The Qui-Si-Sana I once knew
Qui-Si-Sana - Quissy as are children called it - was a child's paradise... perfect for us who grew up in MacIver, Rob Roy, Midday Sun Flats and in other flats or private houses. Some were really stately and beautiful buildings. We longed for our summer...
Qui-Si-Sana - Quissy as are children called it - was a child's paradise... perfect for us who grew up in MacIver, Rob Roy, Midday Sun Flats and in other flats or private houses. Some were really stately and beautiful buildings.
We longed for our summer holidays: Nightmarish exams over, we would run home, put on our swim suits and rush to the beach. Such was the routine all through our summer holidays... those rocky beaches we loved so much.
Melanomas and dangerous exposure to the sun were science fiction! We would spend hours on the beach and get home only to go out again and play!
An Italian Luna Park would visit every summer and for us it was Disney world. Quissy was indeed a haven for all of us who grew up there and our parents knew we were happy and safe. They were carefree years, the 1950s and 1960s.
Every time I come to Malta I make it a point to visit Qui-Si-sana; Qui-Si-sana is my heart and dreams! But alas, the Quissy I yearn for is no longer there...
Yes, MacIver, Midday Sun Flats and a very, very few other buildings are still there struggling to keep up with the surrounding development and what a squalid development it has become.
New grey lifeless-from-the-outside buildings replace the old ones... and I guess this is a normal development as years go by. The buildings are grey indeed with no architectural imagination and no space left for some green, some plants. In Qui-Si-sana, flora does not grow easily but surely there must be plants that can survive the stormy weather and hot summer!
The last time I was in Qui-Si-Sana I just "fled"... or better tried to... as lorries drove back and forth from the huge building site that is replacing what was once the officers' mess in Tigne', the tennis courts, the ditch and the Admiral's House leaving behind dust and more dust as they pass by.
Qui-Si-Sana appears like a grey maze where every inch is exploited to satisfy the building industry and the owners of property. Till when will the destruction and rebuilding go on? Have architects not heard of green spaces and colours?