Fresh Expat Left Bewildered By Malta’s Morning Fireworks And Gets Explosive Response From Facebook
With the festa season well underway, Malta is gearing up (or in some cases, bunkering down) for endless nights of beautiful firework displays every single week. And that includes early morning wake up calls from our favourite firework, the murtali.
The constant barrage of bombs set off from as early as 8am is enough to shake walls and rattle windows – especially when they’re detonated right outside your door. Whether you’re a fan of them or not, living in Malta means having to deal with the consequences of these noisy explosives, and one certain expat learnt that the hard way yesterday.
Posting on the popular Facebook group Expats Malta having arrived on the island merely a week ago and right in the middle of Msida’s setting up of their feast that took place over the weekend, the man was confused to say the least.
We had a look at some of the reactions, because for a change there was not a single “go back to your own country” left in the comments. Even if that was thanks to the admins deleting them, the remnants are golden nonetheless.
Popcorn at the ready? 3, 2, 1….
Merħba
Welcome to Malta, where “mela” is absolutely vital.
Introductions out of the way, we now know that the “string detonations” were in fact fireworks.
But why????
The only law that seems to be enforced these days, Article 46, sub-paragraph 7 clearly states:
“No resident or citizen of Malta may sleep through the day unless participating in the ‘siesta’ tradition. If anyone feels as though their locality is trying to catch an extra forty winks past sunrise, they must let off as many petards as humanly possible until at least 10 posts on social media complaining of the noise have been made.”
There’s that, and we also love to grab at any excuse to throw a party.
It is our national pastime, after all.
Obviously, we have to whack out the anthem at every single party we throw. Duh.
Sun, sea and… sound. That’s us down to a T.
The poor guy really didn’t expect to get such a huge history lesson.
It is true, ta’. You should always do your research.
Like, do people actually not make sure the country they’re moving to likes to wake the whole world up with earth-shattering booms?
Then, there was this petard-patriot who must have flunked history in school.
I guess by “evil spirits” they meant that one local law enforcer/vigilante who doesn’t like their village having lazy residents. You just can’t help but love 21st Century island life. Right?
Wrong. How did we miss the sirens?
Maybe it was just that the sirens triggered a collective panic attack across the islands and as a result, we thought we’d fight back by shooting aimlessly at the skies.
All jokes aside, this is serious…
You don’t interrupt someone binging on Stranger Things. Even if that someone just so happens to be the admin of a popular Facebook group.
We also need to make sure the fireworks actually… you know, work.
That’s all for this week’s instalment of “What went down on Expats Malta this weekend.”
Stay tuned for next week’s feature:
Make sure stock up on the old crunchies.