had to get up and work the twelve hour flight all the way back to Monrovia.

The flights between New York and Monrovia were usually filled with the American employees of the plantation. The Pan Am captains felt responsible for the safety of the crew and they were careful to brief us on what to expect. Check your rooms for snakes and scorpions before you do anything. Don’t wander around by yourself. If you want to go into town, go with a crowd and be respectful of the native population.

I learned some serious lessons on these trips to Africa and haven’t forgotten the grim situations that I found myself in. The first occurred when the six stewardesses decide to go into town. One of the Firestone plantation drivers drove us in and then he headed for the local hotel to relax with a drink while he waited for us to finish our sightseeing. It was fascinating to see bare breasted women with their babies strapped to their backs, strolling down the hot, dusty roads. They were not friendly even when we waved. There was nothing much to see, but we were attracted to an open air market that seemed to have some life about it. Foolishly one of the girls took out her camera and started to take pictures.

All of a sudden the crowd roared and a group of men started to menace us with sticks. We started to run and the men chased us out of the market place and down the main street until we made it to the safety of the hotel where we spotted our driver sitting at the bar. 

“These people are chasing us,” we told the driver.

“What did you do?” he asked, but as he spoke he noticed the camera that our errant photographer still held in her hand. 

“Did you take pictures of them?” he asked.

When we nodded the man explained to us that some of the villagers who come into town to sell their wares at the market place, believe that photographs are evil. They think that the camera steals part of the spirit of the person. That is the reason the people became angry and chased us. We were advised to not return, because there could be no guarantee of our safety if the local villagers saw us again.

There was one more incident on that trip to Africa and it happened in Nigeria. Our special instructions for these flights across Africa were firm. One week before departure to any country in Africa, we had to start our regimen of taking anti-malaria pills. Every crew member was vaccinated against yellow fever (among other things) during the training period, and in New York, our vaccination record was inspected before we were allowed on board and we were supposed to carry our vaccination record with us at all times.

We were also instructed to discard any leftover food in the proper garbage receptacle and we were to tie up the plastic bags ourselves before leaving the aircraft. There was less likelihood of the Pan Am food that was intended for passengers, being removed off the aircraft whenever the commissary workers came on board. Everything was counted, what came on and what went off. But I just couldn’t do it, I couldn’t throw away good food when there were hungry people nearby. The commissary workers were obviously poor and malnourished and I used to leave the leftover veal roast for them to eat along with some bread and fruit when we took a break at Accra. It was difficult to get a half hour sit down in the airport lounge. Once I was besieged by a group of high school girls who demanded my autograph. To these girls Pan Am stewardesses were like the famous models of today.

After taking off from Monrovia on our twelve hour journey eastwards across the African continent, our Pan Am jet touched down in Abidjan (Ivory Coast), Accra (Ghana), Lagos (Nigeria), Entebbe (Uganda), Nairobi (Kenya) and then ended the journey in Dar es Salam (Tanzania). We ran over a snake on the hot dusty road as we drove to the hotel in Dar es Salam. We slept and too soon we were back on board the aircraft getting ready for the trip home.

The flight was full in both economy and first class and one first class passenger in particular was getting very drunk. We were watering down his drinks but he kept ordering more. Almost as soon as the aircraft touched down at Lagos airport in Nigeria, we heard the engines roar and then the  Boeing 707 aircraft started to speed up instead of slowing down. Both crew and passengers were puzzled when we shot down the runway and took off again. As soon as the aircraft leveled off we heard the captain’s voice come over the speaker system..

“Ladies and gentlemen, I apologize for the inconvenience but we were not able to land in Lagos. I don’t know if any of you noticed, but behind those tall green shrubs lining the runway, there were anti-aircraft guns pointed at us. We will continue on to Accra.”

The green shrubs were for camouflage and for some reason our aircraft had been targeted. The captain noticed the shrubs on touchdown, and he knew that these shrubs were out of place growing beside a runway. As he took off, he saw the guns.

The first class passenger who had too much to drink approached me in the galley and asked me to have a drink with him. Just to keep the situation under control, I poured myself a glass of ginger ale and sat down beside him in the first class lounge. We started to chat.

“They’re having a civil war in Nigeria,” he said. “Have you heard about the rebels in Biafra?” he asked me, when he noticed the look of surprise on my face. 

“No,” I responded, “I didn’t know that. I wonder why they wanted to shoot at us. We’re not involved with any civil war in Nigeria are we?” I asked him.

The passenger, who looked like a successful, middle-aged, American businessman, grinned and then confided in me that he was a gunrunner and that our aircraft was carrying crates full of rifles and ammunition destined for the Biafran rebels. 

“Someone probably got wind of the cargo,” he said. “It’s a pity. I could have made a lot of money on that shipment if I had managed to get it into the country. I had a contact working at the airport in Lagos who gave me a guarantee that I wouldn’t get caught and that my shipment would go undetected, because he had bribed some officials to turn a blind eye.”

Before we landed at Accra I relayed the conversation about the cargo of rifles and ammunition stored in the belly of the aircraft to the captain, and when we landed, two police officers were waiting to question the gentleman who had put our lives and the rest of the passengers’ lives in danger because of his illegal cargo. I’m very glad that I was given the opportunity to visit those countries and because I was young and wanted more adventures, I went back a few more times but the follow up visits were tame by comparison.