Impressions

Beverley Oliver has now reached the end of her stay in Malta. She came on a working holiday attending a conference on her first days and spent the last week in Gozo. Before she left the island, she wrote her impressions of Malta:

Well, what about Malta and the Maltese? Here are my impressions for what they are worth. Malta is a small rocky outcrop basking in the Mediterranean sun. Like much of Greece and other similar spots, I take it’s pretty unyielding and tough to cultivate. And that means farming must be jolly hard work, and what I can see, fairly primitive in small terraced lots surrounded by hand made stone walls. Nevertheless, the salads and vegetables are great, simple and fresh—plenty of greens and herbs and tomatoes—in that way very similar to Sicily I guess. Of course, the thing that saves Malta, and tests it as well, is the sea—surrounded by miles of open sea which seems to brimming with fish and seafood. So the diet seems fairly simple Mediterranean—and fantastic….bread, fish, salad and vegetables, olive oil, capers, eggplant, less meat, and the local delicacy from which I have abstained—rabbit. Perhaps some other time...

As for the nature of the people themselves, I have found them extremely friendly and very very helpful and obliging. I guess that’s a Mediterranean way as well—you probably have to be flexible to survive. They seem to bustle about, but then they obviously know how to cope with the heat—to go slow, to find a shady spot, to have the siesta, and especially to enjoy their food and wine and particularly family. So often there are three or more generations in large family groups—everyone comes along. I love the language and would love to learn it—you can hear bits of English and Italian in there, but most of it is incomprehensible, and sounds very Arabic—that’s the thing about Malta that really appeals to me I think—that mix of the Italian, and the Arabic, and of course the history with the Arabs, the Knights, and so on...