We are all products of this sexist society of ours and notwithstanding all the lip service that we pay to the emancipation of the sexes many of us still believe that women are just food-producing and baby-making machines. Strangely enough many of us then look down at women who choose to make a career inside their homes, dedicating their lives to bringing up their fledglings and to being an indispensable support to their husband. Meanwhile the public in general very subtly criticises those women who work outside the home, thinking they have ‘abandoned’ their God-given role. We also suspect that any woman in business takes on stereotype male characteristics.
Meet Josette Montebello and ditch all your preconceived ideas. When I first call her she gives the impression of being an efficient businesswoman running Puer, the successful fashion outlet in St Julian’s. While we are fixing an appointment I can hear her leafing through her diary, something that an ordinary housewife would never do.
On meeting Josette I am slightly perplexed as I was expecting a businesswoman in a severe grey suit, but the person who rushes to greet me is wearing a very feminine top and a warm smile. “I hope I haven’t kept you waiting”, she apologises as she opens the door to her home wide.
The heady smell of freesias welcomes me. “I am quite demanding where work is involved but at home I loosen up. My experience in life, especially since my children have grown up, has taught me to be lenient with others and myself. One learns to accept that things are not always exactly as one wants them to be and it is an attitude that brings inner peace. Mind you, I am still a perfectionist, but a perfectionist need not be obsessed.”
Her home is a perfect example of what she says – it is clean, uncluttered and elegant but at the same time the kitchen table is bearing a cake in the making. Josette tells me that her favourite room is the kitchen and her cooking is often of the laborious type. “I make my own ravioli and cheesecakes and try to cook a good balanced meal each day for my family.
“But I get up at dawn each day to get things done in the house and go to the shop later in the day. In the afternoon I find that a siesta is almost a necessity and in the evening I rarely stay up late.” Her husband Walter is handy around the kitchen too as are their three daughters, Lara 21, Janine 19 and Anthea 11. The youngest is especially fond of the kitchen and is very good at cake making, a skill which she demonstrates to me while decorating a delectable strawberry and cream sponge.
Life for this family has not always been like this. “Immediately after we married in 1980, I joined my husband in Libya where he was working. We lived in a bungalow 30 kms outside Tripoli and when I look back I see it all as a positive experience. Although at times it was extremely tough, we had a good social life because we made many international and local friends. There were long stretches when I would be alone while Walter was in the desert on duty, and at those times I would miss my family in Malta, but I never really felt lonely because I enjoy my own company, too.”
Her husband talks about Libya: “The desert is a beautiful place but it can rapidly turn ugly if the car stops. There is an absolute loneliness which is hard for anyone living there to imagine. It’s just the sky and the sand. But the sand can yield rich treasures”, he says, while showing me a beautiful stone called a desert rose and two pieces of millions-of-years-old petrified wood.
Walter goes on to narrate that a ‘gibli’ or sandstorm can cover all tracks making it impossible to find one’s way if one doesn’t have the help of an experienced guide.
Josette brings back our chat to homes and she tells me that when they came back to Malta they lived in a maisonette in Swieqi. “But I wanted my children to grow up in a bigger home so we bought the land, moved out of the maisonette into a temporary flat for one and a half years and meanwhile got this house built.” She spent those few months scouring shops and fields, bargaining with farmers for some old Maltese water trough or farm implement.
“I suspect that they thought I was mad and so did my husband, but that was before the current craze for rustic Maltese objects,” she explains. There is a medley of such objects around their home and they all blend beautifully into its understated chic. However there is nothing out of place and the keyword seems to be ‘calm’. “I want to come back to a home that is relaxing after working with colour all day long,” Josette emphasises. In fact there seems to be no predominant colour – except pale creams and the occasional blue, the only concession being the colour of the flowers.
I ask Josette how she manages to be such a calm and contented person, finding the balance between being a businesswoman and a wife and mother. She replies: “The important thing in life is to accept what you have and be happy with it.”