23 minute read
Romeo Romano Gardens
Ongoing works at Romeo Romano Gardens
THE RESTORATION OF ROMEO ROMANO GARDENS
In one of Malta’s busiest and high traffic zones lies Romeo Romano Gardens. This garden used to form part of Palazzo Manoel, which was later renamed as Casa Leoni. Built by Grand Master Antonio Manuel De Vilhena in 1730, this palazzo is one of many other major projects that were carried out during his reign as Grand Master of the islands, which also include Fort Manoel in Gżira, Manoel Theatre in Valletta and many other buildings in Floriana. In 1977, the large garden – part of this palazzo – was opened to the public as ‘Romeo Romano Gardens’.
A calm oasis that brings tranquillity to an otherwise chaotic surrounding being only a few hundred metres away from one of the arterial roads in the country. This garden brings nature right into the place where one lives and works. Something that has become more important than ever.
It was for this reason that last year, GreenServ took over the restoration of an area of this garden that had been closed off to the public. An area that contained a disused sienja, a water lifting apparatus installed in the 19th century to water the gardens; and an underground bell-shaped water reservoir that connects to a unique irrigation system covering the whole garden, as well as many mature citrus trees. These historical features were restored as part of this project that also included the restoration of the garden walls, fountains and pathways to make this garden safe and accessible. Indeed, the water reservoir was cleaned and restored so that it could harvest water whilst the sienja and irrigation system were restored.
In its restoration, GreenServ sought to modernise this garden without compromising its baroque design characterised by walkways and stone carved fountains attributed to the French military engineer Francois de Mondion. Benches, lighting, a children’s play area and a raised deck area were also added.
Natural materials were used for these new additions to respect the character of this garden and the surroundings. Wood was chosen as the primary material for the play equipment, with the use of plastic restricted as much as possible. Instead of the commonly used rubber flooring for the play area, natural wood mulch was used. The deck areas will be transformed into a sensory area with carefully chosen elements having different textures and creating sounds in order to stimulate the sense of hearing and touch. Young citrus trees were also planted to add to the existing trees, as well as a number of shrubs.
The first phase of the restoration project led by GreenServ was inaugurated last December by the Minister for the Environment, Energy and Enterprise Miriam Dalli. However, this will not be the end of this project. In the second phase of this project, an old building that originally served as the gardener’s residence, will be transformed into an educational centre with a focus on the environment in collaboration with local NGO Nature Trust. A second deck area will also be added to serve as a community garden to build healthier lifestyles as well as educating kids and adults alike.
Like with all other GreenServ projects, this will be another green space that supports a healthy, active living and is environmentally resilient and sustainable. Attributes that GreenServ has now become synonymous with.
Make time to visit this enchanting place where you are guaranteed to receive a warm welcome by the colony of cats that for years have made this garden their permanent home.
Emily Francis Photo Credit: James Bianchi
EMILY IN MALTA FINDS THE TASTE OF JOY
Interview by Philippa Zammit
After moving to Malta with her family in 2020 during the worldwide lockdown and pandemic, Emily A. Francis learned insider secrets to Malta and Mediterranean living through writing her local column Emily in Malta for the local tourism magazine, Oh My Malta. Here she interviews local farmers, fishermen and chefs about the way foods are grown, harvested, caught and prepared on the island. Now taking this information and turning it into a book The Taste of Joy: Mediterranean Wisdom For a Life Worth Savoring, we sit down with our own, Emily Francis to find out more about how all of this became possible.
Q: What was your first impression of the island?
A: My first impression is so subjective because we literally got off the airplane and were taken directly to our new home for a mandatory 14-day quarantine. The whole thing was surreal. We chose a home through a local realtor who took copious videos to help us decide. Showing up to a new life in a foreign country for someone such as myself who is not at all a traveler, it was overwhelming, terrifying and exhilarating all at the same time. We moved here with my husband’s company. We were not the only family to make the move out of the states and into Malta, but we were the last people allowed to cross the border before they closed to the rest of the world due to the pandemic. We received our travel papers at the layover in the Netherlands. Talk about trusting the process! It took everything I had to stay fixed to the goal of arriving here safely with the whole family in tow. We had each other to lean on which, of course, helped. We got off the plane to see our boss and his wife waiting for us with a key to our new home. They had already grocery shopped for us and had our kitchen fully stocked. They gave us a soft place to land when we arrived. To this day, they continue to take great care of all of us at the company.
