Strawberry Fields for a while

The village was completely inaccessible for cars. The roads adjacent to the piazza were all gated off, with two traffic wardens at each blockade. Other roads were congested. I decided to park my car in the outskirts of the next nearby village, and walk to the Strawberry Festival, or, better sounding in Maltese ‘Festa Frawli’.

It was a Sunday, the least sunny week from the first six-day stretch of blue skies and t-shirt weather in Malta. The wind today had picked up, and the sun gazed over a foggy light blue sky. The festival was taking place in the village of Mgarr, which has been acclaimed to produce the best agricultural produce on the island. This idea was reinforced through the vast green stretches of fields that separate Mgarr from other villages. I headed towards the Church’s bell towers, jutting out from the blank walls of apartments.

The pavement was wedged between agricultural land to one side, separated by a low masonry wall, and slow moving traffic to the other. I marked a red Fiat 500 to track my pace to that of the slow moving cars.

A twenty-minute walk later, at a roundabout, I headed towards the gated off exit, while the Fiat 500 turned towards the first exit, presumably looking for parking. The streets behind the gates were also congested. People were walking towards the Church, now straight ahead, framed between the buildings off either side of the road. One could just make out the dashed white road paint through the many people walking in. Vendors sold knick-knacks and trinkets along the road, however, walking further towards the Church, anything consumable was strawberry themed.

Porchetta sandwich with strawberry glaze, strawberry pizza, strawberry pastizzi, strawberry sangria, and strawberry cannoli were the most memorable. People stood outside of the gates of a school. The entire iron gate had various children’s drawings of strawberries stuck to it. A drawing of a man picking red dots off a green line was my favourite one. The artist clarified their work with arrows pointing towards the man, ‘Daddy’, and the dots, ‘Strawbarriez’.

I walked up the small set of wide stairs that led into the piazza. This was a typical Maltese feast in full swing. Two large speakers blasted the fan favourite Concrete Angels, typically played at political rallies. There is a possibility that they used the same playlist, I thought.

More vendors lined the sides of the piazza. The most popular one sold ‘All Strawberry Pastries’, as the red and white hand painted sign indicated. Beautifully decorated pastries, ice-cream cones, bread, buns, bagels, toasts — covered in bright red strawberries, either whole, thinly sliced, squeezed, halved. A sight that induced all around smiles and finger pointing that led to sales. Behind these delicious displays, another scene was being acted out. Staff, all dressed in white with red apron overalls, were preparing the pastries. How fresh the pastries behind the display must have been, and what a short life they must have had. Two large tables divided the workspace. Women were either slicing strawberries, filling halved buns with pink jam or jamming them into a series of plastic cups, chocolate cones, or waffles. Stacked green crates created a wall towards the back. Men carried crates on and off the tables, strawberries piled on the tables. What a beautiful orchestrated scene. I bought a smoothie from one of the women behind a row of blenders and a pastry, and walked towards the boundary wall of the piazza.

I set my pastry on the wall, and gazed out, towards the fields and the distant village I had walked from. Looking down, the tops of gazebos and strawberry filled green crates lined the bottom of the piazza. To the right, tables and chairs had claimed herringbone parking bays. What a beautiful country, I thought, as back-to-back Avicii classics continued to play.

Walking back to the car, I stopped along a side road. Less popular vendors were selling boxes of strawberries. They set up in parking bays, and used the boundary wall of the front gardens of townhouses to stack their strawberries. Older people sat in their front gardens, with their door open, gazing at the busy scene unfolding in this otherwise quiet village.

“I just have one question. What is the use of having unused, non-agricultural land in an Outside Development Zone, if you can’t do anything with it? Genuinely, I do not understand why one cannot build a small villa there?”, the man said, as he picked at strawberries with his wooden fork.

“It’s a fair question”, the other man replied. I stepped in closer to better hear. “You see, ODZ land derives from old policy, which safeguarded these areas on the outskirts of village for food security. I understand the nature of your question, and a recently passed bill will now allow the government to allocate unused agricultural land to farmers”. They walked off. I looked back at the fields again.

I decided to walk to my car. Slow moving traffic seemed to have switched lanes, heading out of the city. I looked out, towards the vast stretch of fields. The closer fields I could tell were worked, some abundant in tall wheat, others in rows of produce.          

The hues of green and brown were interrupted with reflective coloured surfaces of cars, glistening in the overhead sun. Recently laid hay was placed in this field turned car park. Hay bales delineated entry and exit routes. Adjacent to this field, wooden fences and dense prickly pears kept the cars out, and the crops protected. I reached in and picked out a strawberry.