Tuesday, December 20, 2016

We Italians should be concerned

WELCOME TO FRANK MENCHISE BLOG OF GENZANO DI LUCANIA, YOU ARE INVITED TO BROWSE AS LONG AS YOU LIKE.
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Welcome to our blog, Genzano it story
and this post, we Italians should be concerned
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We Italians should be concerned

Italy is a European country in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea that today has many problems of its own. One is that there are too many refugees coming in, the other is the recent earthquake in central Italy. Both these events make life harder for the Italian people, for this reason we should be concerned.  










We Italians should be concerned
Dear readers, I am going to stop writing my life story for a while, I will come back to it another time, because there are other things more important to write about. Let me explain, I have already written and published some articles in another site. Now these articles have a lot to do with Italy, so, because I am a Italian I am going to publish these articles in my blog, that in a way has got a lot of Italian content, so, let me repeat these articles here in my blog, Genzano it story, as I am sure that most Italian emigrant would be interested.
What I am going to write in this article today, it is an issue that has been on my mind for a long time; it has been on my mind, because I was born in Italy and I feel that I am still Italian, therefore, whatever happens in Italy it affects me personally as well, and for that reason, I would like to say something about it if I can, so, I am writing this article to have my say. Anyhow, today while I am trying to finish this first article, I have become aware this I have lots of things to talk about, so there will be more than just this article, as we will explain later. 
The reason why I am writing it now and not before, it is because there are a couple of things that have happened recently and they have pushed me to write this personal article. Now, I believe that as things are today in Italy, Italy seems to have so many problems to cope with, one of which is the illegal migration from Africa and the Middle East. This illegal emigration touches me personally, because in the fifties and sixties, we Italians had to emigrate ourselves to other countries to find work, and one of this emigrant was myself.
But since then, a lot of things have changed and today the Italian people are better off; they are so much better off than then, that instead of people living Italy to find work somewhere else, they are somehow able to help other people that move to Italy illegally, even if they cannot give them some work, because even today there is not enough work for the Italians. I see that this illegal emigration could cause a problem soon. So, I wish that somebody somehow would come up with a solution, how to stop or control it to an acceptable level. You see, I believe that this uncontrolled migration could create some serious problems in the future, therefore, I feel concerned, and here I am writing them.
Anyhow, while I was looking in the news on the Internet, for any signs or any ideas that could slow this unwanted emigration down, to my dismay, instead of finding this solution how to stop the illegal emigrant coming in, in large numbers, I found in Hub Pages an article that was showing the benefit of migrating to Italy and Europe. I know that the writer was writing only his point of views, without thinking of the consequence this could eventually cause. Anyhow, to me this article seems as if the writer is encouraging other people to migrate to Italy and Europe, which I believe is not a good thing to do, as I am going to explain some of the reasons, which will be evident by the time I finish writing about my concerns. But let us leave behind this difference of opinion between me and the Hub Pages writer; because I would like to point out, what are the real problems over there, and then we will talk about some of the major issues one by one, including this article that I found in Hub Pages.
Looking at these Italian issues from far way, since I happen to be today in Australia the land  of the Kangaroos’, because I am so far away, for this reason, I imagine that I would be able to see these important issues, in a different way, and perhaps better than the people that live on the spot in Italy, because I am not directly affected by what is happening over there just now. So, let me write down my point of views, about the illegal emigrant and other things.
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This is a boat full of illegal emigrant people, they could be said to be lucky, because even if the boat is overloaded, it is still floating and they seem safe enough.



