![]() There are about 600 people living here, all Catholic-I conclude this from the fact that the Catholic church is open all year round, whereas the Protestant chapel, set off on a hill a little removed from the village, is open only in the summertime when the tourists arrive. In the village there is no movie house, no bank, no library, no theater very few radios, one jeep, one station wagon and, at the moment, one typewriter, mine, an invention which the woman next door to me here had never seen. On the other hand, the villagers are able, presumably, to come and go as they please-which they do: to another town at the foot of the mountain, with a population of approximately 5,000, the nearest place to see a movie or go to the bank. Few people making plans for a holiday would elect to come here. ![]() The village is very high, but it is only four hours from Milan and three hours from Lausanne. It is a fact that cannot be explained on the basis of the inaccessibility of the village. ![]() It did not occur to me-possibly because I am an American-that there could be people anywhere who had never seen a Negro. I was told before arriving that I would probably be a “sight” for the village I took this to mean that people of my complexion were rarely seen in Switzerland, and also that city people are always something of a “sight” outside of the city. From all available evidence no black man had ever set foot in this tiny Swiss village before I came. ![]()
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