Moving across the world to a place I had never even visited, took a giant leap of faith and trust that this was where my family was meant to be. So, my husband and children, three dogs and one cat all hopped a plane and landed in the Mediterranean to begin a completely new life. What I thought about Malta based on what I saw on the way to our house was that it was very brown and dry. We moved here at the beginning of August during a heat wave. I saw a few beautiful buildings (which the Maltese architecture is absolutely stunning and I pray it always remains that way). The dry, brown desert look, however, scared me. It looked nothing like all the videos I had spent months watching on YouTube! Also driving on the left side of the road made me feel dizzy. It was a sensory overload making me think that we were going to have a head-on collision with every car passing by! Getting my bearings here took many weeks to months. It wasn’t love at first sight. It was hope at first sight. Hope for a new life and a safer and healthier life for my family. This is followed by a hardearned and incredibly sublime love affair. Now, Malta is my one and only. It is my home and it has my heart.
Q: Who is Emily in Malta? What is your story?
A: As an American author with five books on body healing, it was only natural to want to continue to write. Finding exactly what I wanted to write about, however, and making it happen was something else entirely. Until moving to Malta, I was in practice as a clinically trained bodyworker specialising in lymphatics treating a specific chronic condition known as lymphedema. Lymphedema occurs most notably following cancer treatment. I have been in practice for more than twenty years and studying anatomy and the muscular system in relation to human emotion since the later 1990’s.
Moving to Malta, I did not open a practice. I started over completely. I created something entirely new based on my curiosity and excitement. I only wanted two things in my quest to leave the United States. Those two things were:
2) Living in a country where GMOs are not used in our foods. GMO stands for genetically modified organisms, or more easily stated as highly toxic chemicals that are sprayed on our crops with extensive research linking them to cancer and other autoimmune disorders. Malta was the first in the EU to ban the use of GMO’s which put me on ‘team Malta’ from the start.
Q: What’s it like living in Malta? Do you feel welcome here?
A: Living in Malta for our family has been something of a dream come true. I often refer to our life here as Heaven on Earth. As for feeling welcome, I feel very welcome and loved in Malta! But this was not immediate, nor was it easy. This was me getting out there and doing everything I possibly could to meet new people and learn about the culture. I was the school van supervisor that first year simply because I had no idea where my children would be going to school! It was during Covid and we could not tour the school, or find the classrooms or meet their teachers. This was terrifying to me! When I spoke with the government transport to sign my kids up, they let me know that they were short-staffed that year because of the pandemic and that our van wouldn’t have a supervisor. So, I volunteered. I rode that van with my children from the first day of school to the last. It was such a great experience of really getting to be the fly on the wall and watch everyone around me without anyone knowing I wasn’t just the supervisor, but a parent at the school. The other van supervisors were very kind to What I saw with our school exceeded any and all of my expectations. The way that the children are greeted every morning by the school staff made my mummy heart explode with delight! The teachers here are very warm and loving. Children are greeted with actual hugs! I learned quickly the word “pupa” (doll). “Good morning, Pupa!” They would say each morning as the children filed in line waiting to have their temperature taken and their hands sprayed with sanitiser. It makes me a very happy mother to see that the school here, and I don’t think it’s only our school, has an amazing education system. Teachers still love their jobs! The education system is not broken here and you can tell right away that this is the case. Children feel loved and cherished and valued. It isn’t just about tests. It’s about raising the whole child here. The concepts of personal wellness and emotional balance are taught from a young age here. This is the biggest difference between the world I’ve known verses the world my children are getting to experience lies within the education system and Malta has that one beat, hands down. My children have grown into very strong, balanced and confident people with the help of their school here. This, for me, is of the utmost importance in my enjoying life in Malta. As a mother, when your children are supported, happy and growing in balance and love…there is nothing more valuable than this.
Then little by little, I began to meet the parents and make friends with families from our school. This is where you really learn the ropes of the locals and expats alike. Everyone that I have become friends with puts family first. Lucky for us, once you are close friends, you are taken in as part of their family. The people that I have met in Malta, both local and from surrounding countries have made my life here exponentially more delicious.
On top of finding my way as a parent in Malta, I then took steps to figure out how and what to write in Malta. I reached out to a few news outlets and magazines and got very little interest in response. And then, one fine day, the clouds parted and the sunshine came in the form of Oh My Malta. I emailed the editors and to my great surprise, they responded with interest! One phone call later and we decided to give it a go. And so began my new journey of becoming Emily in Malta and interviewing the local farmers on the island both in print and in live video interviews!
Q: You are the woman behind all our interviews with farmers and producers. What makes you so fascinated with everything local?
