"Communicating Poverty"

The conference, "Communicating Poverty", was held in the plush surroundings of the Excelsior Hotel in Floriana, looking out on the maxi yachts moored at Manoel Island. The project, Media Engagement in Development Issues and Promotion (MEDIP), was a collaborative project between Malta, Hungary, Cyprus, Estonia, Slovenia and Romania, all recent members of EU. It was about media coverage of issues of poverty. As one delegate put it, "How do you make poverty sexy?"

I went along on Saturday because I had been to a previous conference last year in St George's bay where I heard for the first time of the EU millennium goals addressing issues of poverty. I was interested in what appeared to be one project's outcome in the lead-up to the target year of 2015. The objective of the MEDIP project is to enhance the contribution of the participating six new EU member states towards the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals. The strategy is to sensitise journalists and the media to these goals. I haven't yet seen today's papers but I found nothing about the conference in Sunday's papers although I had previously found out that it was happening from an advertisement in the print media. I discovered that part of the project included a training workshop for mainstream media held in Malta in March last year. With hindsight, I think I may have noticed a change in the language used by the media to report on issues of poverty. For example, most articles use the term "irregular" rather than "illegal" to report on the people who are currently in Malta without standard documentation.

The conference was organised in two similar sessions each starting with a lecture presentation. This was followed by the screening of one of the 30 minute documentaries made by contributing countries after a trip to Uganda, and the session finished up with a panel discussion. Each of the six participating states has made a video focussing on different millennium goals. Malta's contribution looked at maternal health in Uganda and the other video screened was made by Hungary and examined issues of gender equality. Discussion centred on positive versus negative coverage. Poverty is grey, grinding and long-term rather than dramatic, sudden and emotional. It is difficult to portray the factual information in a way that creates hope and dignity for the people involved as well as maintaining interest by a Western audience already distanced by geography and experience.

One of the ways forward is for the media to help bridge this distance between audience and the people involved. The MEDIP project sought to achieve this geographically by taking the media to the issue in Uganda to make the videos. Another bridge is to enable a Western audience in examining their own experience to reveal how it impacts on global poverty. A good example cited at the conference was the British TV series where young fashion-conscious people were transported to one of the sites in India where their garments were made. They were required to live the life of a worker in that situation and the subsequent excellent documentary was about that experience.

Poverty as a global issue was discussed at the conference but in terms of avoiding the trap of competitive poverty where people seek to claim greater poverty than their neighbour. There wasn't time, although it was hinted at, to discuss how Western behaviour contributes to global poverty.

Another way to bridge the experience gap is to tap in to the stories of people who have come to Malta from other lands seeking to escape poverty. Academic, Teresa Hanley, emphasised this bridging point in her talk but again there wasn't time to discuss further. It was also touched upon in the introductory lecture by Mr Bouratsis, a director of EuropeAid, when he pointed out that EU sends a lot of aid outside of Europe because their policy is not to close off to the rest of the world. The EU is not a fortress protected in times of internal hardship from seeing how that hardship is linked to the wider world.

The photo that heads up this post was taken yesterday when I went on the Malta Council for Culture and the Arts tour of Birkirkara. It is one of the carriages from the train that ran briefly from Mdina to Valletta at the turn of C20 until 1930s. It went bankrupt reportedly because they collected the fares at the end of the trip when the train arrived in Valletta so people used to get off at the stop before and walk in! Ironically, the conference finished with a sumptuous buffet lunch with multiple courses and wine. I felt guilty about enjoying such a free lunch at a conference on poverty so this article is my contribution!

Living in Valletta

My current life takes over from my past. Yesterday I went to a conference called 'The historic city: a reference model for urban sustainable development policies' hosted by the International committee on Historic Towns and Villages. It was held in the Auberge de Provence which is now the archaeology museum in Republic street. The photo shows the PM, the chair of Heritage Malta and the president of CIVVIH (from right to left) dwarfed by the magnificent painting in the hall that we were in.

I stayed for the whole day sitting through rather dull presentations where people put up big chunks of text (sometimes from their own publications) and proceeded to read the words out loud. But I thought a lot about where I have come from and where I am now. Most of the participants were architects and town planners who have now started to talk about the fourth pillar of sustainability - culture (alongside heritage, economic and social). Community cultural development in Australia adopted this idea as a cornerstone of praxis many years ago yet there were no representatives of this area or of community arts at the conference. In fact, there were very few Maltese people in general even though the president of CIVVIH is Maltese.

The significance of the social in sustaining the vibrancy of cities was also discussed. The general trend of people moving out of the historic parts of cities and the subsequent gentrification was raised. In Valletta the population has dropped from something like 25,000 at the time of the knights to a mere 6,500 now. I felt privileged to be one of that small band of people tal belt (from Valletta). I started to think about how I might link my past work in community cultural development with my current life in this historic city. It is curious that my last two posts on this site have been about my growing love for my adopted home.

