One of the things I love about Malta is that it is small. I don't need a car here because I can walk everywhere around the village. Shopping is done every day so it's fresh and I can carry it easily by hand. If I want to go further afield as I usually do several times a week, I can catch a bus to anywhere on the island. If I take a book with me, or the Times of Malta that is saved for me most days by the local newsagent, then the unpredictable wait between buses is an opportunity. So far, if I am pressured for time or I have to go home after the last bus leaves, I have been able to find someone with a car who is going in my direction. It is a good system with the added satisfaction of reducing my footprint on the planet!
Another good thing about smallness is that it is easier to see the complexity of the links between everything that makes up the whole. I seem to have moved into a space where I am avidly gathering all the information I can find about Malta. The word 'Melitensia' has started to come up. It means things to do with Malta. The local librarian used it the other evening to describe my area of interest. When I went slightly wild at the book fair in Valletta a couple of weeks ago and bought too many books on Maltese history and culture, one of the book stall owners used the word to encourage me to go to browse his shop collection. So now I can put that label on my current interests.
I use that as an example of a broader picture that is emerging for me. I think it is to do with the cliche about thinking global but acting local. As I gather the small, fascinating facts about Malta from many different sources in the course of my everyday life, I also seem to be gaining more of a gut understanding about global issues. Another example is the final session last night of the course I have been doing in Mosta, 'Wildlife and Habitats of the Maltese Islands'. The session was about legislation and was somewhat inclined towards long lists of conventions, agreements and decisions that have relevance for EU and for Malta. Some things I had heard of before but in an academic sort of way - Bonn, Berne, Rio, Ramsar. I had also heard words like ratification bandied around but hadn't really understood the significance. Last night when the lecturer mentioned in passing that Malta had been taken to the EU court because it had failed to make enough progress in dealing with the issue of the hunting of migratory birds, I could link that in my mind with the gunshot that has woken me most mornings for the first few months here, the little hunting bird tables around most of the fields when I am walking, the local librarian talking about how her husband gets very depressed if he can't hunt, the pressures on the landscape of a small, crowded island.
Today I am going for another Ramblers walk, this time around Zebbiegh and Mgarr visiting the ancient temples of Skorba. I started this post thinking I would talk about the cultural tour I went on last Sunday around Siggiewi but I got side-tracked by smallness. So Siggiewi will head up my next post and for this one, I'll find a photo and post so that I allow enough time for the bus to Mgarr.
PS The photo was taken when I was exploring around Senglea, one of the ancient cities around Grand Harbour
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