A: My introduction to writing this column was with potato farmer, Paul Zammit. He was the greatest introduction to Maltese farmers I could have ever asked for. He is the reason that I have fallen madly in love with the local farming community in Malta! If you have lived in Malta all your life, you may take for granted or underestimate how absolutely charming and lovely the people here really are, especially the farmers and fishermen. They don’t make them like that in the states! It’s like a dream I didn’t really know I had come to life in finding these people. The
Maltese farming community is all heart. They are without a doubt the kindest, most generous, hardest-working people I have ever known. And traveling all over the island and also in Gozo, I have met the most beautiful humans that this island has to offer. I often say that the backbone of this country is made up of the local farmers and that the heartbeat of the island beats straight out of the fishing village. The brain and spine, the farmers and fisherman, this is where the heart and soul reside. They are my most treasured people. I am aware that through this opportunity I have been given a life so unique and so beautiful and I do not take it for granted. It is a gift that I want to share with the whole world that these people are the liveliest characters any story could ever have!
Also, I need to add that finding the farmers beyond Paul at the beginning was excruciating. No one handed me the contact list and told me who to call. It wasn’t easy and it took more effort than I’d like to admit to keep showing up and asking to be invited into a very tight circle. I had to make my way through it, little by little and one by one. And after a few months of interviews, the farmers began to make calls to their friends and vouch for me that I’m “good people” and from there they would finally begin to let me in. I also try hard to maintain my friendships with them following up and visiting still.
Q: You’ve taken your column with Oh My Malta to the next level with a brand-new book “The Taste of Joy” that hits this month. Can you tell us more about it?
A: Absolutely! I realised fairly quickly that what I was getting to experience here was unlike anything anyone else has written about; especially from the USA. My life in Malta is quite surreal and the people that have given me their time and their stories mean more to me than practically anything I’ve ever written about. I can honestly say that I have never felt as happy and joyful in my life as I have become through living here in the Mediterranean. Malta gave me a whole new life. At first, I wanted to create a coffee table book, then I thought maybe a cookbook and I tried to meet with local publishers. The publishing world here is totally different from the US publishing business in every possible way. I have to admit that, unlike the local farming community, the local publishing market here has yet to let me in any of the doors and so I had to shelf those ideas, for now at least. I am very lucky that I have put in more than 15 years of writing and publishing in the states otherwise, this book would never have been born.
Thankfully, I still have my literary agent in New York and I called him to see what way I should play with this next book idea. After he and I crafted a strong book proposal, we submitted it to one of my former publishers in the United States and they said YES! And so my coffee table book/cookbook turned into a happiness, self-help book with local recipes at the end of each chapter. This book is intended to introduce the world to the Mediterranean way of life and Malta specifically. It is like a love letter to my farmers and fisherman and I take some of the gems of wisdom that they shared with me and pass it along throughout the book.
Q: How will you be celebrating the launch of your new book in Malta?
A: This is the question we have all been waiting for! I am incredibly honoured and proud to share that Oh My Malta and I have teamed up to create the first the Taste of Joy Festival! This festival will be on Saturday, March 11th 2023 and it is open to the public and free for all to enter. This not only celebrates my new book (and I will be there doing a book signing, of course!) but it is our way to give back to our farmers and food community that made this whole thing possible. The local farmers are invited to come and sell their own signature products and nibbles to the public. This book release can’t just be about me because it took a village to make it happen. And at this festival, we are celebrating with our whole village!
What: The Taste of Joy Public Festival
When: Saturday March 11th (I do have the following Saturday, the 18th reserved just in case of bad weather)
Where: Vincent’s Eco Farm, Mgarr
Time: 11 am to 5 pm
Q: where can people get their hands on this book?
A: This book will be in bookstores around the world through my US publisher. The Local specialty shops will carry it here as well. I will be selling it at the festival and I’m happy to come and talk or do a book signing anywhere people want me! You can always order from Book Depository where shipping is free if you can’t find it in the stores. The book is available in Kindle, Paperback and Audio- recorded locally in Malta with Emily as the narrator and two others who narrate the preface and foreward. We were incredibly grateful to get the foreward to be written by Clayton Bartolo, MP Minister for Tourism in Malta.
