Dear ECS: An unexpected Maltese moment

Dear ECS, 

Hey love bug - we have had a nice day today, sneaking in a daddy/daughter lunch date and doing some wandering and shopping in our neighborhood.  Oh yeah, and some ice cream.  Always some ice cream. 

We had this mellow weekend-like day today since we had some tough travel last night, flying back home from Malta on a flight that left that airport at about 11 pm and getting into our apartment in Cairo just before 4 am.  Whew, that is not easy and hence no school for you, or me, today.  Mom drew the short end of the straw in our family and went into work today, which took a Herculean effort. 

It is kind of crazy that right now the sun has set and the night is coming in and yesterday at this exact time, we were on top of a hotel on a rooftop overlooking the walled and idyllic city of Valletta, with the Maltese countryside and the Med all below us, sparkling.  

The amount of life and movement that can be fit into a day in these modern times remains so astounding. To think what the world and movement and travel will be like in a few decades, when you are an adult, is pretty tough to predict and anticipate.  Another example of the crazy travel in this Maltese vacation was where we slept for half the night in our apartment in Egypt, made the flight to Malta and then slept in our rental apartment in Malta.  Waking up, I realized we had somehow slept on two continents (Egypt/Africa and Malta/Europe) in one night.  And somehow even slept pretty well on both ends of the trip.  

We did these crazy travel logistics because it was a) a way to maximize our time (per usual, sorry honey), b) take advantage of the direct flights, and c) overall sneak in this trip to celebrate my birthday as a family.  Your mom had the worse of it, and I am very grateful that she was open to making it work despite the very obvious, and a bit painful, drawback of going to work on little sleep. 

I want to write a bit about what was a really meaningful moment during our trip.  It is a surprising moment, as it was not in the art museum, nor eating fresh seafood and pasta for days.  Nor watching my last sunset in met 30’s, or taking a little gondola ferry in the harbor.  Or dashing around and skipping in the discovery center within a sprawling complex built centuries ago.  Not the market and lunch at the little fishing village.  Nor on long trail runs along the sea wall, or even doing the family photo shoot throughout the city.  Not the fresh chocolate, and wine for your parents.  

We did all those things, but the moment that has stuck there most with me was doing a simple little errand so that we could make breakfast in our apartment and enjoy the great space and little balcony with Med views.  Interesting, the old city doesn’t have many grocery stores, rather these little markets tucked into narrow storefronts and stuffed to the gills.  

I thought the market errand would take a few minutes, because that is what I am used to and what I am conditioned to expect in the world of ubiquitous markets, here in Cairo and when we travel in Europe.  This would not be the case, as the market a few blocks from our apartment was pretty busy on a late morning Saturday.  Not the case at all.  The store was filled with about a dozen older Maltese women doing their weekend shopping.  The care they felt about their food, the fresh produce, and cheeses/charcuterie, the fresh bread and everything they needed for the weekend, was very obvious.  

So there I was, after telling your mom I would be gone for a few minutes with the minutes dragging on and on.  I thought about putting back our stuff and hatching a new plan.  Which would have been easy.  I had left my phone at the house, thinking this was going to be quick, so there was no way to pop in ear pods and put on a podcast.  Like what I am doing right now as I type.  Nope, I had none of my tried and true distraction methods for making minutes melt away 

For which I am so thankful, as I got over myself, at least for several minutes, and just stood in line and listened and watched.  Seeing what I could learn about this place and community.  I listen to the orders and the familiar banter between customers.  I tried to piece together what people would be eating, all of which looked pretty delicious with the olives, fresh cheeses, foul and several things that I still don’t know.  

And a secondary thing that happened was with respect to the language of this store.  The Maltese language is as Semitic language, just like Arabic (and Amharic too, going back to our Ethiopia years).  It has been Anglicized, so the script is like English or French and not the Arabic I have learned over the last 5 or so months.  But to sit back and listen, I realized that I knew so many of the words being used in this market.  It was stunning, as I felt far from home and it did not feel so much like Cairo.  Being in a new place, and yet having this language pop into my brain was a cool feeling.  This realization that the Arabic culture and language that I am learning in Cairo share a through line to Malta makes sense, given all the trade over centuries.  But having something make sense and then really feeling it are two very different experiences.  Plus, it made me proud of what I have learned in the language, and the culture, of Egypt.  In July of last year, I would never have been able to make the connection, so this moment would have passed me by.  Not today! 

So in closing honey, I urge you to find joy and interest where you are, whenever you can.  It is not easy, and that sense is extremely ephemeral.  A few days ago, I felt the stress of time and our plan getting sideways.  But given the right combo of culture and mental space, I had moment of clarity and enjoyment that far exceeded what I could have ever hoped or expected.  

These are the exact reason we travel: to be in a new place and have that place open in some unexpected way. 

love,

dad