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Welcome back to a new episode of the All Things Croatia podcast.
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I'm your host, Stanko Zovak.
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Born and raised in Los Angeles, I'm now living in Zagreb and studying the Croatian language.
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Before we start, just do me a favor and follow on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you're
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listening, as well as the Facebook and Instagram page.
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In this series, I'll be talking with people both in the homeland and around the globe who
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have connections to Croatia.
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We'll hear from startups, returning to Aspora, musicians and athletes, and the biggest Croatian
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celebrities and will return my calls.
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But enough about me.
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Either modalia, or let's get started.
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Yeah, thank you for coming on.
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And you actually, you had reached out to me through email the other week.
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You had heard one of the podcast episodes and, you know, I haven't had a chance to read
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the book yet, but I have to say, right off the bat, I really like the cover art.
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Oh, that's interesting because I was going to self publish and I'd organized everything
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beforehand and the cover was done by a friend of mine.
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I went to university with, who was an occupational therapist, who then became a graphic artist
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and she did the cover and we loved it.
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And then a publisher picked it up and said, oh, no, I want to do the cover.
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And she said, send me what you've got.
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And soon as she saw the cover, she goes, no, I love it.
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And it's, yeah.
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So it's a feather in the cap of my friend from uni and it's a beautiful cover.
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Yeah.
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Is it based on a real picture or did she just?
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I sent her the boat left from pre-graditza.
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I always struggle with that word in Coachella and when she first did it, it didn't look
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like the Croatian houses.
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And so I said, you've got to put in a bell tower.
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You've got to make it look a little bit more Croatian.
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So she did.
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She didn't have enough hills there, but I think I'd told her to change it enough so I
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let it lie.
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And yeah, but the bell tower was good just to try and make it look like a Croatian village.
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Yeah.
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So she did look at photos of pre-graditza.
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Yeah.
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And actually, sorry, I think it was, I sent her a Vala Luka, but so yeah, but anyway,
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she looked at some photos and tried to make it look like a little Croatian island.
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That's cool.
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Yeah.
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It's a very pretty picture.
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And also I sent photos of my mother, actually, and what she was wearing when she left.
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So she had, she's got my mother's sort of build and what my mother's hair looked like.
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She was very true to her cause.
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Ah, equally here.
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Now that, this book, The Girl Who Left, is a story of your mom's journey from Cortula.
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Can you give a little bit of background about, you know, your family on Cortula?
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Yeah.
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It's actually, most of it is actually set in Croatia, actually.
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It basically starts when she's 18 and there's this, my father lives in Farnovo, Queensland
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and is looking for a bride from the old town.
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And my mother became a proxy bride.
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And then the story goes back to when she's nine and the island was invaded by the Italians
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during World War II.
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So about a third of the story is set during World War II.
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And I did a lot of historical research on that.
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While I was over in Croatia in the library in Blato, my mother and father were from the
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village of Blato in the middle of Cortula.
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And I found a lot of books that told me exactly what went on during World War II and my auntie
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was a partisan and my mother helped the partisans in the hills.
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And so it's a story of her life as a child during occupation because there was Italy
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and then there was Germany.
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And then the transition to communism because my family was a very strong Catholic family.
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So how their lives were affected by communism.
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And then very soon after it tells the story of her and the proxy marriage and coming over
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by boat.
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By herself to Australia and meeting my father a year after she married him.
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So she left all of her family.
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She didn't know she'd see them again and all for the chance of a better life really.
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And there were a lot of proxy brides that happened.
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My godmother in Tully, she was 15 or 16 when she came and there was about five from the
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village that came with her.
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And this was 1952.
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And then it's the story of a migrant of how she was on a farm in Far North Queensland
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trying to adapt to the Australian way of life and having a family.
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And then it tracks forward to her.
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She went back two more times to Croatia and it tells of those stories there.
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So it's a bit of a mixed story, a bit of history about the war and then also a migrant story.
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And I've found I've had a lot of reaction from the diaspora in Australia.
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But a lot of the men, a lot of men have reached out and said they really enjoyed this story
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because it's a lot of it is based on, it's based on truth.
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It's 95% true and it's on history actually.
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And my publisher said that I've actually got a little niche in the market there.