The illegal emigrants’ problem
Anyhow, I should say first that I am proud of what the Italians are doing these days, since what they are doing is being done on humanitarian grounds. We know that helping other people in need is the best thing that we humans could and should do, so, we should encourage this sort of behaviour all the time. But, there is a big question mark here. Could this sort of behaviour in the long run be detrimental to the helper themselves? So, let us see what this could mean.
As we have said, in Italy we have a big problem with the illegal emigrants, because there are too many of them coming in, we also believe that from what we see happening in the world, this emigration problem will continue for a long time. So, we Italian should be concerned, but not only we Italians should be concerned about that, because, I believe that also the rest of the world should be concerned about what is happening today in Italy and other part of the world as well.
Anyhow, let us continue these discussions, or point of views if you like to call them that; so, let us see what is happening in Italy, because there is some news from Italy that should concern most of us Italians, even if today, some of us like myself happen to live outside Italy, perhaps these issues should concern other people as well. My own personal point of views is that Italy today is under a strain, it has been so for a long time, because of the refugees and the illegal migrants that come to Italy every day, the last count that I have heard of, there were 156 thousand refugees this year alone, there were also over 4200 people that drowned in the Mediterranean Sea, so, the Italians and other countries as well feel that they should help them and they do, because on humanitarian grounds that needs to be done.
But, this is not all that needs to be done today, because even this drowning issue is not the main problem for the Italian people over there, because, for the last two months there have been several earthquakes in central Italy, which have damaged lots of towns, and there were near 300 victims from these earthquakes, in some of these towns there is hardly any building left standing. So, Italian people should solve these two huge problems that keep going on, one after the other, with no end in sight.
Now, in this article, I would have liked to talk about three main issues, the earthquake problems, the refugees and illegal emigrant, and last of all discuss about the article on Hub Pages that seems to encourage illegal emigrant to go to Italy, the gateway of Europe. But it looks like that this article is becoming too long already. So, I may have to write two or three articles to say what I want to say. But to conclude this article, let me talk about the earthquake and the Italian response.
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This photo that we have taken from the internet, is one of the many buildings severally damaged during the earthquake.







The Italian earthquake  
Today, if we Look at what is happening in Italy, here we are talking about the earthquake and everything else, I believe that the Italian authorities are coping very well indeed, in doing what needs to be done. As most of us may have noticed in the daily news, there are too many things that the Italian authorities need to do all at the same time, while they have also so many other problems going on. Now, the Italian are not rich people, because Italy is a small country in size compared to other countries with the same population; Italy is also poor, because every now and then there are these earthquakes that destroy many towns, like what has happened just now. Some people might think that you can just rebuild again and the problem is over. But it is not so, you see every time something is destroyed, the country becomes poor because of the destruction. In Italy, there are too many mountains, so, some of this territory is not easily cultivable, but the Italians are good at finding what they could grow on some small piece of land, if they live in the mountains, and they do. They are also good at doing other things, since most of them are individual that try hard to solve their own problems. But even knowing that they can solve many problems, today they should be concerned, because there are several negative things all happening at the same time. Anyhow, now let us talk about what the Italians are doing because of the earthquake.
When earthquake like these that are happening in Italy take place and there are hundreds of dead people, and tens of thousands have their houses destroyed and become in a way refugees, usually other countries come to help, but this time there was no much help from outside Italy, and if there was any it was not mentioned much in the news. So, it seems from here that the Italian people could cope with the earthquake problem so far by themselves.
The Italian government and authorities have been quick to get involved, so, they have already promised to the people that they will rebuild the damaged houses and everything else that needs to be rebuilt, so, now it remains to be seen, if what the authorities have promised the people affected from the quake, is going to be delivered on time and to the standard that they have promised; we hope they do, for the benefit of everybody involved.  
Now, I should say that next step is going to be a critical one, because while the government is giving money to re-build, the damaged houses and everything else that needs to be rebuilt, there could be some greedy idiots that don’t care about the plight of the rest of the community that need help, so, they want a share of the government money; here I am talking about the mafia and other criminal groups, I hope that they are caught in time from the Italian authorities before they do any damage. My own personal view about them is that they are a disgrace to the Italian people that work so hard to achieve a good outcome for everybody, they should be ashamed of themselves, instead of being proud to be robbers.
Anyhow, I believe that I have said enough about the earthquake for the time being, because I would like to talk a bit about the refugees and illegal emigrants that come to Italy by thousands just about every day, which is another problem for the Italian government and we should be concerned about that, as we are going to write in our next article, that perhaps we could call, Italian concerns continued.
See you soon.
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Genzano it story
We Italian should be concerned
IS GOING TO BE CONTINUED;
Next time with, Italian concerns continued
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Some of our hub links


Wednesday, December 7, 2016

On the way to Australia

WELCOME TO FRANK MENCHISE BLOG OF GENZANO DI LUCANIA, YOU ARE INVITED TO BROWSE AS LONG AS YOU LIKE.
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Welcome to our blog, Genzano it story
and this post, On the way to Australia
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-Australia












On the way to Australia


Happenings on the way to Australia

Dear readers, this post is the continuation of our last post, going to Australia, so, let us continue from where we left our story.

