The best way to get to know your own country is to leave it.  Or so it has been Annies experience.  She reads and seeks out everything Australian now, in home news, on the internet, in magazines, and is now a font of knowledge about Oz.  She said she was never proud of her country until now.

For me, it stems from her constant questions about Australian writers and poets. Not that I know much but I tell her to go an look it up.  Whos Patrick White? She says, and I tell her about Vos, the Burnt Ones and so on. Whos Max Harris? Thea Astley?  From there the conversation turns to which authors should be read per continent..AfricaBen Okri, South America..Isabel Allende.Canada .Annie ProulxRussia..Gogol.and so on. Its a chance to revisit my favourite writers. 

At night, because of the cold and because we should, we all sit in Annies room with her heater and have dinner together.  And she reads us the latest news from Australia and world over, and often she reads poetry or pieces from Shakespeare, and Hernan says he has never know any girl who knows so much.  Its true.  Thanks to Mum for all her profound classical education of Annie, who is the only one to answer correctly Bobs trick author question.a quote from Pope.