Despite speaking only a few words of English between them – and no shared mother tongue either – elderly Sydenham aged-care residents Kan Jun and Colomba have woven common threads through knitting.
When Kan Jun from East Timor, started attending a knitting group at Arcare Delbridge, she didn’t know how to knit.
So she just sat and watched Colomba and the four other ladies of the centre’s ‘lifestyle team’.
Noticing Kan Jun’s attentiveness to their needlecraft, they decided to give Kan Jun a pair of needles and some wool.
Colomba, originally from Italy, took Kan Jun under her wing.
She taught her how to knit and their ensuing friendship and collaboration is proof of the common threads that bind all people – you don’t need to speak the same language to communicate.
Together, they’ve produced a beautiful bed cover and are working on another.
Kan Jun is quite the independent knitter nowadays, but Colomba is always by her side, picking up dropped stitches and helping out.