During the fortnight that the ship took to cross the Indian Ocean, every one of us was wondering his own way about the future in Australia and what we knew about Australia; in my own case at some stage of this crossing I would start wondering how hard it would be to live in the driest continent on earth, as I had learned at school that Australia is very dry compared to other continents or countries. So, what would the supply of water be like, and what about the westerly wind be like, I remember that my teacher had said that these winds last up to three months, so, I was asking myself, is it going to be just as bad and as cold as winter times winds of Italy, who knows? You see to cross this stretch of water of the Indian Ocean was taking too long and therefore it was becoming even boring to go out on deck just to see the sea water and the sky above. So no wonder we were thinking so many strange things.

There is something else that I found out on the Indian Ocean, which was not good news for me; but let us start this story from the beginning. You see, in those times when you went overseas from these small towns like Genzano, anyone that had relatives would like to send a present or something to their relatives, or at least their greetings or something like that, and also if you went to a relative house to stay when you arrived in Australia, you could not and would not go there without bringing some presents, from your family and their families, so you can imagine how loaded you were with your own presents and friends presents when you boarded the ship, and I tell you I was loaded too with all this stuff.

Now forgive me my readers if I all of a sudden I start talking or thinking, or comparing if you like about today TV shows like border security, instead of talking about my journey to Australia, but you see, I was coming from a country town and most presents were not bought at the shop, they could be food or something that could not be allowed to go through customs in Australia, so every time I see something on TV like border protection show, I cannot help thinking that I have been in the same position myself, when I first came to Australia, but anyhow on the ship I had plenty of time to work it out, as I was talking to some people that had been in Australia before, so I was able to avoid the worse.

Among other things on the ship I had two demijohns of local wine, which I was sure that would be very much appreciated from the people that I was going to stay with in Australia, for people that don’t know what a demijohn is I will explain, A demijohn is a large round glass container dressed with something like woven straw, in my case I had two of them one was ten litres, and the other seven litres, in addition to that and strange as it may seem I had some (lampagioni) small wild onions, which I slowly realised could never go past customs, so when I was sure that they would not be allowed to enter Australia, I dumped them in the Indian Ocean. I had also some local homemade large beautiful biscuits and other stuff. Anyhow let me talk about the two demijohn of local wine now, because for a long time anyone that were sailing with me on this ship would remind me of this event; these two demijohns were in my cabin and there wasn’t any way to restrain them properly, so, when the sea was rough they were sliding across the cabin floor until one of them broke that is why my passenger friend always remember and remind me about the good lost wine.

These are some of the happenings during my journey to Australia. Anyhow after a fortnight we reached the continent of Australia and docked at Fremantle in Western Australia. Hurray, we have made it to Australia, now we are going to see what Australia is like and if it would bring us good fortune.

But we are going to do that in our next post, as people today don’t like tong articles. So, see you soon in our next post called, first positive impressions.

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Genzano it story
On the way to Australia
IS GOING TO BE CONTINUED;
Next time with, first positive impressions
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Saturday, December 3, 2016

Going to Australia

WELCOME TO FRANK MENCHISE BLOG OF GENZANO DI LUCANIA, YOU ARE INVITED TO BROWSE AS LONG AS YOU LIKE.
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Welcome to this blog, Genzano it story
and this post, going to Australia
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This is the map of Australia, the far away land on the other side of the world that we wanted to emigrate to, in the early sixties and we did.









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Going to Australia

Dear readers, this post is the continuation of our last post, the real journey begins, this is the story of my life that I am writing here in blogger in small posts, which are going to be several articles; in this article, we are going to tell you about how I felt and what I did on the ship during my voyage when I was migrating to Australia. Then if you follow my writings you will find that I have worked in the building industry, as a bricklayer building houses and this could be interesting to some of you, if you would like to DIY some building work. Anyhow let us go back to my trip on the ship to Australia. You see, in the early sixties just about everybody that went overseas had to sail to whatever destination one had to go to.  

While I was on this ship called the Sydney, in my heart I was already saying: Hello Australia, here I come with my dreams in my heart of finding a better life for myself and perhaps for the future generation of my future family, if or when I can have a family of my own.

I know that I might be dreaming these dreams that may not happen at all the way I want, but I am young and there is no harm in dreaming to find a better life if I could.

