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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.

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Genzano it story
The Italian problem of today
IS GOING TO BE CONTINUED;
Next time with, my life story
------------------------------

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Travel Videos - Fountain cavallina, Genzano, Italy - The Compulsive ...

Most interesting photos from Genzano di Lucania, Basilicata, Italy

Where is Genzano di Lucania in Basilicata, Italy located?

Monday, September 5, 2016

The Italian problem of today

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 Italian problem of today
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The Italian problem of today
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This map of Italy, shows you how close is Italy. to the coast of Africa. So, it is easy for the illegal emigrant to try to come to Italy by boat. This is creating a real problem, because there are too many emigrant, as we all know from the news. In fact during last week there were 15 thousands new arrival. When will this stop one may ask? And will Italy be able to cope with all these illegal emigrants?
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Italy position and population

The Italian problem of today, exists because Italy is a peninsula in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, so, it is easy for the refugees to come to Europe going through Italy. We believe that this is the main reason why so many refugees or illegal emigrants arrive in Italy every day, and sometime even thousands of them can come in just one day, other times just a few, but it is a problem that might never end, unless we of the western wold are able to find a solution. Therefore, we should be concerned about it, since it might bring lots of other problems.

We have reasons to believe that Italy cannot cope with this incoming of refugees for long, so, something might happen that will show us this weakness soon. What is happening now is this, Italy accept these illegal emigrant or refugees on humanitarian grounds, they even go to help them when they get in trouble in their boats on their way to Italy, but there are just too many of them arriving every day; so it is a never ending problem. Most of the western world is worried about these refugees’ issues, but they don’t know what to do to stop them.

Let me point out this to you briefly, since I have written the first part of this article, there have been several terrorist attacks that involves illegal emigrants and refugees, but that is not all; for instance, today on the Italian news, we have seen the eternal city of Rome full of uncollected rubbish in the streets. This is another problem that the refugees will produce, since there are more people, there will be more rubbish. Now the rubbish can be collected, but where to take this rubbish will be the problem of the future. We will talk about this when we come back to this in a few days.

Today I am editing this article, so, I can add other things that have happened since last time I wrote this article. There has been an earthquake in central Italy, where near three hundred people have died. At the same time, in a few days about 15 thousand refugees have arrived in Italy. It is very warring, therefore, I feel sad for the Italian people, since they have to cope with this other disaster. So, in the world there are also more problems every day, that is all one can think about.

The Italian problem of today

As we have talked at the beginning of this article, there are many illegal migrants in the world today; they are illegal migrant because they forcefully go everywhere, even when they are not wanted at all; here I am afraid that I have to say that when they do this forceful migrating they could easily upset the way of life of the people that are forced to receive them against their will; but let us see what could be the causes of this migration, and then extend our search to what could be the outcome of this forceful emigrants that come in unwanted, because I am worried that something nasty might happen in southern Italy soon.

The causes of this unwanted illegal migrating, it is that these refugees are in search of a better life, there are many reasons for that, but above all of them is poverty, sometimes poverty is so bad that people could even starve to death, now that is really when people are very poor and they are forced to find a way how they would be able to feed themselves; here the rest of the world that are better off should really try to help them and there is no question about it.

But on the other hand there are people that are not that poor and they want more because they are greedy, they may start to believe that the rest of the world is better off than they are and therefore they want to grab whatever the others have, and this seems to be the main problem that the entire world is facing today.

Anyhow here we want to talk about the Italian problem, mainly because I am an Italian that has emigrated from southern Italy, and therefore in this article I would like to talk about Italy and my native town and the surrounding towns and countryside. So we would like to start thinking and imagining what could be like in the future to live in southern Italy, in these towns with all these new migrant coming in. But first of all who are these emigrant we have to ask and why they are migrating.

This is the main thing that worries me. These people that are arriving as refugees in Italy and other parts of Europe, they don’t seem to me that they are not able to feed themselves well, in their own country of origin. So, feeding themselves does not seem to be the real problem for these people. Therefore, what other problems they might have one should ask.

Before we are able to answer that question, we would like to define the sort of refugees we are talking about here. There are at least two types of refugees, the real refugees are those people that are forced to run away from a natural disaster or war. The rest of them are not real refugees, they are illegal emigrants that are looking for opportunities to live a better life.

Now, there is nothing wrong for people wanting to live a better life, if the better life they are looking for is hard work, and this hard work is easily available in the country they emigrate, but if they are looking for a better life, just because they believe that the people in the country they have emigrated are better off, just because they have heard that in their country of origin, then there will be great problems. These problems that they could cause, it is the reason why I am concerned.

