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The Voic(edr iivoenf b yt thhe evo iicMe of aiitsl retaedesrse ) Issue Fortnightly magazine for the Diaspora January 14, 2020 219 Fortnightly magazine for the Diaspora Dr Robert Abela the family man with wife Lydia and daughter Georgia Mae (left) acknowledging the verdict of the Labour Party members that elected him as party leader, and (right) exchanging a kiss with Georgia Mae at the swearing in ceremony. (See report page 12) Malta’s new Prime Minister takes office The swearing in ceremony over, Robert Abela, his wife Lydia and daughter Geor - gia Mae chat with President George Vella. The walk-about from the Palace to his new PM office at Auberge de Castille, meeting the people 2 The Voice of the Maltese Tuesday January 14, 2020 For the love of home ... hat is it that makes Malta so special What really interests me most is the strong sense by ANDY BUSUTTIL to me? This is a question that has of familiarity that comes to me when this image gone through my mind a number of comes to my mind, both visually and in an olfac - times since I first returned there in tory way. I so clearly remember my Nanna’s face 2015 after a 52-year absence? and her hair, lank, meticulously clean yet ironi - WIn many respects it is a perplexing question, in cally uncared for. others it is one that yields a self-evident truth: it She had far too many other ‘important’ things to is home. However, the question about its special worry about than her appearance when bustling nature remains. A second question, a corollary to around the house cleaning, tidying, cooking, the first, also sits with me: why is it more ‘home’ washing and performing all the other tasks which to me than Australia after having lived here for 55 kept her astonishingly busy given how tiny her up - of my 68 years? stairs semi-detached was. The answer, I think, in the experience of Malta I remember her lighting the primus stove: Methy - that is beyond an intellectual grasping of the is - lated spirits, kerosene, a match and pumping until lands. There is a strong feeling that comes to me an angry blue flame roared its way into existence. when I think of Malta that always seems to feature On that stove she cooked miraculous meals of my grandmother. She was only a little woman stewed rabbit and spaghetti. I still can’t quite work with those strange legs that seemed to rise from out how she did it on the one burner but she did. ANDY BUSUTTIL the ground parallel to each other and disappear up Maybe it’s my child’s memory. a long and rather shapeless black dress. However, this woman was an alchemist. She She always wore black. She always had a clean could take relatively or apparently worthless or in - smell about her that was the same smell as the big significant things and turn them into articles of block of ‘key soap’ (sapuna taċ-ċavetta) that she great value. After having raised eleven children was born in Malta but always had in one of the wet areas, especially that and losing two it was inevitable that miracles were left the island for Aus - used for washing clothes. It was a particular smell an everyday event for her. tralia in 1964 as a 12- and I remember it well. In so many ways it was She was absolutely murderous on chickens. If year-old. He left Malta the smell of Malta from my childhood. they were to be food for the family there was no after completing his way that sentimentality would first year at St Augus - get in the way of her kitchen tine’s College which, in knife. Woes betide anyone who, hor - those days, was in rified at the sight of the execu - Tarxien. tion, uttered the words: “ja- Andy went on to ħasra!” (“poor thing”). She gather a number of would shout at them to stay qualifSickaotriobna s in social quiet because the bird would sciences and education. not die if someone said that. Al - He became best known though living without a head for his music and his always struck me, in my child - band which has ish innocence, as both theoreti - presented a number of cally and practically impos- concerts about Malta. sible. This is his story. *continued on page 3 Grandma Carmena ('Me- na') Borg and Nannu Andrea ('Indri') 'il-puli- zija' from Ħamrun and then Marsa Nanna cooked miraculous meals on her primus stove Tuesday January 14, 2020 The Voice of the Maltese 3 Memories that will never leave me, and neither do I ever want them to I remember the honey colour of the walls that ran without break down the full length of the street in Marsa where my grands lived, Triq San- Mikiel . Even the name makes me yearn to walk along it again. I remember my mum sending me to the corner shop to buy stock cubes that carried either a picture of a chicken pecking or squatting. Inevitably I was told to only come home with the stock cubes ‘tat-tiġieġa tnaqqar’ : the chicken pecking. For some reason ‘ tat-tiġieġa kokka’ , the chicken squatting would be out of favour. I remember the interminably long evenings vis - iting with my parents where we sat for what seemed like hours listening to story after story, falling asleep with that ‘death of sleep’ that only children experience. Then having to get up with legs that felt like they were about to fall off with a huge fatigue and being forced to walk home. Only a short walk often but sometimes we had Some of the old multicoloured buses that were so popular on Malta’s roads to go home by bus. Aah, the buses! Multi- coloured they were with each colour telling you *from page 2 where they were going. I remember in particular the yellow buses. They were among those that The other experience that will always live used to go through Marsa. deeply embedded in my memory was my grand - The smell and the feel of these buses that was father, after whom I (and most of my male unlike any other bus that I have ever been on, the I remember cousins!) was named. He had a pipe. He smoked way they rocked and if you had a driver who was a home-grown tobacco leaf that he mixed with a goer, the speed with which they travelled the inter- a leaf from a grape vine. There were times when through ridiculously narrow roads so late at night. he would celebrate the gift from my dad of a tin I remember the evening strolls from Marsa to minably long of ‘MacBaren’s Plumcake’. It smelled just like Ħamrun and on towards Valetta usually stopping plum cake! However, much to my disgust when at Bonaci’s to buy kannoli or a local bakery to evenings vis- one day I managed to find my way into it when buy a dozen pastizzi to share between us. Stop - the tin was unattended, it tasted not at all like ping off to buy a Kinnie while the old man drank iting with my plum cake! Ten year olds should never be left a Cisk. I remember our night-time strolls down alone with anything that smells like plum cake. the waterfront at Msida or Ta-Xbiex. I remember the smell of the smouldering tobacco I remember the boats rocking gently on the parents in his pipe and that scraping sound that he used to black water, their lights casting a magical path - make when he was cleaning some of the ashes out way to the shore, one that you could imagine where we sat of the bowl and the top part of the stem. I remem - walking on to get to the boat at the end. I re - ber his face etched with a thousand memories, member the smell of the water and the fishermen for what slender and kind. I remember his leathery hands hoping to catch a meal of vopi or sparli to take and how deft they were when making me a kite al - home with them. seemed like ways in the colours of the Vatican, yellow and I remember them dipping their fingers into foul white or making a ‘trabokk’ a trap designed to smelling jars to extract the contents to mix with hours listen- snare small birds so he could put them in his aviary. bread dough in the hope that some idiot fish I remember being on the roof of their home would take a liking to it and become a part of ing to story where he had a little workshop. He had a work - the fisherman’s family. bench in there with a selection of tools, always I remember the peculiar sound of our language the right tools, that he used so skilfully, pipe in being spoken everywhere on hot summer eve- after story, mouth, smoke curling up into his eyes, cap on nings when everyone sat out on woven-cane-on- his head and leathery hands. wood-framed chairs. falling asleep I remember the high-pitched calls of the street I remember the funny little fans that looked like vendors in the distant streets. They sold a variety woven cane flags being rotated back and forth with that of products such as ‘bigilla’ a bean mash or to try to bring some relief from the relentless ‘peanuts and nuts’.

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