The other idea that came up often and resonated with me was the proposition that conservation is about the past and sustainability is about thinking of the future whilst living now. This is the continuing theme of my life today as I learn how to live well in old age. I'm off now for coffee with a friend!

Home again and writing

Easter has been solitary and reflective. The mood was set on Maundy Thursday when I went to the lunchtime concert at St Catherine of Italy - beautiful songs accompanied by piano for the stations of the cross. But the readings in between each piece gave the performance meaning for me. The performers had carefully chosen poems and writing about some of the horrors that we have perpetrated on each other during the past century. In the past week, I have picked up from two different sources the proposition that Malta's history has been about service. In the past it has been the service of other people's power struggles. Malta's independent future now lies in the service of peace. It is a seductive idea for an old woman who has chosen this small central turning point of the Mediterranean as my home.

The Good Friday procession was interrupted by an island-wide power cut. The final station had just passed me in my position at the top of the hill in St Paul's street. The rhythmic creaking of the carrying poles was stopped as the penitents in their light brown robes reached the top and put down their heavy load on the resting stays. When the power went off, there was literally an electric pause as everyone tried to work out what had suddenly happened to plunge us all into darkness. I walked down along the side of the procession to head to my flat to make dinner, but when I realised the power was off I decided I couldn't face the many flights of steps with lift and lights out of action. I wandered through the Valletta streets where people had started to light candles and put on car headlamps to help the procession get moving again. At the restaurants I passed anxious workers standing in the doorways trying to get an idea of how long the cut might last. Of course, they could not cook food. I ended up in upper Valletta in the cafe at St James Cavalier. They were the only place in Valletta to have power, probably because they have their back to Castille where the PM's office is. I went in for seafood risotto washed down with half a bottle of Maltese wine and finished off with hot chocolate.

At 9.30, the power was still off but I was sufficiently fortified to face the climb up to my flat using the tiny torch on my key ring to light the way.

The rest of Easter I have spent getting back into my writing, unpacking the last of my boxes from Australia and setting up my office space with all my reference books around me. On Sunday, I also went to the Adoloratto cemetery to see if I could find the two plots where my grandparents were buried. I had been given two plot numbers by a very helpful government employee suggested by a friend (thanks, Reno) but it was quite difficult to work out where they were. The cemetery is beautiful, set on a hillside with lots of established trees and the amazing baroque tombs and chapels in the private sections. I wandered vaguely, using the sun to head in a Westerly direction which was where the government plots were located as indicated by the numbers that I was carrying scribbled on a piece of paper. After a while I realised that some of the terrace walls had letters on them and then at the back of the cemetery I noticed that the grave sites had multiple marble plaques on each and these seemed to be temporary. The plots had numbers on them and I eventually found my grandparents in the same row, but not side by side. As in most rocky lands with limited space, Malta routinely clears government graves every ten years and places the remains in a charnel. I couldn't identify the charnel house but I will return during office hours and try to find out more about what I can do to commemorate the place where my ancestors are buried.

The photo that heads the post is of an ancient apiary carved into the garigue at Xemxija that I visited with Ramblers Malta in January. The smaller holes are for the bees to store their honey. The larger hole is where the beekeeper went in to collect it. It seems that the more I write, the more I have to write. Now I have lined up for my next posts the venture in Cuba last year, my trips to UK and Liguria in Italy last month and the visit by my brother last week. Until my next post...

From my window

The twin breakwaters of Grand Harbour embrace me like the arms of a final lover.

I feel the pulse of Valletta snuggled at my back, breathing softly in my ear.

He speaks to me, this city built by gentlemen for gentlemen,

this city of straight masculine lines and defensive bastions,

this city of baroque excess.

I am the soft, rounded shapes of the goddess temples,

more ancient than the knights' city,

trampled by the knights' religion,

reborn in Valletta chapels as virgin mother and martyred saint.

Yet his soft breathing enchants me and his encircling arms merge with my own arms.

Red and green candles flicker in my hands,

guiding ships to the safe harbour that has become my own haven.

Cheesemaking and other NZ delights

I still haven't got back into blog routine. It's already over a month since my last post. When everyday life is rich and full, it is difficult to sit down and write about it. Yet the discipline of finding time to write each day is valuable for me and so I want to maintain the blog. Right now I am watching four new grey patrol boats recently arrived in Malta from Australia to join the border protection programme. They shot out of Marsamxetto in a straight line, made a large circle and now they're heading back in.

In this post I'll sketch out the start of my trip back to Malta in November last year. The photo that heads the post shows camembert taken out of the brine and standing for 24 hours before going into the cool cabinet. We made them in a cheese-making workshop run by my cousin Vicky. My red-headed cousins live on the east coast of the south island of New Zealand and I called in to see them when I found that my plane trip to Cuba stopped over in Auckland. It was easy to arrange a flight from there to Christchurch and a flight back via Wellington so I could also visit my dark-haired, slightly greying cousin, John. There are cheap internal NZ flights available online that Vicky put me on to. At first I had considered taking the train journey from Auckland down to Wellington, across on the ferry and then along the coast to Christchurch. I had enjoyed that trip once before, but discovered that it no longer ran and would have taken too long anyway.