We could say many other refugee’s things, but we are not going to, as we are stopping here and leave our concerns to the Italian people that are still live there. I feel that at least I have said what I needed to say about my concerns.

I believe that we have said enough in this post, so see you in our next post, where we are going to start with my life story.

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Genzano it story
The Italian problem of today
IS GOING TO BE CONTINUED;
Next time with, my life story
------------------------------

Some other useful links

Australian houses in Brisbane, Australia affordable houses

Some of our hub links

Travel Videos - Fountain cavallina, Genzano, Italy - The Compulsive ...

Most interesting photos from Genzano di Lucania, Basilicata, Italy

Where is Genzano di Lucania in Basilicata, Italy located?

Wednesday, July 20, 2016

We 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 should be concerned
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We should be concerned
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Today, even in a place where people go to have good time, it is not safe to go. See what has happened in Nice France, another terrorist attack has killed 84 people plus. Today in this world we should really be concerned.
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We should be concerned

Dear readers, I would have liked to have started by continuing to write about my concerns, as I said in the last post an old man view of the world. But, because violent events have happened in the world that are in line with my concerns, I would like to mention them first and then we will continue to write about our concerns, just the way I wanted to write them. You see, what has happened in France then in Belgium and now in Nice and now is happening in Turkey, it all has something to do with movement of people that emigrate from one place to another, because they are not happy, and also the native people of that region that are not happy. These violent happenings today make me concerned, and everybody should be concerned about them. Now let us go back to what I was going to say.

Today we should be concerned, because there is this movement of people that could be considered like a Biblical Exodus. You know what I mean, the Jews left Egypt to go to their Promised Land, in their way they had many problems, one of their biggest problems was that they had to fight the people that were occupying their Promised Land, so, in the process many people were killed. Now that is just one example of what happens when a large number of people move from one place to another; of course there are many more examples if we read our human history, but, I believe that I have explained my point of view.

We believe that there is a link here for us to be concerned. Not only in some regions of Southern Italy, but perhaps the entire continent of Europe, as there are too many called refugees that arrive from Africa, the Middle East and Asia, so, as an old man I am concerned. Now, even though this looks like a worldwide problem, I would like to tell my own country people what I see coming. You see, today I am viewing all these happenings from the land down under here in Australia. Now, because I am so far away, my point of view might be different from what the people of Southern Italy are seeing, but at the same time it is always good to have a different opinion.

What has given me the idea of writing this article the first time, it was that I have been writing about the history of Monteserico castle, which is the past history of this regions of southern Italy, because I come from this region, and therefore there are lots of times that I go back to talk about it, for one reason or another, since I am a native of this region.

Since we have written about the history of the castle of Monteserico, and whatever has happened around this castle of Monteserico and also about Genzano town, since Monteserico is in Genzano territory. Now having seen what has happened in the past, our minds looks at the present times and tries to forecast the future, we know that our human history keeps going on and at times seems to repeat itself, we wonder now what the future holds for us; here I have to say that there are a few negative signs for the future of this region, which already seem to be happening, as we have said at the beginning of this post, where the entire world seems to have problems already.

But let us go back to talk about Southern Italy, in order to understand what I am worried about, it is necessary to know a bit more about this region of Southern Italy and the inhabitant that have lived and are living there. You see this region is not rich, the only thing that it is going on there is wheat farming, and also some mixed farming for their own use; there are a lot of small farms that would be able to sustain the native inhabitant only. We have also to say that there are times when these small farms do not produce enough and people have to leave the farms and go to work somewhere else, if and when they are able to find another job, even if they have to go to another country. You see this is the main reason why I left our small family farm and migrated to Australia. But today the opposite is happening, people go to Italy instead of leaving it.

Anyhow, we know that a few things might have changed since I left Italy, but if they have changed it is not a great deal, as there are no industries of any sort beside farming, so the way of life over there is very much the same as it was in the fifties when I was there. As you can see from what I have said, this region of southern Italy could not support any outside people that would like to come there and stay there, and that is one of my concerns.

But as we have said already this would also apply to several other regions of Italy and indeed the entire world. We really have to think about what we need to do next, so whatever concerns I have for my native town and Italy, they are also concerns for the rest of the word and above all the western world, since that is the place where people are moving to.

We are going to continue to say a few more thing next time we write next post, that we are going to call, the Italian problem of today, but I can tell you now that this is not only an Italian problem, because it involves most of the western world, plus other countries here and there. So, see you soon, when we write our next post.

