Eliana Castaings
| First name | Eliana |
|---|---|
| Last name | Castaings |
| Country of Origin | Chile |
| Date of Birth | 4/25/1966 |
| Year of Arrival in Australia | 1986 |
| Submitted by | Eliana Castaings |
Story
My name is Eliana Castaings. I come from Chile. I was born in 1966. After I finished my high school I got married because I had a baby with my husband (Tirso Castaings). Because our country had a lot of problems with the government and the economy was not good at that time, I wrote to my uncle to Australia to ask if he would help us to come to Australia and he gave us a hand and we thought that we got the best opportunity in our life, because our life changed from the sky to the earth. That good opportunity was in July 1966.
When we left our country I was very sad because we left behind our family and friends but we were happy too, because we had come to a new and better life. The journey was very long, more than 18 hours. It was very nice. We got to know many things during the trip, met many people and saw many places. We came with fear, because we were very young and our little son Jimmy was only 3 years old.
When we came on the aeroplane and came over Sydney, the pilot announced to all the passengers that we were flying over City of the Sydney and everyone looked from window and the first impressions that we had were we could see the Opera House and the Bridge from the aeroplane. When we saw my uncle we were very happy, but we felt frightened because we doesn’t know what was coming in the next hours, days, months. For the first day we felt like walking on the clouds, but anyway everything that we have done since that time was wonderful.