Somusing

Malta’s long history is very interesting, including what is widely thought to be the shipwreck by the apostle Paul in AD 60 described in the New Testament Acts of the Apostles chapter 28 , the last chapter in Acts. Later there was a period where the inhabitants were killed and it was mostly unpopulated, then was resettled around AD 1049 by a Muslim community and their slaves, who rebuilt a ruined city and called it Mdina after the Arabian Madīnah / Medina. Eventually Christians reconquered the island, yet the Arabic dialect spoken by the population remained, with new Christian faith. Here is one example, a guest house called Dar is-Sliem, “house of peace” in Maltese, similar to Dar es Salaam in Arabic, the largest city in Tanzania: Nowadays Malta is a strongly Catholic country. This is evident in many ways. Visually it is obvious in the large in the many, many churches on the islands. In the small, see the very common house devotional niċċa (niches) and shrines that are al...

In Malta on Palm Sunday I went to a Holy Week pageant called “Ħtija Tiegħu?” which means something like “His guilt?” It was held in Marsa, a few kilometers south of Sliema where we were staying. The pageant has been held since 1970 and is normally done outside on the street, but rain was forecast for the day and by evening it was coming down pretty steadily, so they moved the pageant indoors to the church and started two hours late so they had time to adapt to a fully indoor setting. It's a newish Catholic church, bright and colorful, and a bit in the suburbs and there were lots of families there. While we were waiting during the delay, a man who spoke English, named Albert, introduced himself to me. He has been involved in the pageant for 30 years and is currently the treasurer and one of the participants, no longer Judas as he was for many years and got tired of portraying. 😂 In a building across the street they had a display of some neat handmade Christian artwor...

Mira and I made it to Malta! This is where our trip really began, at the airport which has a nice aquarium: Some views around the town of Sliema where we stayed. It has big built-up tourist areas but also plenty of locals and older buildings: The promenade along the beach is great. Along the southeastern tip (see this Google Maps view ) there are swimming pools cut into the stone in the ocean and people swim and practice diving there with constantly renewed water but without being in the open ocean: And there are cats. First, this statue of one looking out over a bay, then some real ones. They’re pretty mellow: I srictly didn’t park my lack of a car here: And while it probably seemed like a good idea to mix “energy” plus “Malta” to make the name of the electric company, “Enemalta” didn’t sound so good when we saw this sign outside public toilets: We will have more to share about this beautiful island!