On our way to Peter's Pool, Delimara, this week we came across three rather disgruntled Portuguese teachers. True, the Portuguese are not known for their great sense of fun and alegria, but these girls were hot, flustered and utterly lost. While I love the idea of having an elusive beach, elusive would not, strictly speaking, apply to Peter's Pool, for this rocky cove has also been discovered by the student holidaymakers, Swedish ones and lots of them too! So it was all the more pointless that the earnest Portuguese girls were lost, and a little angry. No one had been able to give them proper directions, and worst still there were no signs to follow.
I cracked a joke, silence continued to fill the car... then teacher no.1 turned to me and said: "You're the first polite person I've met in Malta." Hark! What do you mean? Are we not the friendly smiling heart of the Mediterranean?
I immediately spun my car around with a skilful hand break turn and sped towards the beach, baffled and saddened by this news. It made me wonder - what are the authorities doing to ensure that the people who visit Malta over the age of 16 (like who cares about penniless drunk students right?) and under the age of 80 (let's face it, at that age they can't have much money left to spend can they?!) have a good time on the island? Who is concerned about whether the visitors to our islands depart with pleasant memories, and perhaps even consider returning here again one day to enjoy the fish, sun, clear waters and classy night spots? - Pah! What am I talking about, let's frisk 'em and leave 'em for dead - there'll be plenty more suckers next year right? Well! We're richer than we've ever been before, so we're surely doing something right? (Native starts to scratch various body parts, overwhelmed by too many rhetorical questions that the poor love cannot answer due to an inability to formulate one's own ideas and opinions).
Oh how the mighty Momus laughs, doubled over in hysteria, watching as I try to apologise to the girls for a gruffness that one might also like to interpret as charming - halt, enough, they're not buying it. We change the subject and talk about Portugal but soon they ask a question: Why is everywhere closed when the guide-books say they are open? I tell them I am not the oracle, and perhaps for a moment we share a small laugh (yes Momus, right back at you). I do not know why Malta is the way it is, good and bad all rolled into one!
In just a few days I will depart, back to the land of rain and grass and many, silent spaces. I shall miss Malta so very much: the cranes in tas-Sliema, the fishy fish farm smell when I swim in Peter's Pool, the SUVs blocking up the roads (where on earth do they think they're going? Chadwick lakes?), the really frustrated boy racers whose windscreens claim: 'I don't care what people say', the fabulous local TV shows, the massive billboard in Marsa advertising bubblegum-pink ham with less than two per cent fat (can you believe it - wow!), the blaspheming stock at Lapsi, the garbage-chuckers at Ġnejna beach, the black smoke from the funnel of the cruise liners parked outside my window in Floriana, the techno music on the radio, the never-ending politico-mumbo jumbo in the press, the racism of the so-called Christians, the public goodwill of the so-called politicians, yes Momus how you doth laugh!
I am deeply concerned about the future of my country. It would appear that we are an angry bunch of natives, spear at the ready, frowning as more and more unsavoury types arrive on our shores: drunken teenagers, geriatrics, one-day cruise liner specials who may pick up a souvenir Malta biro and migrants seeking economic and political asylum. Oh how the natives jump up and down with their spears! We did not prepare our welcome dance for you miserable lot, they cry: "Where are the rich, cultured French ladies in their 40s who want to spend all their money on Malta lace? Momus lies back and takes a nap under one of the very few carob trees left, he simply cannot laugh anymore. I prod him with my tired foot, but he simply rolls over, and I fall into a slump, disheartened and forlorn - the sentiments of love rejected or ignored.
I cracked a joke, silence continued to fill the car... then teacher no.1 turned to me and said: "You're the first polite person I've met in Malta." Hark! What do you mean? Are we not the friendly smiling heart of the Mediterranean?
I immediately spun my car around with a skilful hand break turn and sped towards the beach, baffled and saddened by this news. It made me wonder - what are the authorities doing to ensure that the people who visit Malta over the age of 16 (like who cares about penniless drunk students right?) and under the age of 80 (let's face it, at that age they can't have much money left to spend can they?!) have a good time on the island? Who is concerned about whether the visitors to our islands depart with pleasant memories, and perhaps even consider returning here again one day to enjoy the fish, sun, clear waters and classy night spots? - Pah! What am I talking about, let's frisk 'em and leave 'em for dead - there'll be plenty more suckers next year right? Well! We're richer than we've ever been before, so we're surely doing something right? (Native starts to scratch various body parts, overwhelmed by too many rhetorical questions that the poor love cannot answer due to an inability to formulate one's own ideas and opinions).
Oh how the mighty Momus laughs, doubled over in hysteria, watching as I try to apologise to the girls for a gruffness that one might also like to interpret as charming - halt, enough, they're not buying it. We change the subject and talk about Portugal but soon they ask a question: Why is everywhere closed when the guide-books say they are open? I tell them I am not the oracle, and perhaps for a moment we share a small laugh (yes Momus, right back at you). I do not know why Malta is the way it is, good and bad all rolled into one!
In just a few days I will depart, back to the land of rain and grass and many, silent spaces. I shall miss Malta so very much: the cranes in tas-Sliema, the fishy fish farm smell when I swim in Peter's Pool, the SUVs blocking up the roads (where on earth do they think they're going? Chadwick lakes?), the really frustrated boy racers whose windscreens claim: 'I don't care what people say', the fabulous local TV shows, the massive billboard in Marsa advertising bubblegum-pink ham with less than two per cent fat (can you believe it - wow!), the blaspheming stock at Lapsi, the garbage-chuckers at Ġnejna beach, the black smoke from the funnel of the cruise liners parked outside my window in Floriana, the techno music on the radio, the never-ending politico-mumbo jumbo in the press, the racism of the so-called Christians, the public goodwill of the so-called politicians, yes Momus how you doth laugh!
I am deeply concerned about the future of my country. It would appear that we are an angry bunch of natives, spear at the ready, frowning as more and more unsavoury types arrive on our shores: drunken teenagers, geriatrics, one-day cruise liner specials who may pick up a souvenir Malta biro and migrants seeking economic and political asylum. Oh how the natives jump up and down with their spears! We did not prepare our welcome dance for you miserable lot, they cry: "Where are the rich, cultured French ladies in their 40s who want to spend all their money on Malta lace? Momus lies back and takes a nap under one of the very few carob trees left, he simply cannot laugh anymore. I prod him with my tired foot, but he simply rolls over, and I fall into a slump, disheartened and forlorn - the sentiments of love rejected or ignored.