My New Life in Malta

The last few days have brought about some instances where I am beginning to feel more and more like a local.

There is a small shop near the flat where I usually go a couple of times a week for little things. A few days ago the shopkeeper called me “hon” as I was paying. How nice, I thought, she has seen me often enough to feel so comfortable with me. I had to go back the next day, and she asked me if I worked nearby as I come into the shop all the time. We chatted a bit about how I live in the neighbourhood, how long her shop has been there, etc. Yesterday I was walking past and she saw me and WAVED! It really was a special moment, as I felt that I am now seen as a local inhabitant. It almost felt like we were in a small village and people are beginning to know me.

We were invited to our friend P’s house for tea on the terrace (to celebrate the fact that it is December and we can still wear short sleeves during the day). Another of the guests was an Italian friend of hers who has been coming to Malta since she was a young girl. After many hours of talking, she brought up that in all these years she had never tried real Maltese food, as most of the restaurants here prefer to serve international dishes. So it occurred to me to invite everyone to our place for a little Maltese dinner. Of course M did the actual cooking, but I did help with some chopping, slicing, etc. As we sat to dinner, I was the one pointing out the name of each dish and what it was for our foreign visitor! We started with bigilla, a spreadable paste made from broad beans, along with ġbejniet which is a local type of goat cheese, spread on galletti, Maltese crackers. For the main course M cooked a delicious imqarrun, or baked pasta, which was to die for. And for desert we had imqaret, which are date-filled pastries. Normally they are deep fried but P had the idea to bake them instead, and they came out yummy! These three were but a small sampling of the many local dishes, so I think we might have to make this into a series! Stay tuned for Maltese dinner number two.

Lastly, this morning I stood in line for a long while at the post office. I was watching the people around me, trying to listen in on their conversations, basically being immersed in a very non-touristy moment of Maltese life. Someone was trying to pick up a package for someone else but had not brought his I.D. card, which led to a bit of a shouting match between him and the postal worker. It was pretty fascinating, at least to me as I was understanding all the yelling! I was up next, and for once I was addressed in Maltese.

And before I forget, yesterday was a public holiday here to celebrate Republic Day. That is the day when Malta, which was already independent, became a republic and therefore the Queen of England stopped being the head of state. So I hope everyone had a happy Republic Day! At least most people got a holiday, the second in five days. December seems to be a relaxed month here in Malta. I was in one of the few open shops in the morning, and the cashier was explaining to an Italian tourist that everything was closed due to the holiday. He then asked where he could take the bus to Valletta, and got confused because he expected it to be on the opposite side of the road. Quietly I thought to myself how recently that would have been me.