ADELE ROMPANTE

The beginning was not too good. You don’t have family, you don’t have anyone, I was not speaking English. I only knew one word, “yes”.

Even if people said something bad to me, I would say “yes”.

At the time, the immigration department would provide young people to come to your house to teach you English. She was a young mum, I’ll never forget, she had an eight-month old baby, and was teaching English. It was a big help.

My neighbour always read the paper, and he would put it in the rubbish, and I saw it and had a look.

I started to read, trying to exercise myself a bit. I loved the cartoons in the paper, and I learned a lot, more than someone teaching me actually.

By the picture and the words, I used my dictionary to try and understand it.

I would put it all together and they were very funny.

I learned English almost by myself.

I say I don’t have good English but good enough.