Culture shock?!

Culture shock is a
condition of confusion and anxiety affecting a person suddenly exposed to an alien culture or milieu (Dictionary.com).

Spending 12 days away from home in a modern European country where English is an official language and whose culture we have heard of and studied will not surely trigger such a shock.

The shock which I experienced was on my exiting of the plane, on my realisation that I am back home. It is not really a culture shock, it is an Environment Shock.

• Every day in Wales, I woke up to the chirping of birds, saw hundreds of them flying around, hunting and nesting (many of these are locally stuffed and displayed and form part of a hunter's pride).
  
• The weather in Wales was hotter than usual according to the locals, but nonetheless, everywhere was green. Back here all is dry and seaminlgy lifeless (though in fact it is not).
  
• I hear people say that we Maltese are the kindest...well than how do you describe the British? They are the first people to start a conversation, with the icebreaker being often the weather. They love our country, for its weather, beer especially Bugibba. In fact, they rarely go much away from there. They are also patient and kind.

I really love Wales and the great outdoors, together with the preservation and conservation of what nature and our forefathers have left us. I admit, I saw signs of degradation, present and past, such as the wide stretches of forest land cleared to accomate grazing fields as well as logging. But still, I felt as if I have spent more than 12 days there. We all did.

I am under culturo-environment shock!

Back from Wales

I have not blogged for two weeks now and the reason was that I was away, away from any PC, away from work, away from Malta...I was in Cymru, or as you know it Wales.

But I am back :-( and I am not too pleased about it. We arrived here in Malta at 01.30. I took today off too, to acclimatise myself and convince myself that I am no more in magical Wales. Yes, magical. Over the coming days, or better, during the coming weekend. I will write my day-to-day diary and post it on this blog. The six of us really enjoyed ourselves, saw and laughed a lot. Just to mention, we travelled some 1,300 miles around Wales in 12 days. I'd do that in around two months here in Malta.

I promise I will keep you informed about all we did in the coming days

Wales on the way!!

The final countdown has begun... in less than four days Baanisuu and me together with four close friends will be off to Wales. All preparations have been done, most of them by my dear Baanisuu who after finishing her A level exams, was kind enough to go through the Lonely Planet and find out all the interesting places around and along our path.

Our camping gear is also all set up, since we will be spending most of the lodging time on campsites. This includes but not exclusively sleeping bags, a rucsac, torches, rain gear, as well as maps, a compass and binoculars. This holiday promises to be a diverse and exiting experience from the start till the end!

Hottest day in May, ever!!!

The Meteorological Office in Luqa, Malta has been keeping weather records for the past 84 years, i.e since 1922. It is the official source of weather data. The record high for May was reached on Tuesday 23 May, 2006, the bulb reading 35.3 degrees Celsius. That is 10 degrees higher than average for the month of May. The previous high was recorded on two days in 1945 (22nd and 23 May) at 34.4 degrees Celsius.

The previous day, Monday, was the warmest May day in 12 years, reaching 33.7 degrees Celsius.

Climate change or freak weather?

A couple of days with freak or extreme temperature cannot be seen as proof of climate change, since climate is a measure of weather over a spread of years such as 15 - 20 years. However, such extremes may be a telling sign. And if scientists tell us that the last few years were among the hottest ever recorded on a global level, then that puts things a little into perspective.

The three warmest years on record have all occurred since 1998; 19 of the warmest 20 since 1980 (http://www.newscientist.com/popuparticle.ns?id=in20)

Who to you beleive, scientists and experts who practically live in the field, or politicians who see only a nose-length away?

Maltese perceptions on the environment.

This is a more suitable title for the articlu presented in the Sunday Times of 14 - 05- 2006. The title misleadingly states: Maltese barely care for the environment. Although I do not much doubt the heading, the study was based on perception, i.e. the sociologist Mario Vassallo asked: "What do you think the Maltese do/feel/care ...?", not "What do you do/feel/care...?"

Nonetheless, the findings are quite worrying, though not much suprising. In my opinion, I would follow this study with another one asking "What do you ...?" questions, to compare action with perception.

In my opinion, these are the saddest results of the survey:

• 64.7% say their fellow Mlatese care only a little for the environment;
• only 5.3% agree that they are very satisfied with the level of care of the environment demonstrated by fellow Maltese;
• only 16.7% think that the Maltese in general feel it is very important to economise on energy use; 56.3% think that they are somewhat concerned;
• only 21.3% would buy more expensive environmentally friendly products while 61.3% would go for the cheaper option;
• 41.9% of the 26-35 age group stated, without prompting, that public transport is very bad.

The survey highlights the difference in care for the environment between the different socio-economic groups. T he most sensitive people are those in the higher group level; the opposite is true for the least senstive people. In my opinion, this is directly linked to different levels of education, awareness and the "i don't care" syndrome which unfortunately many people suffer of.

True, I may be a little pessimistic, but if the picture is bad, there is no need to make it look good.
The facts are out there and up to a certain point, there is no need for hard scientific evidence. You just need to walk around, go to the beach, go to Valletta, go to Paceville, go to a construction site to simply notice the lack of respect which many people have to the environment. A real shame. And then we complain about asthma, littering, huge 'eys sore' landfills and a million other lack-of-environmental-concern-related impacts.

These are the conclusions of the survey, which I will leave to you to think about:
...it can be farily stated that care for the environment is not dormant in Malta, and among certain categories in society, it is quite strong. So are the measures that can be adopted to ensure that this care is tranlated in practice. But the understanding and implemention is not easy across Maltese society. In some respects a cultural change would be required to modify tradional habist and ways of doing things.
....many are not prepared to pay money to save energy or to discomfort themselves to facilitate wate disposal. Time and education can bring about the required change, but it seems that the process is bound to be both long and painful.