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There's been no stories about what happened in Croatia, former Yugoslavia during World
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War II and the effect on the villages on this island.
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So I'm quite proud of the story and the response I've had to it.
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Yeah, well it's very cool you were able to write that down and get that put together.
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I wanted to ask about the, your mother was a proxy bride you said from your father who
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was in.
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Yes, a lot of people don't know what a proxy bride is.
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Yeah, can you explain a little about that and how that happened?
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Yeah, a lot of people think it's an arranged marriage.
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But no, it's not an arranged marriage.
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A proxy bride or they call it over there a procurer or procurement means that the groom
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is not present at the wedding.
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It's a legal binding process and my mother, there were a lot of Italians in my town in
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Mosman and Italy had a different situation because they weren't communists.
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So the Italian women could leave, come and live with the families and then decide if
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they want to marry.
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And my father suggested that my mother, he bring my mother out and see if they like each
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other.
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But because former Yugoslavia was under communist rule she couldn't leave.
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So they had to, she had to be married before she could leave.
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So what happened?
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They sent photos to each other and they communicated by letters and then they decided yes they
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would want to get married.
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And my father's first cousin in the village stood in as a groom and so we've got wedding
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photos of my mother in a beautiful white dress.
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Then my father sent material over from Australia because there was no fabric left after the
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war.
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Women were making dresses out of parachutes left over from the war.
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And his first cousin, Kuzma Anich, actually stood in.
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So we've got this photo of this man that wasn't my father in the wedding photo.
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They go through the whole process.
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They weren't allowed to have church weddings because it was communist.
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They had a sneaky church wedding later because her father, her cousin was the parish priest.
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And then it took about a year for the paperwork because my mother had to have health checks
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and visas before she could actually leave for me Yugoslavia and come to Australia.
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And then she met him and they were legally married.
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They had a little party when she got here but they didn't need to do any more legalities.
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A proxy marriage is legally binding.
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Wow.
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Yeah, no, a brave lady.
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Yeah, for sure.
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And she had never met him then until I think he said a year after the wedding.
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Yeah, a year after the wedding and then a boat trip.
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And then when she got to Australia, he wasn't even there to meet her because he wasn't
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allowed to leave the farm.
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His father came down to collect her and she traveled up to Mosman from Sydney, which is
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like probably 3000 kilometres on a train with her father-in-law and then finally met
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my father.
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So it was quite a journey actually for her.
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She was 19.
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She turned 20 on the boat coming over.
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Wow.
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Yeah, it sounds like quite the journey.
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And so your father, her husband, was born in Croatia and then left to Australia to work
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on the farm there?
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Yeah.
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And he left when he was about four.
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So in the 1920s after World War I, there was this aphid called phylloxera that destroyed
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a lot of the vineyards, all the grapes.
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And a lot of people left my parents' village in the 1920s.
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This was a village that started off with about 10,000 people and one day a boat left carrying
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a thousand people.
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And they went to America, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South America were the main destinations
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for the people from this village.
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And so my grandfather came over first and he came, made enough money to bring over his
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wife and my father and his brother.
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And so my father was about four.
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He had very few memories of Blato and then his younger sister was born in Australia,
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my auntie Mary, who's quite a major character in my book.
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She's 91 and still alive and living in her own home in Mosman.
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So yeah, so for some reason we don't know why Dad wanted to have a proxy bride because
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he was quite good looking and sporty and he had girlfriends in Mosman and even his sister
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doesn't know why he did it, but he opted for a proxy bride.
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And we're thinking that he thought maybe someone from the old country would be happy to be
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isolated on a village and work on a farm and work hard.
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I don't know.
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He said the Mosman girls just wanted to shop.
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So maybe he wanted good stock from the old country.
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Who knows?
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Because my parents died quite a long time ago.
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So we didn't, I didn't get a chance to ask.
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So yeah, so he was, he was Croatian, he spoke Croatian, but he was very much Australian.
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He went to school in Australia.
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He was, he was a bit of an Aussie larrick and actually, great being a lovely man.
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Do you know why he chose or his family chose Australia?
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Was that just sort of the circumstances of the boats, whichever you can get on or was
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there a choice?
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I think, I think you go to where your village, people from your village have gone.
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And so this area in Cairns, there are a lot of people from my village.
