Lanca gejja w ohra sejra

Just in case some of you do not know about John Butler Trio, please do yourselves a favour and ‘google’ or ‘youtube’ him!

The super talented OZ artist is the biggest thing in the land down under and Europe and has recently toured the states, and I’m pretty sure they’ve already succumb to his charisma and talent!

What should make John Butler double appealing to you, is the fact that he fell for the charms of a Maltese woman from Paola, married her and now also has her two multi talented brothers touring with him. Now he is part of a large extended family of the Caruanas. So there’s a bit of Maltese in there. Who cares about the Britney Maltese descendancy, this connection is far more to be proud of.

I met Nikki Caruana a.k.a “Nikki Bomba” (John’s Brother- in-law) in Australia last March. I was loitering round the coffee table in catering section backstage at the ‘Blue’s Roots Festival’ in Byron Bay and must have said something random in our mother tongue. Nikki instantly looked at me, his face lit up and said “Aw hi mela inti Maltija?” We spent the next hour having lunch together chatting, his brother Michael also joined us, reminiscing about Malta and told us they would be visiting in September and that they would get in touch.

So last week we attended their family reunion, which we were invited to….the tight knit family entertained the other members all night playing traditional Maltese songs, while calling out to them to get on stage and do a little dance.

It’s always heart warming to see how strongly Maltese living away from our tiny island hold on to their roots. How proud they are of their heritage and traditions and also how they rub off on others.

John Butler sat at the side of the stage banging on a tambourine and smiling as his wife, her sisters and brothers and his father-in-law sang and danced.

This has been and still is one of my mottos, “Never ever forget where you’re coming from!” There are experiences we live through, places we’ve lived in, people we’ve met who leave an imprint on us, shape our destiny and make us who we are today.

Sometimes we’re going at full speed, as fast as we can to get there first and climbing hills to get to the top. When we finally do get there, we don’t even savour the view for as long as we should and we start all over, seeking other feats. Then looking back at the path we’ve just walked, with all it’s obstacles, toils and troubles it all seems so far away and yet the memory of how difficult it was to get to the top just shakes us making us realise that we have achieved is incredible. Any challenge we present ourselves with as big or small as it is, presents itself with an opportunity to make us better people, to move others with our soul and to reach out to the world and make a difference.