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Genzano it story
We should be concerned
IS GOING TO BE CONTINUED;
The Italian problem
------------------------------

Some other useful links

Australian houses in Brisbane, Australia affordable houses

Some of our hub links

Travel Videos - Fountain cavallina, Genzano, Italy - The Compulsive ...

Most interesting photos from Genzano di Lucania, Basilicata, Italy

Where is Genzano di Lucania in Basilicata, Italy located?

Saturday, July 2, 2016

This is an old man view of the world

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, an old man view of the world
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An old man views
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This is the castle of Monteserico, it happens to be in Genzano di Lucania territory, we have talked about this castle recently, for these reasons I am continuing to write something of the history of this region of Southern Italy.

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Old man views

Old people are usually concerned about many things, because they have seen too many bad things happen during their lives, therefore, they always fear for the worse. Because they feel concerned, they believe that their role is that they have to look at what has happened recently and try to compare yesterday events to today happenings, in the hope that they could be able to see what is going to happen next, it is a sort of getting ready for the worst. This does not mean that what they see would really happen, but it might have a good chance that it could happen, therefore, they would like to warn the people around them about those concerns that they have.

As I have said above, we old people worry too much and are usually concerned about many things. Now as you might know, I have been writing a few articles that I have published in Hub Pages, in one of my last articles, I have been talking about, the Norman castle of Monteserico, (The Norman castle of Monteserico, this is the link if you want to check it out), this castle is situated in Genzano di Lucania and it is my native town. In the history of this castle of Monteserico, we have seen that there were many wars and other violent happenings that have happened in these parts of Southern Italy; therefore, I am asking myself, are these violent happenings that have occurred in the past going to happen again?

In my views as an old man, I am looking at the world and see what is happening today, what I see is uncertainty all around, so, I think that the world is going mad these days. For this reason, I feel that the human race that was supposed to know how to behave these days, it is not doing what we are supposed to do. We might think that we have reached the age of reason and we know everything that we need to know, but from what is happening we have not; so, what is wrong with humanity I would like to ask?

So, as an old man today, I see many things that make me concerned. When we look at the news on TV or reading a newspaper, or the news on the Internet is almost impossible to avoid to see the violent things that are happening in the world. One of these bad news is about the terrorist news that is happening very often. We know that the bad and violent news are reported more often than the good and normal everyday news. Because they have happened and the public needs to know, but really, we are becoming tired of all these bad news, because they most times they are so ugly that one wants to switch off the TV, throw away the newspaper and turn off the computer.

So, my dear readers, I have to say that my heart is crying, it is crying because there are so many wrong things going on in the world today, so, I believe that we have to try to do something positive, or at least talk about it, in the hope of finding a way out. Who knows somebody might come up with a solution.

As you will see from the following description, this article is going to be about the world present happenings of these days, so even though I have named this hub, an old man view of the world, this old man needs to attach this story to a particular region of the world, in order to make his story real. Now as it happens I have written already a few hubs about my native town of Genzano di Lucania and also about the second castle of this town called, the castle of Monteserico, which has a real history of its own, sense this castle was the castle of the Normans and Robert Guiscard duke of Southern Italy in the year 1047 or there about, it was also the castle of another famous person Fredrick ll that owned this castle around the 12th century in Southern Italy.

We have to say here that history has a good chance to repeat itself, so, we are worried to a certain point, because what happened in the past were very violent. Our concerns are that we believe that today again history might be taking its course and it might repeat itself; because something might happen again around these regions of Southern Italy, because there are so many illegal emigrant coming in. You see this region of Italy has an history of invasion and changes, starting with the Greeks, then the Romans, Spartacus and others, the Normans, The Swedes just to point out a few.

Today it seems that what is happening is not very important, but, the views of this old man that is writing this article is that: they seem to occupy the whole country and we Italians are letting them in and welcoming them, even if some of us are concerned, but I don’t see that this peaceful welcoming is going to last long, because most regions of Italy are not rich and will not be able to sustain all these emigrants, so, if this refugees problem that we are witnessing today keeps going on, there could be another violent story that could soon unfold in the future in these regions of Southern Italy, therefore we just wonder, if history is going to repeat itself again, and some violent events are going to happen.

So, we should be concerned to say the least. Anyhow this post is becoming too long for the average readers of today, so, see you in our next post called, we should be concerned.

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Genzano it story
This is an old man view of the world
IS GOING TO BE CONTINUED;
Next time with, we should be concerned
------------------------------

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