So, as I have said in our last hub, we left Port Said to go straight to Australia and while we were on the ship crossing the Indian Ocean we the passenger that were migrating to Australia started to think already about what we had left behind in Italy, and at the same time we were eager to see what Australia was like, on the ship we made some acquaintances and everyone had some story to tell, most of us would be talking about the reasons why we were migrating to Australia and what we would like to achieve in Australia, but really we didn't know a thing about what we could do in Australia, most of us did not have any job qualification, so we were hoping to do whatever job came our way, as long as there was enough money to earn a living for a start, so we hoped for the best.

Now, this time I want to keep this post very short for my own personal reasons; so, see you in our next post, on the way to Australia.

Monday, October 31, 2016

The real journey begins

WELCOME TO FRANK MENCHISE BLOG OF GENZANO DI LUCANIA, YOU ARE INVITED TO BROWSE AS LONG AS YOU LIKE.
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Welcome to our blog, Genzano it story
and this post, the real journey begins
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The real journey begins
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Ship docked in the port of Naples, where people in the sixties would usually embark to go oversea. In those times there were no real large airlines that could fly you anywhere in the world like today. So, we had to travel for a long time to reach our destination.
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After we left Italy, we crossed the Mediterranean Sea, then the Suez Channel and The Red Sea. We that had never travelled before, we were all wondering what we would see next. In a way it was very interesting, but we also were worried sometimes.
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The real journey begins

The real journey outside Italy begins

Dear readers, this post is the continuation of our previous post, Goodbye to my country, where we had gone ashore and walked the streets of Messina and then back to the ship to leave Italy for good, and we did. Next evening, we were in Port Said Egypt. Here again we were allowed to go ashore, and here for the first time we met with real foreigners who talked a different language, you see, until then I and perhaps a lot of the other passengers who were also migrating to Australia had never been outside Italy. In Port Said I saw for the first time that the people of this world are not all the same, in fact I am going to describe to you the way as I have seen it at that time. We came down the ship and we were walking by instinct in small groups, or perhaps it was one of the ship crew that took a group to show us the way, and to see how things were done down there.

There were a few very young and poor people that wanted to shine your shoes for a small coin, there were others that would sell you anything, in fact they sold to a few of us a piece of well reaped wood for a piece of chocolate, there were a few shops open that you could buy a bargain if you knew how to bargain, because they would ask a very high price and who knew how to bargain could reduce that price to one third of the original price, or something like that.

On reflection today I would say that Egypt was a strange place, you see the people that we talked to, knew a bit of Italian and they would tell us that we were robbing them by calling us (mariul or mariooo) which in the dialect of southern Italy could be translated as robber or thief; but while they were telling us that we were bobbing them, they were indeed robbing us, right, left and centre. But today I understand what they were doing, they were just trying to live their life, they were so poor that what they were doing was the only way for them to survive, may God forgive them if they hurt us by robbing some of us a bit of what we had. 

Anyhow, then we went back to the ship and next day we were navigating in the Suez Chanel, the Suez Channel offer one of the strangest sights, because, while you are in a ship in this man-made channel that mankind should be proud to have made, and while you are in this strip of water slowly navigating towards the Red See, on both sides is desert land, what a sight this is?

After navigating the Suez Channel, we went through the Red Sea and next stop was the port of Aden Yemen. By now I and the others were aware that here too things would be different from the normal way, but anyhow there was not much to see or report. Because I did not venture too far away from the port, what I can remember of Aden is that there were a few shops near the port, but what I remember most is that the air seemed to have a strange smell like sulphur that day, so even today I wonder why it was so, and also, does the air in Aden smell like that all the time? If that is so, then different lands have different smells. I wonder if somebody else has had the same experience as I have.

Then the time came when we left Aden to go straight to Australia, this time it would take about a fortnight navigating no stop the Indian Ocean, a fortnight in the middle of the sea with no land in sight, this was going to be another hard take for the people that had never been to sea like myself, but anyhow we had taken that decision to go to Australia, so let us go and see what Australia would be like.

When we left Aden I had already set foot on three continents during my life, so, within my heart I was saying goodbye to them all, starting from my native town of Genzano di Lucania, Goodbye Genzano my native town, goodbye Italy my country of origin, goodbye Port Said Egypt Africa, with your poor people that try to rob all passenger that set foot on their land just to survive, and goodbye Aden Yemen Asia with you strange air smelling of sulphur. Next stop will be Australia that very far away land, which we were all thinking it would be like the Promised Land.

