Tongue firmly in cheek, Anna Marie Galea reminisces about being native to the sister island and the awe with which Maltese friends looked upon her.
Ask any Gozitan (yes, that’s a thing; more about that later) what they hate most in the world and they’ll probably reply something along the lines of: “I really hate it when Maltese people ask me to speak in dialect like I’m some kind of performing monkey.”
That said, another close contender for the dubious position of first place in pet-hatedom is most certainly the Gozo ferry – or rather the awful, almost surreal moment of your bus arriving late and you watch the ship’s door closing as you run impotently towards it like you’re some unwanted child.
The stages which follow the realisation that you’ve been stranded ashore can only be quantified by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross’s five stages of grief; every sister-islander worth their salt will experience denial, unbridled fury, bargaining with the poor Gozo Channel worker, who they will later realise is their mother’s cousin twice removed, and ensuing depression. All in lightning fast succession. You will only truly accept your fate once a fresh ship docks in.
Having been raised in a staunchly Gozitan household, overseas no less (both my parents are from the sister island), I never realised that being Gozitan was a thing till we came back to Malta years later and I found myself being described as...drum roll please… ‘the Gozitan’.
Indeed, as unlikely as it sounds to outsiders, being Gozitan is not just some ridiculous notion that we came up with while feeding our multitudinous herds of sheep and goats. I give you popular misconception number one, ladies and gents; being Gozitan is a way of defining oneself, possibly based on centuries of being misrepresented and treated like the underdog.
An episode which amused me to no end involved my Maltese friends going to Gozo a few years ago to conduct a survey. They returned to Malta particularly surprised that, when they asked people to describe their nationality and the language they spoke, they would answer with: “We’re not Maltese, we’re Gozitan.” Despite my friends’ initial shock, to me it seemed like the most natural response: I had been defining myself that way since I was a child.
My friends made me speak in the local dialect so that we would supposedly get discounts on drinks
Possibly because of my parents’ great love for their home island, which saw us going straight from the plane onto the ferry during my summer holidays, as a child I was almost certain that Gozo was not only part of the Maltese islands, but that it was Malta itself. When we relocated from England to Malta in my early teens because of my father’s job, I was sorely disappointed that it wasn’t imbued with the same kind of magic which I had always attributed to the sister island. Although every person looks back with nostalgia at more uncomplicated times, my childhood memories of Gozo truly are permeated with an almost otherworldly charm.
There were expeditions with my father to separate limpets from their rock wall homes in a shallow place which was tucked behind Dwejra Bay (which only locals know about, of course). And there were outings to Calypso’s cave – I recently tried to pass through one of the cavern’s holes and realised that they might have to airlift my bones in a few months’ time if I continued to try forcing my way through.
And, if my childhood years were much to call home about, my teenage years were even more memorable with my first ‘serious’ boyfriend being a guy I had met at one of the only winter haunts of the time, the Flamingo disco. Equally memorable was my mother phoning me and practically dragging me out of the disco at 11pm when she spotted me having what she viewed to be an indecent kiss – it wasn’t.
Village feasts were usually one of the only entertainment options in Gozo during the summer months and it pleased me no end to visit one particular feast last summer and realise that they were still playing the same music they did 10 years ago.
Later on still, when the novelty of going to carnival in Nadur caught on, (I had been going since I was very young and, back then, people still used to proffer raw, bloody meat to passers-by), I experienced things as a Maltese tourist would. This was despite my friends making me speak in the local dialect so that we would supposedly get discounts on drinks.
I would marvel at how they gawked in alcohol-fuelled awe at the grotesqueness of the home-grown costumes – the Maltese version of carnival is far more vanilla and ‘safe’.
In spite of some of the mixed reviews I often receive about Gozitans in general, I have always felt very proud of my heritage and, with the new rising talent in the art, culture and fashion fields, I am prouder than ever of all that the tiny island which I have always considered to be my own still offers. Just don’t ask me to speak in Gozitan.