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So I think a group of them come and once someone's there, they sponsor more to come.
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And so far North Queensland are a lot of people from Blato and Sydney, Broken Hill and Perth.
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They're the four areas in Australia like Brisbane, the capital of Queensland.
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There's not many people from my village.
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There's no one.
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So, but there's a huge population in Sydney.
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So I think they just go.
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And I know there's a lot that have gone to San Francisco.
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So I guess it depends on, as you say, where the boat's going, but also where you know
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people that you know to go to.
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Yeah, that makes sense.
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When my grandma left from the communist regime in 1960 and made her way up to Italy in the
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refugee camp there and a Catholic charity was working with her to give her refugees
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status somewhere else.
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And they asked where she wanted to go and she had originally told them Australia.
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And I don't know why.
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I don't think she knew anyone over there.
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I'm not really sure, but she had told them Australia and they said, well, JFK, John F.
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Kennedy is going to be president soon, we think, and he's Catholic and we're a Catholic
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charity.
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So we think you might have a better chance of being accepted if you choose the US.
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So that's how she ended up choosing the US and ended up getting refugee status there.
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But originally for some reason, I don't know, she, Australia was her first choice.
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What area of Croatia was your, what's your family from?
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She was from Herzegovina.
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Oh yeah, from Herzegovina.
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Yes, yep.
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Yep.
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Yeah, no, it was a very tricky time Catholicism and communism, wasn't it?
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My parents were very, my grandparents were very strong Catholics.
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And as I said, my mum's cousin was the parish priest in a village.
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And it was very hard to be a practicing Catholic.
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I'm sure, yeah.
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It's also interesting though to see the anthropology sort of of all the diaspora and how they ended
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up spreading out and where they went and who went where.
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What did your mom think of Australia when she arrived?
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Or I mean, living there in general?
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She loved the food.
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She loved the food because she'd starved during World War II.
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They had no food.
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They boiled grass and drank grass with a bit of sea salt.
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They had, they were hungry.
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And that was one of the main reasons that my mum left because my grandparents thought
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she would have a better life.
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And she actually helped them a lot by sending back lots of money and clothes and things
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like that.
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So on the boat over, coming over, she could not believe the food.
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There's a funny story my cousin told me that my mother had said that when she went to her
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first dinner, there was a bread roll beside her plate.
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And she put it in her pocket for later.
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And every time she went to a meal, she kept collecting bread rolls until she had about
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18 in her drawer going moldy and she realized that there would be food every time.
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She was just so used to being hungry.
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And so when she came to Australia, she was amazed.
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First of all, at the food.
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She had this wonderful love affair with bread all her life.
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She loved bread.
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And I think genetically she's past it on to all of us.
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We just love bread.
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And but she was one thing that was really quite frightening with her for her was being
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on the Ashoka came farm because she was isolated.
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She came from a little village where she had, she knew everyone nearly in the village and
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they were all neighbors and she would walk to the farm with the donkey, but she lived
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in a village.
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Whereas she came, Mosman is a little town north of Cairns, but my dad had a farm in a
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place called Cassowary Valley, which is a few kilometers away from Mosman.
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So she was isolated and soon as the cane grew, she couldn't see any houses because
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there was one house across the paddock.
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And she said she used to stand on a chair and look out the kitchen window to see the
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roof because she felt so lonely and so isolated.
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So she suffered like that.
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She was very lucky that she had my auntie was living in the house when she first arrived
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and got married a year later and she was a year old.
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My auntie was a year older, so they became very good friends.
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So she and my auntie was a wonderful woman and my dad was lovely too.
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So she had a lot of love and support, but like she had to work hard on that farm and
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just all the animals like within the first week, she had to get up at three o'clock
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in the morning and go feed the clay-style horses and there were cane toads everywhere.
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I don't know if you've ever seen a cane toad, Stanco.
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No, I'm not sure what that is.
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Oh my gosh, it's this revolting, it's like a frog, but it's ugly and it's a pest that
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was introduced from I think the West Indies in the 1940s to eat the cane beetles on the
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sugar cane farm and they're the most ugliest, ugliest animal with like warty things all
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over them and they were just a pest.
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They're all over the farm and we're full of snakes.
