We think Valletta is ours. They think it's theirs.
How to make the incursors feel welcome
My friend the photographer Alexandra Pace has refurbished her grandparents’ house at 68 St Lucia Street, Valletta and turned it into an exhibition space. It was empty for years.
Because of the purpose for which the house is used now, she negotiated with the local council to rejig the parking-spaces, to clear a space in front of the door – not a parking space for her personally, but just an empty space marked by U-bars.
No parking-spaces were sacrificed. There are still the same number, just rearranged. But the neighbours, living up to the reputation of the Maltese for hospitality, have been complaining loudly all over the shop. When the local council put down the first U-bar, one of the neighbours went out at night, wrenched it out of the ground and chucked it at Alexandra’s door (she doesn’t live there).
Having run out of options with U-bars, they have taken to pinning notes to her door – printed out, lest Alexandra gets the forensics onto them. These notes detail the neighbours’ lack of satisfaction at the behaviour of a ‘barranija’. Interestingly, the notes are protected by a plastic sleeve – just like their linef and sofas.
The revival of Valletta is going to be a long time coming with this kind of attitude.
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If I understand it correctly, she arranged with the local councli to have the space in front of this house made into a no-parking bay – is that right?
[Daphne – Yes, no parking by anyone, including herself.]
Living in Valletta is a nightmare and parking is very limited so to an extent I understand the residents.
[Daphne – Marvin, no parking spaces were removed. They were only rearranged. There are still the same number. I guess what they were objecting to was a ‘barranija’ getting what they saw as special privileges. They didn’t stop to consider the fact that this barranija spent months working on that house herself and investing lots of time, money and effort to revive it as an exhibition space. Maybe they thought the house should have been requisitioned and handed over to somebody tal-qalba, kif kien jaghmel Petrik Hollent mhux bhal dak il-bazwi GonziPN.]
My parents live in Valletta in another area and the closest parking available they have is about four blocks away if they are lucky to find an empty spot.
[Daphne – U ejja, int bis-serjeta? That’s the case everywhere unless you live somewhere like I do and can park in the garden. When I visit my parents near the Preluna hotel in Sliema I have one of three choices: park on the pavement and keep an eye out for the wardens, park in the multi-storey car-park, pay and walk, or park in some side-street in St Julian’s and catch the bus to Ghar id-Dud.]
Garages are so expensive that it costs a minimum of EUR40,000 for a two-car garage and that is if you are lucky and they are in their 60s.
If the parking were rearranged in such a manner to leave an empty space, it means that the spaces were not laid out in the most efficient manner in the first place. I would add one more parking space if it fits in front of her door.
[Daphne – It was not a full parking space but a small clear space, apparently – see the mayor’s comment here.]
Why does this person have a right more than others to leave an empty parking space in front of her door?
For all I know, those who go shopping in London ‘ghas-”SALE” ghax hawn kollox ghali’ boast that they walk for miles to get to cheap clothes shops and then say, ‘inxtwejt, ghax bil-mixi li imxejna Osford Street, jew x-il qa…hba issejjhula, jahraqni kullumkien’.
This despite the fact that there are many convenient ways to travel around London. ‘Imma nibza li nintilef jekk nuza l’undergrawnt’.
I never have problems nowadays with parking. If no space is found I drive until I find the closest place which could be a mile or so away. It is beneficial for my health keeping in good shape and I avoid the frustration. As simple as that. Besides, one can park at Blata l-Bajda and get a free ride to Valletta and back.
That part of the road is too narrow and people park on the pavement making it impossible to get out of your own house plus cars coming down have to drive on part of the pavement.
In fact two other residents have a u-bar in-front of their house, one of them an old woman who used to get trapped in her own house.
Only the residents on the opposite side of the road complain, obviously because there are no cars parked on “their” pavement.
