My New Life in Malta

The heat has arrived with a vengeance. It was over 40ºC (104ºF) yesterday, and today seems likely to be the same. Going outside in the middle of the day is becoming painful. Basically, I try to get all my errands done in the early morning, and if I miss that window of opportunity then it is best to wait until evening unless it is an emergency! The air conditioning is running full blast, slowly killing the planet and raising our electricity bill.

Speaking of electricity bills, I have now learned about the "interesting" system used here in Malta. For the last several months we have been receiving electricity/water bills (combined) and paying them on time. But it turns out that they were not actual bills. They were *estimates* on what the utility company *thinks* we have consumed. Then at some point they take the trouble to actually read the meters. Imagine that, reading the meters whose only purpose is to let the utility company know how much we have consumed!! So now, after all these months, we received an actual bill, except that it has a few problems.

First, all of the payments we have made are not take into account! Only a small one has been credited. Second, a government surcharge is added each month. But, instead of billing it each month, they have put all of them since September in one bill, which adds up to a hefty sum. Third, the whole bill is such a mess that neither M nor I can make much sense of it, no matter how many times we go through it. The dates it covers are not clear, and some random credits and debits show up which simply are unintelligible.

So, now M will have to go in person to the utility company, with all of our receipts, and find out what is going on. Mostly, I simply do not understand this complicated system one bit. Why don't they just take a reading every month or two, and send a bill based on actual usage?? The phone company does not expect payments based on estimated phone calls, the supermarket does not charge you based on estimated items bought, restaurants do not give you a bill based on estimated food eaten. So this whole estimate system makes no sense whatsoever. The amount of time, money and human energy wasted on this system is baffling.

To top things off, we have been having electricity blackouts over the last couple of weeks. More and more demand for air conditioning is to blame, I suppose. Apparently the traditional Maltese houses had tile floors and high ceilings, and were designed to stay cool. People lived like that for centuries. Now, more and more high-rises are going up which are basically heat-keeping boxes that must be air conditioned for months at a time. Builders hail the new construction and say they "no longer need" to build houses the old way because now we have air conditioning. It seems like complete backwards logic to me. Poor planet.

After a few months on this island, it was time to go to the Maltese dentist. Now, I have no fear whatsoever of dentists, the way that many people seem to have. I actually love my last dentist and I went to him for many years. For me going to the dentist just means getting a cleaning, making sure everything is going well in my mouth, and if a cavity or something else needs to be done then I take care of it. (For someone like me with quite a lot of irrational fears and phobias, it is perhaps amusing that I have no problem with dentists).

My friend P highly recommended a dentist in Sliema. It was time for M to get a check-up as well, so we both went. The dentist runs the whole operation by himself, with no receptionist or assistant. He was very nice and we had a nice chat about many things as he looked at my old x-rays and I told him about my dental history. But here is the part that left me very confused: when he actually got down to business, the whole cleaning procedure took about three minutes. That was all. I did not know what to say. All my life, this procedure has taken between 30 and 45 minutes and involved scraping out plaque and everything else they do. I was so startled that I just mumbled something about "wasn't there any plaque?" but he just said that I take very good care of my teeth and to keep it up. I was on my way out the door and the whole thing had taken just minutes of my time.

Now, this doctor was highly recommended, but it still leaves two possibilities.

1) He is actually a bad dentist and did a very minimal and superficial cleaning.

2) My old dentist has been lying to me for years and telling me I needed all sorts of treatments that I did not actually need.

I am still trying to figure this out. Perhaps I should try another dentist in Malta and see if it goes any differently.