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My dad used to keep a gun in the bathroom that he'd shoot snakes with and there was
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lots of really unusual animals like a bird called the curlew that cries at night and
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sounds like a baby crying or being killed.
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There was heaps of fauna and flora that she had to get used to that.
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She found quite in spiders, really lots of spiders.
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I mean anyone thinks of Australia, it's of all the nasty animals we have and the crocodiles.
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So that's not just a stereotype.
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No, it's not.
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It's not.
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No, you don't go swimming.
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Crocodiles are now protected and you can't cull them so there's crocodiles everywhere
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in Far North Queensland and it's hot, it's humid, it's like, you know, temperatures are
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really hot, much hotter than the village she'd come from and then we have a wet season that
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it rains for two months nonstop.
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So there was a lot of environmental things she had to get used to as well as the animals
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and then being, I think she was the only proxy bride in the town.
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So just trying to make her way into this little community and you know, my mother was just
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a really wonderful woman and I remember interviewing my auntie saying, you know, what was it like
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when she arrived?
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Could she speak English?
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And my auntie said no, she couldn't but she learnt really quickly she had to to survive,
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you know, to be part of this little community and she laughed a lot, my mother.
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She had a great sense of humour and endeared herself to this community.
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So it was tough but I think she was really grateful for this opportunity, like she had
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food, you know, cane farmers were quite well off, she was able to help her family back
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in Croatia and she had freedom, she had religious freedom, she used to go to church every Sunday,
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she was a very much part of the church and yeah, so I think she was resilient and she
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adopted this new country as her own and she was grateful, she was always grateful for
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what Australia provided her with.
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Oh yeah, that's a huge, I mean, that's a huge change going from Cortula to Australia
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with, you know, a husband that you haven't met in person yet and in a country where
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they don't speak your language.
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I mean, yeah, she must have been very brave and you said at 19 she left, turned 20 on
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the boat?
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Yeah, wow.
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Yeah.
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And she said a wonderful thing to all of us children growing up, we used to say, yeah,
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but mum, you know, how did you find dad?
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And she said, you know, he was a good man and love grows.
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You know, they had a very happy marriage.
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And when they had you, was that you were born also on the cane farm and grew up there?
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Yeah, they had four children, I'm the youngest of four and we had a really idyllic childhood,
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you know, I loved growing up on the sugarcane farm and we sold it when I was 14.
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We all went to boarding school because there was only one little school in our town, but
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our parents really wanted us to all go to university and so we got sent to boarding
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school and then went on to university and my father wasn't terribly well, so at 50
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when I only had one brother and when he finished school and said no, he didn't want the farm,
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he was going to become a doctor.
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My father at 50 sold the farm and we moved to Cairns, which is quite a nice touristy
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city about an hour down the road.
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And my father retired and yeah, we're all basically almost left home by then.
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I was at boarding school, but my oldest siblings were married or were at university.
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So but our childhood was lovely on the farm and the little valley that our farm, our sugarcane
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farm was in was quite an ethnic valley.
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We had a lot of Croatians and Italians in that little valley and my brother said a funny
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thing the other day.
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He said because they all spoke Croatian as their first language because my mother was
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finding it hard to learn English.
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By the time I was born, everyone was speaking English, so it wasn't my first language, but
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my brother said, you know, he grew up thinking everyone had a bubba and a ditta.
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That was just like there was a little valley full of farmers with bubbas and dittas.
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Then he realized that no, there were people that had grandma and granddad, not bubba and
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ditta.
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Yeah, that's funny.
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Did your parents ever go back to Croatia to visit?
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Yeah.
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Well, my father didn't.
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He never went on an airplane.
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He'd take a bus somewhere.
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He would not get on an airplane.
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But my father sent my mum back when they sold the farm in 1974.
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He said, okay, first thing I'll do is I'll send you back to the old country.
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She went with my godmother who was the proxy bride in Tully.
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The two girls went back together to see their families.
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It was a big thing for them because her father had passed away in the interim, so she never
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did get to see her father again.
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She was very, very close to her father, much more so than her mother.
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That was really hard for her.
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Going back and her father was gone.
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She went back and spent a few months with the family and she saw her sisters and her
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mother was still alive.
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She was very close to her brother.
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Her brother was 13 when she left and he was a man in his 30s.