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Navigating the Indian Ocean

Navigating the Indian Ocean from Aden to Fremantle Australia took us a fortnight; I should say that it was all right considering the circumstances that most of us had never been at sea before. You see, in those days’ people travelled by ship or any other kind of transport only when it was necessary, and even though the ship was not a luxury cruiser like the cruisers of today it was good enough for us who were just passengers who wanted to move from Italy to Australia, as it was in my case. The ship had embarked over 2000 passengers and we all had a proper bed to sleep in, there was plenty of good wholesome food and meals that were served regularly, we all had a place to sit at the tables, which were attached to the floor, but if the ship moved too much we had to mind the dishes and the drinks. Anyhow at other times we would go around the ship with some of these acquaintances that we have met on the ship, or just sit in our own cabin. We had also an English class that we could attend, so that we could learn a few words of English and be able to say at least the most Basic English words, in the hope that we would be able to say something and make other people understand what we needed when we reached Australia. There was something else that we learned at these English classes and it was the convict song I believe and it went thus: Oh my darling, oh my darling, oh my darling Clementine, you are lost and gone forever, oh my darling Clementine. How appropriate it was in our cases.

Perhaps I am saying too much about my personal story and it is becoming boring, so I am cutting it short and close this article. See you in our next article, hello Australia here I come, or going to Australia.

See you soon, where I am going to tell you a bit more about my life story.  

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Genzano it story
The real journey begins
IS GOING TO BE CONTINUED;
Next time with, more of my life story, or something a bit more modern, depending on what happens.
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Monday, October 3, 2016

Goodbye to my country

WELCOME TO FRANK MENCHISE BLOG OF GENZANO DI LUCANIA, YOU ARE INVITED TO BROWSE AS LONG AS YOU LIKE.
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Welcome to our blog, Genzano it story
and this post, Goodbye to my country
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GOODBYE TO MY COUNTRY
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Today we could say that in the world most thing change, as the time goes by, sometimes thing change for the better and sometimes they become worse. When I was young I left Italy because we were poor and wanted a better life. There were a lot of people just like me that left Italy in those times. today is seems that things are better off, So, instead of people leaving Italy, there are people going to Italy. One can only say that in the last fifty years there have been great changes.  

GOODBYE TO MY COUNTRY

Dear readers, in our last post, we were talking about the Italian problem of today, I was talking about that because I have come from Italy, so, I still feel that I am an Italian and see their problem as if they are my problem also. Anyhow, today I would like to tell you my life story starting from when I left Italy and came to Australia. So, I am starting with, ‘Goodbye to my country’ as this title suggests. And then, we are going to write here a group of articles dealing with my life in Australia and what I did, in the hope that some of you might find them helpful to know, especially those articles about housing and building work, and how to own a house, etc. Starting from the time when I left Italy and most of the things I experienced in Australia.
We all know that in our life time we have to make many decisions according to what is happening around us, one of these decisions I had to make when I decided to migrate to Australia; we need to say that in those times to migrate from one country to another was a very serious decision, because the generations before us usually stayed all their life in the towns were they were born, only a few ventured to migrate, because moving from one country to another was thought to be dangerous and also took a very long time, so for me and for all those that wanted to migrate was not an easy decision to make, but in the end everyone has to make his own decisions, so, after thinking it over, I decided to migrate to Australia, since my brother was already in Australia and he said that it was good. So, I said goodbye to my Italian motherland and migrated to Australia.
Today to understand the reasons why I migrated to Australia in the sixties, one has to read those articles I have already written in hub pages, or at least one of our earlier articles called, Wheat farming the modern way, where you could compare how hard it was in those days to earn a living in the farms, when one compare that to the modern ways of farming especially here in Australia; this is the link, Farming today compared to the old way
Anyhow, today the same decision would have been easier to make, because nowadays people move from one country to another easily, so to migrate from one place to another is a normal way of life; but it was not so a while ago, in fact if we go back a hundred years or so, most people used to live in their own native town all their lives, and a few of them never even saw another town even when they were close bye, then life was very different and people accepted that they would die in the same town that they were born. Today life is different and we find it easier to move from one town to another and even from one country to another and this is what I have done in my life time, I moved from Italy to Australia.
As we have already mentioned above, there are times in our lives when we have to say goodbye to the dearest things in our lives; and I can tell you that it is not an easy thing to do; but the events that happen at those times help you to make up your own mind, every one of us has got to decide what to do during our lives, whether one would like to stay put in the native town that one is born, or move somewhere else in the hope of living a better life.
I would like to sum what I am saying thus, when people move from one country to another it has become necessary for them to do something about it, because where they are and what they are doing has no future in it, and in extreme cases may even be dangerous to stay; of course I wasn’t in danger, so, this was my case, because I was only looking for a better future, as what I was doing seemed to go down as the time went by, so I decided to leave my small family farm in my native country of Italy to migrate to Australia.
Here-under is an account of my leaving my country of Italy; in order to explain that and keep my life story somehow in a chronological way, I am going to write a bit more about my last time working in the farm, and then when I had to leave the farm, first to go in the army to serve my country and then leaving Italy altogether to come to Australia, and also my voyage in a ship called the Sydney that in those times was taking passengers to Australia, I will be telling you what impression Australia made on me when I arrived. Of course I am going to be brief about all this, as there is a lot to tell if I try to tell you everything in details. So, now let me explain my position why I left.
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Explaining my position
Explaining my position and the reasons of my migration
In order to understand fully the reasons of my leaving Genzano di Lucania my native town and not wanting to return to work in the farm is this: there were many issues and most of all was that it was very hard to earn a living in the farms, even when we had average harvests; and then, the ways of working in the farms was changing and there was less need of man hours work as the tractor and other machines were coming in, so either we had to buy these machines or we had to move out of farming, for us to buy those machines was out of reach, as our farm was not big enough; and last and most important of all was that the very last year that I worked in the farm we had a very poor harvest, in fact we made so little wheat that it could not cover the cost of buying the seeds we had sown.
All these facts put together made me see that I would be wasting my time to work in the farms as my forbears had done for hundreds of years before me, so, I took the opportunity to migrate to Australia, as my elder brother had done before me.
But before I could migrate to Australia I was called to serve in the army, you see in Italy all able males over 21 should serve in the army, so, I went to serve in the army as prescribed by the Italian laws. I served in the army and when the army let me go I migrated to Australia.
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 Leaving for Australia

