Show brought back memories of travels

I am watching episodes of "Jack Ryan" on Amazon Prime, reminded me of a couple of stories. One they were in Caracas, Venezuela. We were there once with Kenny and Ann on a cruise from Acapulco, through the Panama Canal. Stopped there, we were walking down the sidewalk, and Annie had some guy walking the other way, pinch her in the rear end! Of course, she yelped. Evidently it is something they do there, we found out later. Another thing, lots of shacks together on a hillside, I mean thousands. What they did for sewer and water was anyone's guess.

Another reminder, the movie was in Syria, and reminded me exactly of a family home we saw in Morocco. Annie and I went to France to visit her brother and he had booked us on a tour from Metz, France, to Morocco for a week. We saw a lot, the Atlas mountains (had snow), I thought it was all desert, but we went over it and did go to the Sahara Desert. Anyway, one place in the desert, we went to an actual oasis. Not like you see in the movies, this was a big area, like a little town, a small river came out of the sand, through the town and back into the sand. They took us to a family home, it was a big square-type home, with an open courtyard in the middle. They served us green Moroccan tea with lots of sugar, made a ceremony out of it. Anyway, the square home had four sides naturally. The unique thing about it was that it housed three generations of the same family. The grandparents on one side, their kids on one side, and grandkids on the third side. The fourth side was the communal kitchen and eating area. We don't know what they did for a living out there isolated in the desert, but they did have vegetable gardens. They may have told us, but the tour was in French, there were 42 French people (including my wife Annie and her brother and sister-in-law) and me. This was over 20 years ago, and the trip was a real deal, cost-wise, it included the air fare from France to Morocco, all hotels and all meals, $675 each! Morocco used to be under French control, so there is a connection there. Another interesting thing, is they said, the third or fourth-largest economy in Morocco was the movie industry. We visited a couple of sites, including where they filmed part of the movie, "Gladiator".

ROGER GREGORY

Priest River