Je teurer das Restaurant, je eher kann es passieren, dass die Ration “rationiert” erschient. Das ist gut für den Wirt. Es kann, muss aber nicht das Resultat von Geschäftstüchtigkeit sein. Neben der angemessenen Quantität steht in der Regel eine dem Preis angemessene Ertwartung an die Qualität. Diese steigt mit dem Standard bzw. Ambiente, beides ist möglicherweise geeignet, die Geschmacksnerven zu sensibilisieren. Wenn nun alles stimmt, d.h. der Rahmen, der Service, und das Essen von der Vorspeise über den Wein bis zum Nachtisch, ja dann zahlen etwas anspruchsvollere Gäste auch gern ein bisschen mehr. – Kann ein Tellergericht, das schon fertig aus der Küche kommt, dem wirklich gerecht werden? Der Faktor Zeit spielt bei der Beantwortung der Frage auf jeden Fall mit. Das gilt für den Wirt wie auch für den Gast. Schön war es doch, als wir alle mehr Zeit hatten, Zeit haben mussten, und noch genießen konnten, weil eben alles passte. Zurück bleibt die Erinnerung, aber auch die wird mit der Zeit verblassen, c’est la vie!

“Die Insel des vorigen Tages” von Umberto Eco ist eines der uns von Kim Ohk gespendeten Bücher. Roberto de La Grive ist im Jahre 1643 in geheimer Mission unterwegs. Er wurde unter Druck gesetzt und soll das Geheimnis des festen Punktes, der die Längengrade bestimmt, enträtseln …

Von Andreas Reiff wurde uns u.a. das Buch “Petersburg” von Schalom Asch gespendet. Hauptfigur dieses Romans ist der junge Scharij Mikin. Er verlobt sich mt der Tochter eines berühmten Advokaten, unterhält aber eine leidenschaftliche Beziehung zu ihrer Mutter…

He was born and grew up deep in the Eifel mountains, by coincidence in the same region as Adenau, the seat of the Maltese-German Association in Germany. His village was Bettingen, a place built after the Great Plague in the fourteenth century, when the few surviving inhabitants of the original village Fränkingen founded this new settlement to escape certain death.

He completed his schooling in the Gymnasium (High School) of Bitburg, served for two years in the German Air Force, and started his career at the German Foreign Office in Bonn in 1976. Of the compulsory three years of training he spent one year of practical introduction in Rabat, Morocco, which showed him for the first time just how different life could be away from home. In Morocco, French was the lingua franca, and till today his linguistic skills comprise German, French, English – and the not forgotten Eifeler Platt – the dialect spoken in his Eifel mountains.

Having passed his exams in 1979, his immediate posting abroad was to Kingston in Jamaica. Who would not love to be in the Caribbean! The colourful life there fascinated our young German gentleman, who also had to visit professionally and regularly The Bahamas and Puerto Rico. He was an active member of the Jamaican-German Society, pursuing similar objectives as our GMC with language courses and social events. However, as much as he was drawn to and enjoyed the carnival, the reggae music, and the everlasting all-year-summer, his term came to an end and he had to move to his next posting in another country.

This happened to be Canada, the Embassy in Ottawa. The contrast of life style could not have been greater. After acquiring suitable clothing like down parkers and moon boots, he discovered the beauty of a snow-covered landscape on long skiing tours. Chuckling, Mr. Domas reminiscently said he liked especially the lunch times at the Embassy. The building was situated adjacent to a canal on which these seriously-looking diplomats used to happily ice skate (for exercise, of course!) practically every lunch hour during the three coldest winter months. Especially interesting during this posting was the handling of bilingualism in Ottawa. The city is situated on the linguistic border with the pleasant result that Anglophone and Francophone people live side by side, mix, and speak usually both languages – a considerable improvement compared to the times when segregating tendencies were strong, especially in Quebec and the language issue was looked upon as a cultural and political problem.

Mr. Domas’ next posting in 1988 was his first as Chancellor, and it took him back into the Caribbean, to Port of Spain on Trinidad. Here he learned (and so did I!) the meaning of the word Bauchladenbotschaft. A Bauchladen according to the dictionary is a hawker’s tray which the seller carries in front of his belly on a leather sling around his neck. Well, they did not exactly sell pineapples and mangoes, but the Embassy had to serve about twelve tiny island states, which meant they had to travel extensively on those small ‘island-hoppers’ – being cute little propeller planes of unidentifiable age. And someone, long ago, coined this expression Bauchladenbotschaft. The Embassy’s every day work was mainly concerned with tourist related matters, also touching on the legal side of the very substantial gas reserves and their exploitation, where German companies were concerned. Knowing Trinidad myself, we got chatting about the “upside down Hilton”, which from the entrance at street level is amazingly built ten floors down along a vertical rock outcrop. Or the pitch lake in the South, where pitch is continuously bubbling into a big pond from the inner earth; and in the surrounding area warm or hot pitch bursts out from the ground between houses and running chickens and stray dogs and cars – and one’s feet. Very eerie!

Following the posting in Trinidad, Mr. Domas spent three years at the Foreign Office in Bonn, where he was attached to the Personnel Department.

Thereafter, in 1996 he was sent to India - to Bombay. Mr. Domas raved about this pulsating city of an estimated population of 16 to 20 Million on an area of approximately twice the size of the Maltese Archipelago. A city, which is alive 24 hours a day; people living at high speed, striving for survival, competing everywhere and with everyone. However, he praised the very many excellent restaurants, the very friendly socialising within the communities and the many ‘green lungs’ – green parks, tree lined avenues, lush flowering vegetation. His duties were again that of a Chancellor, Press Attaché and contact person for economic and trade matters.

Coming directly from Bombay, Mr. Domas together with his wife and daughter arrived in Malta in the year 2000, and was taken by the Mediterranean flair and comparatively easy going way of life. And, though most astonishing, he noted much less traffic and much less hooting by cars than was usual in Bombay! And finally I asked him, what had made him choose Malta (within the few countries offered for re-posting) after Bombay, and the answer came promptly with a broad smile: His middle name is Johannes, like St. John of the Order, and his birthday is on 21st September, falling on Malta’s Independence Day. – Freedom from foreign rulers, a good reason for which to choose a country for a posting!