Leaving for Australia and goodbye Italy
I remember that my mother with a friend came with me to Naples to farewell me when I left Italy. I suppose it was very hard for my mother to let me go away from the family farm, but it had to be done, because we have debits we owed too much money, so we the young and strong members of the family had to find a way how to pay our debits, in order to find a way how to pay your debits sometimes you had to borrow more money, as it was in my case, because I had to pay my fare myself and that was a lot of money. Anyhow, as I have said before one of the options was to migrate make enough money to pay our debits and then return home to live a better life. Well at least that was as my mother would have liked it to be, but it did not work that way for us for many reasons. Anyhow it was the year 1961 when I left Italy and embarked on the ship Sydney for Australia. I have to say that when you leave a place that you know well for a place where you have never been it seems an adventure, starting with walking up to the ship deck for the first time and looking at all those things that you have never seen before.
In those times voyages that took a long like going to Australia would worry people, so, old folks like my mother was worried, because the voyage from Italy to Australia would take one month by ship and in those times really that was the only way available to come to Australia.
Anyhow we are in Naples with my mother and her friend and after visiting the ship, my mother and her fried stay on the dock waiting to say goodbye, while I embarked on the ship and this ship is going to take me to Australia a faraway land, I wonder how it is going to turn out because I have never been to sea before, I also cannot swim and this worries me a bit but not so much, because I know that most of the other passengers cannot swim as well, so, we are all in the same boat, so to speak and also in reality, because we are all in the same ship. Anyhow, I am on this ship liner Called the Sydney and the ship is about to depart from Naples; the ship makes this low strange sound a couple of times and we see that it is slowly moving away from the sore. We all look for our relatives and friends and wave goodbye until they become so small in the distance that we could not recognize them.
And after that many thoughts came to our minds and we were saying within ourselves; goodbye mother, goodbye my friends, goodbye Italy, goodbye Genzano my native town, who knows when I will be able to see you again; and thus the journey begins to unfold. We left Naples in the late afternoon, and next morning we were docked in Messina. While we were docked in Messina we were allowed to come ashore and walk around if we wanted to, of course as I was a young man I wanted to see as much as I could, so I walked the streets of Messina, which seemed to me a nice clean Sicilian town. Then we went back to the ship as we were told and we left Italy for good; Goodbye Italy, who knows when I will see you again?
I believe that I have said enough in this post, so see you in our next post, the real journey begins.