When I lived there I was classified as a ‘barrani’ as well. I am not criticising how Ms Pace arranged to get the ‘no parking’ in front of her exhibition space. I am criticising the way the local council with the help of good old Austin, who by the way I voted for in the last election, have literally destroyed parking in Valletta for the residents in the past three years. I do not live there because:
a) I do not like the people and they do not like me because I was brought up in boarding school;
b) I got fed up of having policemen waking me up at 0700 to remove my car because someone had decided in the morning that the particular street I live in should be cleared because of some dignitary or other, even when there was more parking in Valletta.
I was one of the lucky ones who had a four-space space garage but unfortunately with Valletta as it is it was four blocks away hence the comment that my parent’s closest parking is four blocks away.
In 1987 I was still going to school at St. Edward’s so to an extent I was protected from the worst of the M.L.P. I do not have to remind you that we cannot have another Patrick Holland and Dom Mintoff because we are in the E.U. and that’s why me and most of my friends fought for it so that we can never go back to those dark days. That was the promise and the vision your generation and partly mine fought for and we nearly lost it in 1996 but thankfully il-perit gave us another chance.
I have an office in Sliema near the Victoria hotel and believe me compared to Valletta there it is easy parking, and yes I am not really worried about wardens as today I calculate it as a normal business expense. Tthere is no other way around it. When I visit my parents today I normally use city cab as they are in one of the pedestrian areas so that is my only solution.
Isn’t that a bit dog-in-the-mangerish?
Hi Daphne, just a small clarification. It’s not really a parking space, because it’s much smaller than a car space but it allows an unobtrusive flow of people to and from Alexandra Pace’s exhibition space. We rearranged the spaces in such a way as to save all the parking spaces whilst providing access to her premises. Valletta is all about finding the right compromise.
Are you ready to do that for ALL commercial premises in Valletta? Or is it another case of “equality” between pigs?
[Daphne – This from the ‘man’ who backs Astrid and FAA in their selective battles. When was the last time you went to Valletta, ‘John’? Most shops there are sitting on pedestrians-only streets. No only are there no parking spaces, but no cars either.]
Erm, Daphne, you are usuually very hot on malapropisms. Tell the mayor to check out the difference between “unobtrusive” and “unobstructed”.
[Daphne – He may have meant unobtrusive for all you and I know, smart-ass.]
Let me rephrase that. Is the mayor ready to do that for all commercial premises which are not located in pedestrianised areas?
[Daphne – An exhibition space is not comparable to a shop. It is comparable to, for example, the Manoel Theatre, which also has an unobstructed entrance. And as Nadine pointed out here, parking in that lower part of St Lucia Street is on the pavement, not on the street. Get Astrid onto it, why don’t you.]
Valletta residents are already privileged with having reserved parking for residents only. Apart from that, very often, when there are vacant spaces which are supposed to be free for anyone to park they are illegally jammed by residents to prevent others from parking. At times wooden boxes or stones or anything else that may prevent anyone from parking are placed there. If you attempt to remove the obstacles they either take it as a challenge or else they could say, ” le hee ghax it-tifel irid jipparkja il-vann biex ihott ix-xoghol”.
[Daphne – Another tactic is to pull a screwdriver down the length of your car if you park in ‘their’ space, or to slash your tyres.]
I am sure you have met these types parking there as though they are the kings of the roads or simply leaving their car in the middle of the narrow roads of Valletta until they empty their van, taking it easy as if ‘I’ll do what I want’ and ‘I don’t carry if you’re in a hurry, you can wait.’ This reminds me of my childhood days when at church a bag or veil or rosary used to be placed on a seat as though the chair was reserved.
I am not surprised, although disgusted, that your friend got such treatment. Things could be much worse.
Anywhere you go in Malta residents believe that they own the area in front of their house, and again, I was often told to move my car from such places. When I lived in Valletta in the early 1970s for a short period some of the residents would call me a bully if I dared park in ‘their’ area and I could hear them say ”dan minghalih xi helu’.
p.s I wanted to tell you yesterday that from your writings I always thought you were excellent at sussing out people.
My neighbours in the village used to spit on my car when I parked my car in ‘their territory’.