Vicky and one of her daughters drove up from Oamarau to meet me at Christchurch. The trip takes several hours so it was a long day for them and I was very grateful not to have to worry about finding somewhere to stay in Christchurch and then catching the bus. Vicky offers her house as a B & B called the Red Shed and it's a great place to visit. All her family have thrived in the New Zealand culture where craft and bush skills are valued. There is always an atmosphere of support at Vicky's for the various creative projects and adventurous endeavours that everyone gets into. Whilst I was there we made brie and camembert, tried our hand at decoupage on large objects like tables and chairs and learnt how to make giant twig balls. I also watched Vicky's son as he put his young dog through its training for hunting and tracking. We had a potluck supper where everyone brought a dish not only cooked themselves but also grown or caught themselves. We had delicious white bait fritters made from fish caught in the local river and eggs laid by home chickens, all kinds of home-grown vegetables in salads and pies and baked, and delicious chutneys and cheeses. I was only there for two full days and I felt I had become part of a happy, creative community. I am so glad that I can use electronic media now to keep in touch with all the exciting things that continue to happen in their part of the world.

On my way back to Auckland, I stayed overnight in Wellington, that lovely city on the South coast of the North Island on the channel between the two halves of New Zealand. My cousin John and his wife welcomed me into their busy lives as academics and community figures and at the University I was helped to track down some more information about my mother's side of the family who had gone to New Zealand some generations before my mother was born in Malta.

In my next post, I'll get on to our great trip to sing at the International Choral Festival in Cuba.

Icing on the cake

This is the icing from the cake my aunt-in-law (is there such a relationship?) made for me when I visited my relatives in NSW to say farewell before I left Australia. I keep promising to get onto my journey to Malta via New Zealand and Cuba but when I sit down to start there are more things to say about leaving Australia.

My sailing boat came into my life 15 years ago. It was my birthday present to myself when I turned 50. It is a classic 22ft open cockpit yacht built in 1948 so not much younger than me. I fell in love with its beautiful lines although in many ways it is an impractical boat to sail on Moreton Bay. It has a fixed keel so it is sometimes difficult to get it out at low tide through the shifting channel in the mangrove and mud Tingalpa creek where I kept it moored. And without a cabin, it is adventurous to stay out overnight.

I sailed single-handed, learnt about the tides and worked out how to stay out overnight sleeping under the boom tent. I saw in the millennium anchored in the Broadwater at the Gold Coast to watch the fireworks. On the way back, I called into Horseshoe Bay at Peel Island and was standing in the water close to the beach as a pod of dolphins were herding fish into the shallows for their breakfast.

The sailing became more challenging as I became older and less agile, but it was breaking my wrist that pushed me to bring my boat out of the water and put it on a cradle at the front of my house. It took on a new life as a local landmark and I set up the timber mast as a flagpole for my Eureka flag. I had pangs of guilt from time to time as I watched it deteriorating. My boat pined to be back on the bay.

Last year, when I was living for half the year in Marsaxlokk, someone started making enquiries of my Australian neighbours about what was to happen with my boat. So when I returned to make arrangements for coming to live in Malta, I just had to make a few phone calls and my boat had a new home. Her new owner is manager of East Coast marina and he is now working on restoring the boat and sailing her once again on Moreton Bay. It is a huge job he has taken on because we only just caught her in time before she had deteriorated too much. But he knows what he is doing and has the skills and resources to make it happen so when I visit Australia again later this year she should be back in her element, sailing on the bay. That makes me feel good.

Here in Malta, today is the feast of St Paul shipwrecked. I went walking with Ramblers Malta from Mellieha Parish church down through the fertile valley to the bay and then back along the cliffs. We passed the hotel where Malta Environment and Planning Agency have just approved extensions that will spread out over the surrounding fields in a protected zone. The decision has pushed the Ramblers into more active protest and they are planning to challenge in the courts. The invidious creep of over-development in the North of the island is reaching a critical point from which there will be no return. I will be taking part in the protest rally to be held in Valletta on 6th March.

Unpacking my life

These are the 37 boxes that I packed up in Australia six months ago and I am now unpacking in my flat in Valletta. I tried to be ruthless with my life stories but still I have too much to fit into my flat. The books will have to stay in boxes for a while. I unpack slowly, finding a place for each memory as it comes out of the box. I group things differently from before.

Today has been sunny and warmer than the past week. Walking down Merchants street to get the paper, two people greeted me with "bonju" and a wave. I stopped to chat to my neighbour who was pushing her grandson in a stroller and she introduced me to three other women from my block of flats. The woman in the tiny newsagent cellar told me I am now a Beltija, which means a woman from Valletta.