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She went back after, I think, 21, 22 years.
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She came back home and she was diagnosed with cancer when she was 62, which was very tragic.
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We told her we wanted her to see her family again, so we sent her back one final time
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before she passed away to see her brothers and sisters again.
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She went back twice.
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The second time she went back, we thought the homeland war was over, but there was fighting
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started again and it was in 1995, so we brought her back early because the war was raging
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in Bosnia, Herzegovnia, and there was still a little bit of war happening in Croatia.
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It was frightening for her because one of the reasons she said she left in the first
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place, she hated living through World War II and she was worried that there would be
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another war and she was right.
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There was more war.
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She came back and she saw the tanks rumbling past and said it just chilled her bones to
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see that her countrymen were at war again and that the young men were being called to war.
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Yeah, that's sad to go back and visit and the same reason that you left is happening
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again.
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Yeah, yeah, it's quite frightening for her.
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I mention all this in the book, just her feelings and what was happening in the homeland war
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and things like that.
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Well, Deborah, what gave you the idea to start writing a book about your mom's story?
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Well, it's interesting because as a little girl I was always quite fascinated by her
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story, the fact that she married someone without meeting him with just seeing a photo of him.
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And I always felt quite attached to Croatia because we used to get photos of my cousins.
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I have a lot more family over there than in Australia, all my mother's family.
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And I was just fascinated by her whole story and the fact that I'm 100% Croatian, my parents
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are from this village and I always wanted to tell this story.
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But life gets in the way.
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I was busy studying, working, I'm a physiotherapist by trade and I work four days a week and then
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both my parents died quite young before I actually had a chance to get their story.
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So probably about five years ago I started researching and I've been to Croatia a number
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of times to visit all my first cousins and aunts and uncles and I've become a citizen.
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Last year I became a citizen.
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And then about three years ago I was able to cut my work down to four days a week.
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So Wednesday was my day off and that would be my writing day.
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So I did all this research and I wanted to write this story.
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And the main reasons DENKA wanted to write it was because my children didn't know my
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parents and I thought this is so sad.
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I had such wonderful parents and my mother had such an amazing story that it was going
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to be lost.
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And so it was mainly for my children and my nieces and nephews and our family to know
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the story of my mother.
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And so I wrote it and as I said in the beginning I was going to self publish and we were about
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a month off going to print and I thought I'll just try some publishers to see if they're
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interested and within a week I had a publisher who was really interested.
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Publisher from Melbourne called Wilding O Press who have been absolutely amazing and
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we're into our, it's been released on the 1st of August, we're into our 10th print
389
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run and we've sold thousands.
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And so we're just blown away by the interest that other people have in this story.
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I thought it was a personal story for our family but it's resonated with a lot of people
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and I think it's the story of many migrants, they feel they can identify with it.
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And I've had a lot of people, the diaspora in Australia have been contacting me every
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week I get messages from people saying how much they love the story and it was launched
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in Blato, the library over there launched it and we zoomed in because of COVID and we're
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00:26:17,640 --> 00:26:23,480
busy looking for a publisher in Croatia because my aunt and uncle can't read English and it's
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only published in English so we would love it to be published in Croatia so that we
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could, the older people over there and even my cousin over there doesn't read or write
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English or speak English so for the Croatians to be able to read this story and it's a story
400
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of hope Stanko and despite all the adversity my mother went through you know she was resilient
401
00:26:47,400 --> 00:26:53,480
and she loved life, she had a zest for life which was just magnetic.
402
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Well, you reached out to me last week about if I knew a publisher in Croatia which I gave
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00:27:01,640 --> 00:27:06,760
you a contact, I hope it can help but if anyone listening knows of any publishers in Croatia
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00:27:06,760 --> 00:27:11,520
that has contacts maybe they can reach out to you so your family over there can read
405
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it.
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You mentioned doing research for the book and I wanted to ask how hard was it to actually
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get information both you know historical information as well as like your family history.
408
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It was a lot of work because I'm a stickler for perfection and because it was based on
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a true story and a lot of these people are still alive, my aunts and uncles, I wanted
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it to be very very accurate.
