Santa Marija: The Convoy That Came to Save Malta
by Tanja Cilia
For most Maltese people, August 15 means ‘Santa Marija’ [The Assumption]... festas, band marches, fireworks, village rivalry, family breakfasts that somehow stretch into dinner, and the annual ritual of escaping to Gozo, or finding a patch of sea where the rest of Malta has not yet arrived.
It means businesses closing their doors in the middle of August, and an island collectively deciding that, for one day at least, work can wait. It is one of the red-letter days in the Maltese calendar.
But August 15 also carries another meaning, one that is impossible to separate from the history of modern Malta.
