How my Italian adventure began

When Australian Eddie Wise was a little girl her maternal grandmother, Nonna Caterina, enchanted her with tales told shyly in halting English. Stories of a carefree childhood in the Aspromonte mountains of Calabria were interspersed with liberal digressions in a broad Italian dialect that even Eddie’s mother could barely understand. From that magical spell of words and gestures, Eddie spun herself a treasure trove of sun soaked images, of almond trees in flower and riding a donkey through centuries-old olive groves; of tomatoes drying in balmy summer air and children growing up as free as the hens and goats that dwelt in the village courtyards. When her nonna’s gentle smile faded and she spoke of darker events, Eddie would beg her not to be sad, since in her fairy tale world there was no place for malaria, infant mortality, toiling to the well for water, carrying heavy loads balanced on your head and the like – the things that had driven her great-grandparents to immigrate to Australia. As Eddie grew up, Nonna Caterina encouraged her to travel, and once she had saved up enough, she decided to do just that. Her great-grandparents had travelled to Australia by ship and Eddie chose to make her first trip to Europe the same way.
In "How my Italian adventure began" Eddie tells of her first impressions on reaching Italy, first as a tourist and then a few months later to work as a nanny – a position she would hold for a year. In that time she learnt the language and began to understand the cultural intricacies of the region that her beloved grandmother had once called home.