411
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So from the World War II side I was very lucky to find a book that was published that was
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in the library in Blatow that told month by month what happened during World War II so
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I photocopied and translated that and that was very valuable and a lot of the people
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in Croatia told me stories about what happened during the war and even people in Australia
415
00:28:01,080 --> 00:28:09,480
had memories so and my mother had told us stories as well so I collated a lot of those
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stories into my book and then for when my mother first arrived I did a lot of research
417
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I went to Mosman and interviewed many many people who are now in their 80s and 90s taping
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them and telling their stories of what my mother was like when she arrived and little
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stories that happened because after the 1970s I knew what happened I would be able to tell
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the story so it was very very important to have it historically accurate and I'm very
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grateful to all the people that shared the stories with me and it's quite an interesting
422
00:28:52,400 --> 00:28:57,840
read and it's interesting the book because people say that it's written well but very
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00:28:57,840 --> 00:29:04,000
simply with very small chapters and a lot of people whose English isn't their first
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00:29:04,000 --> 00:29:07,920
language have told me they've been able to read it in Australia and understand and love
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00:29:07,920 --> 00:29:12,680
it and they particularly liked all the stories that have been put together so it's quite
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00:29:12,680 --> 00:29:18,040
a quite a I'm very proud of this book actually and I can say that because of all the response
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00:29:18,040 --> 00:29:23,720
that I've had and the feedback that I had but it's important historically I think it's
428
00:29:23,720 --> 00:29:27,000
a really important historical book for the diaspora.
429
00:29:27,000 --> 00:29:32,800
Well yeah I have to get my hands on this book definitely I'll have to go down to Blato
430
00:29:32,800 --> 00:29:37,040
this summer you know I'm sure I think I'll be able to make it to Korchela this summer
431
00:29:37,040 --> 00:29:38,040
so yeah.
432
00:29:38,040 --> 00:29:41,360
Well the library have got two copies but you can order it through Amazon.
433
00:29:41,360 --> 00:29:43,680
Ah okay and is it international?
434
00:29:43,680 --> 00:29:49,480
Oh yeah yeah yeah you can order it through Amazon I mean in Australia we've got a lot
435
00:29:49,480 --> 00:29:55,880
of all the book shops are selling it and Booktopia and things like that but I think overseas
436
00:29:55,880 --> 00:30:02,360
the only way I mean I sent two books over to the library and I sent my aunt and uncle
437
00:30:02,360 --> 00:30:07,920
a book but they couldn't read it so they had to get their children to read it because it's
438
00:30:07,920 --> 00:30:13,120
in English so but yeah Amazon you can you can get it that's I think that's the only
439
00:30:13,120 --> 00:30:18,160
avenue internationally at this stage and that's where I'm really really wanting it to be in
440
00:30:18,160 --> 00:30:24,120
Croatian because I've even had people in Australia saying could you you know could you have one
441
00:30:24,120 --> 00:30:31,720
in Croatian for the the old Croatian diaspora yeah but and I just signed a contract on Sunday
442
00:30:31,720 --> 00:30:38,480
we're doing an audiobook so that'll be that'll be great that's happening in the next month
443
00:30:38,480 --> 00:30:43,240
and I'll we have an actress that will read the book but I will do the post-cript there's
444
00:30:43,240 --> 00:30:48,000
ten pages in my point of view at the end of the book and so I'm going to Sydney in September
445
00:30:48,000 --> 00:30:53,560
to do that but the next step would be lovely to be a Croatian audiobook to have someone
446
00:30:53,560 --> 00:30:59,120
and there's an interesting thing Stanka I have a friend in Australia who's a music teacher
447