Here, in Germany, cars usually get scratched or the antenna is broken off or a mirror might get damaged. During Expo 2000 in Hanover, I even lost my number plates when parking in the area where the temporary accommodation was located.
Then you’re lucky. I recently had gashes in two of my tyres on the same day. (I was lucky not to have a serious accident while driving around with my children.)
My conclusion is that I had parked in my “new” neighbours’ territory, ie partially over the yellow box in front of their gate (where, please note, no garage or drive exists, unless the car in question is a toy one).
I am very often amused by articles that appear on your blog. In fact I find that some of them are really funny. At times I laugh but this of Alexandra Pace plus the nonsense against Renzo Piano’s project makes me sad to say the least.
Bunch of t***ers! They should be ‘cultured’ into submission!:)
Well, they do acknowledge their own shortcoming in their punch line:
Imissna nisthu!!!
I couldn’t agree more.
I recently read that residents’ parking was illegal in Malta and that the local councils that were using such scheme were doing so in breach of law. Does the Valletta local council have some special concession? I say this because I live in a village which like many others does not have residents’ parking schemes and anyone can park anywhere so why should it be different in other villages/towns/cities? The Valletta residents already have the advantage that they do not need to pay to enter the capital city like the rest of us. They also have residents’ parking and all those who visit Valletta regularly know that they abuse the system constantly.
For those who have no idea, what happens is that they start by parking in the bays that are for the general public leaving the residents’ bays empty so that the rest of the family can find parking. The system is completely unfair and is having a very negative effect on some of the businesses in Valletta. I think that now that there has been enough time to test the waters the system including the park-and-ride scheme needs to be revisited to make Valletta more acessible to all.
As I have been saying all along – the isolated island mentality reigns supreme.
Unhappily just about half of the Maltese think and act that way – always complaining, they never had it so bad, recession only hits Malta, people are over taxed, social services are insufficient, kids ‘without’ a father should be supported better by the state ( a lot of virgin mothers?), power failures only happen in Malta….always looking inwards.
jomar wrote: “the isolated island mentality reigns supreme”.
It is of course rather easier to recognise and acknowledge that fact when one has emigrated away from Malta and not necessarily spent one’s time in an expatriate Maltese ghetto.
jomar, it would perhaps have been wise to add that even Malta’s leading politicians, regardless of political colour, possess an insular mentality despite their many visits and stays in foreign mainland countries. Naturally, one can argue that the electorate in a way moulds politicians’ mentality.
Siege mentality.
(I’m surprised that you didn’t mention it Daph, did the expression escape you or did you presuppose it/consider it a cliche’?)
Most people don’t like change – it’s part of human nature. The lesson is, if you’re going to make changes, let people know well in advance, give them opportunity to have some input, let them know how it will or will not affect them… i.e. maybe if the other residents had been informed of these changes and told that the actual number of parking spaces wouldn’t be affected, then maybe this problem wouldn’t have arisen.
It’s all basic community communication strategy – and it doesn’t mean that change won’t come. You just need to go about it in the right way. Involve the community; don’t see them as the enemy – after all, it is their Valletta, too.
Whoever wrote and typed out this note does not know that they can still be found out, by what is called forensic linguistics or linguistic fingerprinting. I don’t expect the local police force uses it, as far as I know. I discovered this process only recently via the Daily Mail, my daily guilty pleasure:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1197187/Dear-Garry-Ive-decided-end-The-stop-trapped-killer.html
Interesting link, Meerkat, even though forensic linguistics is normally applied to crimes that are much more serious than a mere warning note left by some frustrated neighbor.
Deriving from my short experience in policing and a recent interest in Maltese linguistics, I can see that the writer has a good command of Maltese orthography, however he/she doesn’t use Maltese in his/her work, judging by the absence of Maltese diacritics in the note. The wrong use of the indefinite instead of the definite article in the second line, coupled with the absence of commas and wrong capitalization in two instances might be an indication of lack of attention to detail (this will put the writer in the 99% segment of Maltese people). Naturally, a comparison with other “works” by a potential suspect would help a little bit more.
