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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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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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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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