00:30:59,120 --> 00:31:05,800
who was very interested in my book and wrote a song about the book which is beautiful and
448
00:31:05,800 --> 00:31:13,680
it's it's it's just a wonderful piece of song and it's in I think one of the interviews
449
00:31:13,680 --> 00:31:20,160
ABC Nightlife in Deroneu do is a very famous Australian interviewer played part of the
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00:31:20,160 --> 00:31:26,160
song in her interview as well so and we're looking for a Croatian singer to sing it
451
00:31:26,160 --> 00:31:32,320
in Croatian so that's the call out there and it would be lovely it's a beautiful song
452
00:31:32,320 --> 00:31:37,320
and she researched Croatian instruments and there's the mandolin in it and the piano
453
00:31:37,320 --> 00:31:43,040
accordion and it sounds very much like a Croatian folk song she did a good job and we've also
454
00:31:43,040 --> 00:31:48,760
got movie producers reading my my book at the moment so you never know it might end up
455
00:31:48,760 --> 00:31:55,440
a movie well fingers crossed wow so you're super busy right now you're on I am I don't
456
00:31:55,440 --> 00:32:00,880
know what to do with everything going on around it yeah I'm very busy I'm off to Townsville
457
00:32:00,880 --> 00:32:06,920
next week to be on two panels at a writers festival so that's exciting yeah I don't
458
00:32:06,920 --> 00:32:11,560
know how I fit in my four days of work but I do I'm really I'm just really proud that
459
00:32:11,560 --> 00:32:17,080
the book's done so well and that that I'm proud that the Croatian diaspora like it
460
00:32:17,080 --> 00:32:23,960
because that was my main concern it's a very apolitical book I didn't want it to be politics
461
00:32:23,960 --> 00:32:29,160
it was just my mother's story and what happened to her and I've had really good feedback from
462
00:32:29,160 --> 00:32:34,120
the Croatians in Australia that they've they've just loved the way of portrayed it and they've
463
00:32:34,120 --> 00:32:40,040
laughed they've cried they said yes very and a very emotional book lots of sad things but
464
00:32:40,040 --> 00:32:44,600
lots of happy things as well lots of funny little stories that happened to her as a migrant
465
00:32:44,600 --> 00:32:50,520
yeah well that's great that you're able to share her story with others in the diaspora
466
00:32:50,520 --> 00:32:55,760
and you know that people appreciate you know that story and all the work that you put into
467
00:32:55,760 --> 00:33:00,620
it I mean you mentioned going around and taping people on the island and then having a go
468
00:33:00,620 --> 00:33:05,120
back home and you know piece things together from that and write everything down yeah it's
469
00:33:05,120 --> 00:33:09,840
a lot of work it was a lot of work but it was it was a labor of love I really really
470
00:33:09,840 --> 00:33:15,880
did enjoy took me three years to write and I really did enjoy the the journey and a lot
471
00:33:15,880 --> 00:33:19,960
of people are saying when am I writing another book and I said never I said I'd never wanted
472
00:33:19,960 --> 00:33:25,840
to be an author I've got my daytime job I just wanted to get this story down yeah that
473
00:33:25,840 --> 00:33:32,320
makes sense wow and now Debra you mentioned you got your citizenship recently congratulations
474
00:33:32,320 --> 00:33:38,160
first of all and have you made any any trips since then are you planning any trips this
475
00:33:38,160 --> 00:33:45,560
year or in the coming years well we were going to go for my birthday two years ago to Croatia
476
00:33:45,560 --> 00:33:50,560
but COVID stopped that so I've got to get my passport I've got to get to go to Sydney
477
00:33:50,560 --> 00:33:55,800
to get a passport first and that's my I'll do that in September and then yeah maybe
478
00:33:55,800 --> 00:34:00,720
next year or the year after I would I would love to go back I've been about six or seven
479
00:34:00,720 --> 00:34:07,320
times to Croatia but when I go I have cousins in a lot of my cousins are in Blato and and
480
00:34:07,320 --> 00:34:12,640
on the in the town of Kortula as well and Split and Metkovich and Zagreb or where my
481
00:34:12,640 --> 00:34:18,280
family lives so we've I've kept my trips to there because they've been like fairly short
482
00:34:18,280 --> 00:34:23,360
a few weeks to visit family so I would love to go over and spend you know three months
483
00:34:23,360 --> 00:34:29,600
there maybe see more of Croatia I'd love to I'd love to see more of the islands because
484
00:34:29,600 --> 00:34:34,480
I've only ever been to Kortula haven't been to any of the other islands and spend more
