Paul Capsis

There were no cars for her.

There were donkeys, I think, and buggies and things like that.

And she had lots of siblings.

Lots of them died as little children.

She said that just to earn a little bit of money, her mother and father would get the donkey

And they'd go out all day long.

She said we wouldn't see her parents all day.

And she said we had nothing.

She said I used to tie a little, I used to get a potato sack and tie it around me with some string and no shoes.

We had no shoes.

And we'd spent the whole day by ourselves walking around the streets of Nashar, this village, which I've been to numerous times.

And then she said at the end of the day, the parents would come back and they'd hardly have anything to eat.

She just remembers starving, being hungry.

But they were very religious.

Catholicism.

Very strong Catholics.

And that was with my grandmother her whole life, her religion.

She was eight.

So her mother died giving birth, childbirth, yeah, she died, her last child.

And my grandmother always told me this story about in Malta, because this village was so far away from where the hospital was where her mother had died.