December 15th, 2007, 4 Comments »
Walking back from town yesterday, I found our village square to be abuzz with activity. There were no less than eight police officers consulting in front of our church. The only other time I’d seen that kind of police presence was when the President dropped by for a visit.
As I turned into our little lane, I noticed a blood trail. It must have been 100 meters in length–happily it veered right where our alley forks, and not down to where we live. You could see where the victim staggered at one point and leaned against the wall for a bit. I took a photo:
Julie got the gossip from the local shop, and I confirmed today in the paper that there’d been a shooting in Gharb. Apparently there a woman got pushed, and an argument ensued. Somebody went to get a gun, and kerblammo. Nobody died.
Inner city violence in a village of 900. Cool!
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December 5th, 2007, 2 Comments »
From our farmhouse, we can hear the bells of three different churches. The closest church, in our village of Gharb, needs to get some work done on their bells–they sound decidedly flat and clanky.
At first they kept me up at night, but I’ve developed a real affection for them. There’s a little symbolic power to something that the whole community hears.
Early on, we noticed that the ringing of the bells didn’t follow the usual nine-bells-for-nine-o’clock model that I was familiar with. It was actually an interesting puzzle, though I don’t think I ever thought particularly seriously about the odd combination of bells.
Eventually I asked someone, and they explained how the bells work. There are two sets of tones. The first set applies to the minutes, and the second set to the hours. The bells toll at fifteen minute intervals, with the minutes bell tolling one to four times, and the hours bell tolling one to six times. Here are a few examples:
1:15 - bing, bong
15:45 - bing, bing, bing, bong, bong, bong
18:00 - bing, bing, bing, bing, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong (the maximum possible notes)
Because the bells work on a six-hour rotation, it’s up to you to determine if it’s 3:45, 9:45, 15:45 or 21:45.
Do other parts of the world use this system? Malta is the only place I’ve heard it.
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November 17th, 2007, 6 Comments »
The other night we were headed over to a friend’s house for dinner. Julie had made a tasty peach and apple crumble for dessert. She went to the local shop to buy some ice cream to go along with the crumble. She didn’t see any in the freezer, so she asked the proprietor:
“There’s no more ice cream. The ice cream is finished.”
Puzzled. Julie walked down, passed the church, to the other shop. Same question, same reply.
Whiskey tango foxtrot?
As it turns out, they don’t sell ice cream in our village between November and May. And I thought these Maltese were a civilized people.
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November 12th, 2007, 6 Comments »
When Julie and I travel, we like to bring back a piece of artwork or old map or something to remember the place by. They make for unique, functional mementos and fond reminders of our travels. We’ve been wondering what we’d bring home from Gozo–it’s a tiny island and the local crafts (lace-making and glass-blowing) aren’t really to our taste.
This summer, a Coca-Cola rep blew through our village and gave free Coke-branded signs to two or three local business. Among these was Rangers, our local hangout. A week rarely goes by in which we don’t eat at least one meal at Rangers.
I asked Tony, Rangers’ proprietor, what he was doing with his old wood and iron sign. He didn’t have any plans, so we acquired it in exchange for a donation to the local football club (Rangers does not refer, as I originally though, to an owner named Ranger, but to the Gharb Rangers).
And here it is:
It’s about two-and-a-half feet long by two feet high, and (as you can see) has this big iron hanging bracket. We don’t plan to actually hang it in our future home, so the first order of business is cutting the chains that connect the bracket to the sign (they’re behind the sign in the photo). Then, of course, we need to ship it
I thought we might get it turned into a table. Do you have any bright ideas for bar sign re-use?
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November 9th, 2007, 2 Comments »
This morning I had the peculiar experience of watching a Canucks game in Malta. Courtesy of the NASN, I was able to catch last night’s Vancouver/Calgary game (not live, thankfully) while eating breakfast at our local bar.
And the Canucks won. Considering their early season play, that was a nice bonus. They took a 3-0 lead and then, in classic Vancouver fashion, made it interesting by taking the third period off. Happily Luongo played the full sixty minutes. They did look like a team missing three of their regular defencemen.
This will probably be the only hockey game I ever watch serenaded by the clanking metal-on-metal sound of a blacksmith across the street. When I say ‘blacksmith’, I’m serious. Change this guy’s clothing, and he could be living in any of the last ten centuries. He’s got an anvil at the centre of his workshop, an open fire, and every surface of his workspace is covered in black soot.
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October 24th, 2007, 4 Comments »
James and I were walking down the lane outside our farmhouse on Gozo, and I happened to glance at a bag of garbage awaiting pickup. Look a little closer–what’s that inside?
Outside of Toronto, everybody hates the Leafs.
