Coincidences and Observations
M and I were driving a couple of days ago, and just when we were on the Msida roundabout, I recognised the car in front of us. M’s mother’s car had just broken down and we happened to appear right after her! Quite a bad place for this to happen, as it was also rush hour. We tried starting it and nothing worked, but it was impossible to push it on an uphill, on a roundabout, with cars everywhere. Luckily some friendly policemen drove up and stopped traffic while they helped us push the car out of the way. As we waited to get the car towed, M’s brother-in-law appeared on the roundabout and spotted us. Now, Malta may be small, but it is not THAT small! The fact that we all happened to be in the same place at the same time when M’s mother needed help is pretty eerie. Coincidence, or higher forces at work?
In other news, we finally have a street name! We live on a small side street with only a few buildings. Apparently it was only officially named a couple of years ago. Until then it was known on official documents as “New Unnamed Street Off of XX Road” (with XX being the name of the main road). I have yet to find a map where it shows up with the new name, and this causes a lot of confusion to find our flat when we need something delivered. It further confuses our friends because of the lack of a street sign. Several times we have had to walk out to the main road so that we can signal them in. M and I kept saying we should write to the local council and insist that they label the street to make our lives easier. A few weeks ago I was mortified to discover that they had put up the street sign… down the road on the wrong street! Now, how would anyone ever find us? But then, about a week ago, everything was magically put in place. The sign was taken down from the wrong street and put up nicely on ours. It is even on both sides of the road, so that it can be seen no matter from which side you are approaching. This is pretty unique, as in Malta I usually have to hunt all over the place to find a street name, if there is one at all. Our street sign is a very nice ceramic tile and it even explains who the obscure historical figure that they named the street after actually was. I only wish he had a shorter name.
And in further observations of Maltese culture, I can report that politics here is the same immature name-calling that it is everywhere else on the planet. I was listening to the radio the other day, and there was this long tirade against one of the main parties. Their awful crime was that their party newspaper has incorrectly converted the euro equivalent of the newspaper’s price! What a horrible thing to do! They are lying and cheating the Maltese people over a price that they are not yet paying! I waited to see if the accusing party would highlight some of its own achievements, but no, it was all about how horrible the other party is. I had flashbacks to my days as an elementary school teacher and breaking up the fights of five-year-olds in the playground.
Really I wanted to smack both parties on the head. The world is currently going through wars, famine, drought, genocide, poverty and disease, to name a few. I choose the country where the big deal is a miscalculated newpaper price, any day!
