Hal Far
This morning I got up and went for a walk. It was relatively cool at 7am. Yesterday, walking was at the pace of the 80 year olds, so I got up a good pace and kept on walking. I reached the industrial town of Hal Far up the hill behind Birzebbugia in less than an hour, with no camera, water bottle or cash. It had not been my intention to walk so far.
I had been intending to visit the area though, as this was where the 80 years olds (my mother and father) were stationed after WWII, she as an aircraft mechanic in the WRNS and he as a trainee fighter pilot on the Fleet Air Arm. Things have changed now, and nothing, they say, is recognizable.
From the buses full of North African refugees coming out from Valetta, we already found out that ex military accommodation has been repurposed as a refugee reception centre. Without wishing to go and gawp, I was curious to see how these exiles live in a country that reputedly doesn’t like foreigners.
The area is clearly industrial rather than residential. At first I didn’t realize what I was looking at as I approached what looked like a pipe store in an open field.
I mistook the regular row of peaks for piles of something like metal or shale. In fact, it is the skyline of a tent city where much of the well-dressed, ordinary looking African population lives. A row of portable cabins that appear to be made from containers and some relatively luxurious stone accommodation blocks add capacity to this unusual, small to average size village.
An immigration reception centre completes the picture. All I have to go on are impressions, as no information is readily available about the processing of these people, who are presumably asylum seekers. A few stories are told about boat people picked up in leaky tubs by the Italian Navy and landed in Malta. Desperate moves from desperate places. I watched a man on a bus watching a little girl with her mother, and wondered; did he have a daughter, a wife or a sister? Where might they be now?
Who are these people? How do they feel, living in tents and baking in huts in an unfamiliar land? Closer inspection of my pictures shows a few mod cons like satellite dishes around the site. I only hope there is more to home comfort that that can beam in.
I had been intending to visit the area though, as this was where the 80 years olds (my mother and father) were stationed after WWII, she as an aircraft mechanic in the WRNS and he as a trainee fighter pilot on the Fleet Air Arm. Things have changed now, and nothing, they say, is recognizable.
From the buses full of North African refugees coming out from Valetta, we already found out that ex military accommodation has been repurposed as a refugee reception centre. Without wishing to go and gawp, I was curious to see how these exiles live in a country that reputedly doesn’t like foreigners.
The area is clearly industrial rather than residential. At first I didn’t realize what I was looking at as I approached what looked like a pipe store in an open field.
I mistook the regular row of peaks for piles of something like metal or shale. In fact, it is the skyline of a tent city where much of the well-dressed, ordinary looking African population lives. A row of portable cabins that appear to be made from containers and some relatively luxurious stone accommodation blocks add capacity to this unusual, small to average size village.
An immigration reception centre completes the picture. All I have to go on are impressions, as no information is readily available about the processing of these people, who are presumably asylum seekers. A few stories are told about boat people picked up in leaky tubs by the Italian Navy and landed in Malta. Desperate moves from desperate places. I watched a man on a bus watching a little girl with her mother, and wondered; did he have a daughter, a wife or a sister? Where might they be now?Who are these people? How do they feel, living in tents and baking in huts in an unfamiliar land? Closer inspection of my pictures shows a few mod cons like satellite dishes around the site. I only hope there is more to home comfort that that can beam in.
posted by Cathy Gunn at
June 15, 2009
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