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July 29th, 2007, No Comments »
From our back patio, we can see the Ta’ Pinu Basilica, a big, modern cathedral and popular pilgrimage destination.
Behind Ta’ Pinu, there’s a rarity on Gozo–a big hill without any buildings. That’s because it features the 14 Stations of the Cross along a winding path to the top. It’s a lovely (if sweaty) walk, and the view from the top is one of the best on the island.
Being in a photographic mood. I set myself a challenge to take just three photos of each of the fourteen statues, and pick the best ones for a little photo project.
The result is a mixed bag–some are decent while others are pretty lame. I think this is the best of the bunch:
The other problem is that we only saw 13 stations. I gather that the first station is, in fact, inside the basilica.
You can see a little slideshow of the 13 photos I chose, as well as a set of the rejects and a few random photos I took along the way.
You can see small photos of each of the whole statues. Oddly, this isn’t on Gozo. Some folks created a series of exact replicas of the statues in Australia.
At the top of the hill, there’s a really cool amphitheatre. The top of the hill is also home to zillions of snails each autumn. I’m not sure why they prefer the slightly higher altitude, but you can see their little shells everywhere:
They also end up on the statues, to occasional creepy effect.
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July 28th, 2007, No Comments »
It’s festa or ‘feast’ week here in Gharb. What’s a festa? It’s a little difficult to explain, and I plan to write up my observations next week, once the festivities are over. In the meantime, here’s a decent introduction.
We’ve been to a couple of the processions that occur during the week, and I’ve been taking a bunch of photos. I’m not a particular skilled photographer, and unpracticed at night photos, so they’re kind of a blurry, grainy mess. I do think they kind of capture the spirit of the event, though. Here are three of my favourites:
Things come to a head tomorrow, on Sunday, so I may add some photos to that set.
UPDATE: I did add a few more photos from Saturday night’s festivities. This is the weirdest one:
Let me explain. Many of the installations have kinetic elements–mostly there are spinning rings of fire and so forth. This one was something a little different.
It took me a little while to figure it out, but it’s a depiction of Mary’s visitation to Elizabeth. That’s Mary in green, and she started at the left side of the street. You can see the edge of the frame she’s gliding along if you click through to see a bigger version of the photo.
I shouldn’t say ‘gliding’, because her path was far more jittery than that. After all, she was propelled by gun powder. She made it to the other side (and impressive feat in itself) and pretty much burned out.
I was disappointed that Elizabeth didn’t have a visible John the Baptist embryo in her fiery womb. As per the Bible, it could have leaped with joy when Mary crossed Elizabeth’s threshold.
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July 25th, 2007, 3 Comments »
Our farmhouse has a cistern on the roof. As I understand it, water from the mains–the city waterworks keeps this shiny, metal tank full. You can see some of these tanks if you click on the thumbnail photo. The water’s then gravity-fed into our pipes.
It’s been really hot over the past few days–anywhere from 35 to 40 degrees, depending on who you ask. The sun, as you might imagine, has been blazing down. The farmhouse has crazy-thick walls, so we’ve been okay.
The tank on the roof, however, is just a big heat magnet. The peculiar result is that, first thing in the morning, there’s literally no cold water. It’s always a bit of a shock when brushing my teeth. Once we use some of the water, the tank seems to cool down a bit.
It’s no big deal, certainly, just an odd reversal for a Canadian accustomed to the reverse problem.
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July 10th, 2007, 8 Comments »
Somebody asked, so (in a slighly Fowleresque style), here’s a typical weekday for me on Malta:
8:30 - Wake up. Check email to ascertain that there weren’t any late afternoon crises on the West Coast.
9:00 - Have breakfast.
Rest of the Morning - Any of the following:
- Go for a bike ride.
- Ride to one of several spots on the coast and go swimming or snorkeling. We’ll get up around 7:30 if we’re doing this.
- Go to the ’shops’ in our local village for groceries. There are only two shops, and one has a subset of the other’s merchandise.
- Go into Rabat, the main town on Gozo, for groceries, coffee, shopping or sundry administrative tasks.
12:30 - Mess about the computer, reading feeds and blogging.
13:00 - Have a quick lunch.
13:30 - Work.
17:30 - Have a snack. Most days we’ll sweep and mop the back patio. The neighbours have one of the biggest trees on the island in their back garden, and it overhangs ours. As such, there’s usually plenty of leafs, seed pods and bird droppings on our deck. I don’t bemoan this activity because it still feels novel, and we often use this time to talk and brainstorm about projects.
18:00 - A little more work.
19:00 - Eat dinner.
Evening - More work, usually, though the amount varies. Occasionally we’ll go for an evening bike ride and/or swim, or into town for an event. Tonight, for example, there are apparently horse races on the town’s main street. Horse races! On the street! I’m very curious.
23:30 - Go to sleep.
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