485
00:34:34,480 --> 00:34:39,840
time in Zagreb I have a lot of cousins that live in Zagreb and it's a beautiful city so
486
00:34:39,840 --> 00:34:44,000
yeah see more of Croatia maybe next year or the year after I might take long service
487
00:34:44,000 --> 00:34:48,920
leave and go with my husband he's he's got an Irish passport so we can stay quite a
488
00:34:48,920 --> 00:34:54,720
while if I've got my Croatian so yeah so Croatia is just a beautiful country and I
489
00:34:54,720 --> 00:35:00,440
want to get better at the language every month I have a group of friends in that they were
490
00:35:00,440 --> 00:35:08,200
all born in Croatia in Blato and we get together and speak only Croatian we we call ourselves
491
00:35:08,200 --> 00:35:13,200
the Croatian princesses and we have a coffee at a coffee shop and speak Croatian for two
492
00:35:13,200 --> 00:35:20,480
hours and there as we we were laughing before we speak the dialect of the old people and
493
00:35:20,480 --> 00:35:24,760
they're proficient because it was their first language but they're teaching me and I'm
494
00:35:24,760 --> 00:35:29,320
getting better because I really when I go to Croatia my aunt and uncle and one of my
495
00:35:29,320 --> 00:35:34,720
cousins doesn't speak English so I need to be able to speak Croatian to them yeah I
496
00:35:34,720 --> 00:35:39,000
think I mean that's an issue that I think a lot of the the hospital I have and myself
497
00:35:39,000 --> 00:35:43,560
included and that was one of the main reasons why I wanted to you know come to Croatia and
498
00:35:43,560 --> 00:35:48,600
learn Croatian you know to be able to speak with the family that that didn't leave and
499
00:35:48,600 --> 00:35:53,000
you know they don't really speak English and my Croatian was never that good actually
500
00:35:53,000 --> 00:35:59,240
I really was never at all to be honest barely anything so yeah that's that's definitely
501
00:35:59,240 --> 00:36:05,720
a big motivator to learn Croatian and it's your Croatian getting better it is I've been
502
00:36:05,720 --> 00:36:14,400
here in Zagreb for a year now I mean I feel like I can I can say a lot of the things that
503
00:36:14,400 --> 00:36:20,040
I want to say you know simply put of course and not always grammatically correct but the
504
00:36:20,040 --> 00:36:24,680
problem for me is understanding still you know people speak faster than I can comprehend
505
00:36:24,680 --> 00:36:29,560
anything yeah yeah yeah but I definitely improved yeah well that's good you're you're learning
506
00:36:29,560 --> 00:36:35,640
through immersion as well which is exactly yeah yeah well Debra you know thank you so
507
00:36:35,640 --> 00:36:40,360
much for coming on the podcast you know I see now how busy you are with everything so
508
00:36:40,360 --> 00:36:45,000
I appreciate you taking the time oh thank you I'm so so pleased I found your podcast you
509
00:36:45,000 --> 00:36:50,240
know it's your podcast so wonderful and thank you for agreeing to interview me I'm really
510
00:36:50,240 --> 00:36:55,440
grateful yeah of course and definitely keep me updated on you know everything else going
511
00:36:55,440 --> 00:37:00,080
on I want to find out about the song if you can get that published and the audio book
512
00:37:00,080 --> 00:37:05,920
and possibly a movie I mean that's pretty crazy that's just follow my Facebook page follow
513
00:37:05,920 --> 00:37:11,400
the the girl who left my it's a Facebook page and all the news comes up on that so I've got
514
00:37:11,400 --> 00:37:17,040
a lot of Croatians following that so well my cousins I guess and not a lot of Croatians
515
00:37:17,040 --> 00:37:21,880
but my cousins so yeah and that's a good way of finding out all the information that's
516
00:37:21,880 --> 00:37:27,600
happening with my book it's called the girl who left great I'll post links when this goes
517
00:37:27,600 --> 00:37:32,440
up and thank you listening you can go ahead and click on those and follow the girl who
518
00:37:32,440 --> 00:37:39,160
left Debra thank you again I really appreciate it that's it for today's episode of the all
519
00:37:39,160 --> 00:37:44,200
things Croatia podcast thanks for tuning in and I hope you all enjoyed it you can subscribe
520
00:37:44,200 --> 00:37:49,160
to the patreon and check out the all things Croatia Instagram page to stay updated feel
521
00:37:49,160 --> 00:37:53,640
free to reach out to me with any questions tips or ideas and make sure to tune back into
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00:37:53,640 --> 00:38:14,520
the next episode thanks again and be the most said.