Emily A. Francis has a BS in Exercise Science and Wellness with a minor in nutrition and a Master’s Degree in Human Performance. She is a clinical and neuromuscular massage therapist and is fully trained as an MLD/CDT therapist through the Dr. Vodder School international. Since moving to Malta, Emily has become a local columnist learning about foods and how they are grown on the island. Find Emily at: www.mymaltalife.com
OLIVIA LILITH
Interview by Terrence Mifsud
We sit down with campy and glamorous Malta-based drag artist and Malta's Got Talent Golden buzzer girl
A: I’ve always been drawn towards the performing arts. I used to be absolutely fascinated by the fact that as an artist, you can transform into anything that you could possibly imagine. It was never part of my artistic plan to become a drag artist. In fact, I discovered drag at the age of thirty-four. Whilst growing up, I started to attend drama classes as a way to explore who I am and as a medium to come out of my shell and build my own confidence. This beautiful journey also led me to an employment in the entertainment industry that later became my full-time job for around ten years. Here, I developed a greater passion than ever in dance, learned more about music, and also honed my creative abilities.
It dawned upon me that I find these skills very empowering, and I feel great and motivated when I am creating and developing something myself. At this point, I felt strong and safe enough and became curious of what I would be able to do if I combined all my various artistic skills together into one project. This is where drag really took flight. I realised that I could overcome challenging periods in my life by using my sense of humour. I realised that through this art I might be able to express myself artistically but also pave the path to others who can relate to my journey.
Drag is an intense art form. You have to be so confident in yourself and come up with a drag persona. You are also expected to learn how to design and sew costumes. On top of making outfits, you are expected to be able to take care of all the other piece of your aesthetics such as styling wigs and do your own make up and nails. This of course comes with an extensive financial burden as you need to by all your make up, shoes and undergarments. Then when it comes to performing you need to have the necessary skills to market yourself and scout for opportunities, create your own routines, jokes and much more. With all this said, I felt that I was able to handle all of this thanks to the support of my partner and close friends.
Q: Do you feel more comfortable in drag rather than out of drag?
A: I do not see any difference in relation to how comfortable I feel in or out of drag. With this being said, I feel a considerate increase in confidence when I am in drag. I feel that this superpower is there all the time, however I tend to be much more reserved when I am out of drag.
Q: You recently had the opportunity to co-host Malta Pride 2022. How was this for you?
A: As a famous quote states: "We are all born naked and the rest is drag", we all perform in drag in one way or another in our lives. I had pervious experiences in hosting events, but to be honest, nothing made me so proud of myself and my community than when I hosted the Pride concert 2022. Firstly, I was absolutely honoured to be entrusted with such a big opportunity by ARC (Allied Rainbow Communities), and secondly, I was overjoyed to be paired up with Eileen Montesin amongst others.
Q: Do you think the Maltese drag culture is evolving? If so, how?
A: I think that the drag culture is evolving on a global level not just locally. Ever since drag was launched on national television stations across the globe, this imposed the need for change and the need for drag artists to up their game. Moreover, it also expanded how the general public understands the core values of drag. Our islands are not new to drag performers. During the war and in the eighties, we had a very strong drag culture. Unfortunately, the drag community was very competitive and for some reason or another the interest and the whole art slightly faded away, leaving very few artists and opportunities.
I believe that the amendments of our legislation together with more awareness and open discussions, our island is leaping forward. This allowed people to be happier, more open to new things and have fun. Drag is art, and like any other good show, it can be enjoyed by anyone not just the LGBTIQ community. In my opinion the drag culture locally is creating a lot of curiosity and the public would like to see what we can do on such a small island.
Q: You were recently in ‘Kwijns’, Malta’s inaugural Christmas drag show. How has been this for you?
A: Kwijns was a mind-blowing learning experience. What made it really special was the team of professionals that worked with us drag artists to help creating the show. This project was directed by Ray Calleja, who is no stranger to the drag art, together with numerous professionals from all sectors. When you plan a drag act such as a lip sync, most of the time it is a solo act, and you have to plan and prepare everything yourself. Kwinjs required so much coordination and rehearsals as it brought five drag artists together in one story.
This very energy consuming production was worth all the time and money invested and the audience feedback was fantastic.
Q: What would you like to say to future drag queens or kings?
A: In my opinion, drag is art and it is also fun. Drag is intimidating sometimes as it is quite demanding and costly especially if you want to create a unique costume and concept from scratch. My secret is research, read and watch videos, take notes, ask questions! Drag is an art that allows you to entertain and express yourself in ways that you never thought of before.
Q: What’s next for Olivia Lilith?
A: Well, Olivia now is heading straight to the live semi-finals on Malta’s Got Talent season 2. This came as a huge surprise after we achieved the golden buzzer during the audition. After a short breather, Olivia is ready to prepare some exciting new surprise for 2023 that will be launched at a later date.
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