Anyway, why bother investigating this non-event? The note does not even contain a threat, just to spice it up a little bit! So boring …
Geez, had a look at the notice. Is this for real? Tensions between il-Beltin and the non-Beltin? Talk about village politics.
The final words on the notice say it all: “Imissna nisthu!!!!”
‘ma nittollerawx il-barranin’ could well be a catchphrase for Malta. Perhaps Lexi could try pitching it to the Malta Tourism Authority.
Hi Daphne, just another clarification for the people commenting about residents’ parking being illegal. Residents’ parking is illegal if it is set up by the local council without the approval of the Transport Authority. In the case of Valletta, residents’ parking is approved by the Transport Authority, due to the special circumstances of the city, and so it is legal.
Dear Mayor,
Next election you may be the single greatest reason why Valletta will turn Labour, the reason being the disastrous situation of parking there for residents. A lot of your constituents who have always loyally voted P.N. will be boycotting the election, even the extreme blues. I would recommend that you start talking to your voters, as from the feedback I am getting from most residents they are very unhappy with the way the parking problem is being tackled. I predict Valerie will be making a feast next local council election. I do not live in Valletta but my residency and my vote are there.
Unless it’s changed in the last four years, much of Valletta is a den of iniquity rather than a city for gentlemen, with fighting dogs and lots worse fairly widespread. The frightening thing is the authorities are afraid or unable to do anything about it.
Dear all,
1. If a few residents act that way (something I condemn outright) then let me remind you to underline the word FEW. Those do not represent the whole Valletta community of which I have been a proud part since the age of four.
2. Alexandra’s efforts should be praised. She brought relevant, contemporary input to the city, something which at government level is unheard of. Anyway, unfortunately No 68 is situated in an area which is considered as having a myriad of social difficulties. Exposure to an artistic concept like No 68 might be erroneously looked upon as an invasion due to this difficult social environment.
I’m not going into depth on this subject here. In the meantime, please don’t judge the Valletta community as idiots.
I wondered what on earth was going on: I stopped outside the gallery (you can just about pull up beside the U-bars without blocking the traffic) to deliver six paintings for the current exhibit. How else can you deliver bulky paintings? The neighbour created such a huge fuss when we said we would only be five minutes, if that…… He stormed off muttering obscenities. I may be a ‘barranija’ but unfortunately I understood him. Thank goodness my friend (a foreign diplomat) didn’t. So much, indeed, for good old Maltese hospitality. Sigh.
Filwaqt li naqbel mad-decizzjoni li ha il-kunsill rigward 68 Triq Santa Lucija, nixtieq napella lill-kunsill biex jiehu hsieb il-vetturi li hawn mitluqa madwar il-Belt anki dawk mghottija biex ma jidrux abbandunati, kif ukoll jiehu hsieb il-kuntratur li qied jaghmel ix-xoghol Triq Kristoforu.
Xi haga fuq il-parkegg ghal residenti: nahseb dawk li kienu u ghadhom joqodu l-Belt nistghu naghmlu paragun jekk hawnx differenza minn qabel ma giet introdotta is-sistema prezenti. Ghal tal-inqas illum jekk tohrog filghodu ghal xi qadja malli tigi lura ssib fejn tipparkja il- Belt mhux trid tistenna wara s-7 ta’ filghaxija jew tipparkja fuq xi bankina u toqod ghassa ghal-warden ezatt kif qalet Daphne rigward Tas-Sliema.
Maltese hospitality is a myth. The Maltese are insular, naturally xenophobic and amoral when it comes to people outside of their family/village/party circle. It’s the result of being dominated and played with by the barrani for centuries.
And we’re cowards/bullies in the original sense of the word – we cower before mighty foreigners and lavish them with a fake hospitality borne of a feeling of helplessness and inferiority. Then we take out our frustration on the weaker ones, be they impoverished, desperate immigrants or simply the single female outsider – even one with guts and drive like Alexandra’s – daring to attempt change.