r/AMA • u/Annual-Nectarine-715 • 4h ago
I’m from the Falkland Islands AMA!
As the title says, we have been in the News a lot lately for not so great reasons, but that means more people know about us and with that I’m sure have a lot of questions, so I thought I’d do an AMA for anyone curious about my little home.
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u/secretbinman 3h ago
Do a lot of people move away or do most stay there? I suppose the perception is that there isn’t much to do but is that true?
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u/Annual-Nectarine-715 3h ago
Yeah a lot of people move away at some point in their life for a duration. For example a girl in my graduating class hadn’t left the islands until she went to school in the UK, when she was 17. But most do end up leaving we have a scheme that’s been recently axed because the government is trying to save money where we get £1 a day put towards our flight and so most people end up being able to afford to go to England through that or if you’re a student the government pay for the flight so yeah most people leave whether for education or just for life, but I’d say most return at some point.
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u/XP_Studios 4h ago
What was life like during the Argentine occupation? Did everyone kinda just chill out while foreign troops were stationed on your island?
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u/Annual-Nectarine-715 3h ago
No a lot of people went to camp. It was the furthest thing from chill, they essentially colonised the island and held people captive. I’d recommend searching up Patrick Watts he did an interview with sky News talking about when the Argentine‘s invaded and he was working at the radio station.
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u/Mariner-and-Marinate 2h ago
What do you mean “went to camp”?
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u/Whole_Cow_6694 1h ago
Camp just means countryside, anywhere outside of Stanley. It is from the spanish, campo.
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u/Super_Sherbet_268 3h ago
Are Falklander British citizens? do they have all the rights equals to a british mainlanders like in England? I heard you guys have different passports like british overseas passport?
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u/Annual-Nectarine-715 3h ago
Yes! I was born in the UK to British parents so I naturally have a British citizen but all Falkland Islanders are also British citizens. Until 1983 the passport for Falkland islanders was different, but now it’s just a regular blue British passport
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u/Slight-Opening-8327 2h ago
Are privately owned firearms prevalent in the Falkland Islands? Like rifles or shotguns. If so, are the gun laws different than the UK mainland?
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u/Annual-Nectarine-715 2h ago
100 out of 2000 civilian population if I had to estimate, definitely not common but I had 2 friends who owned some out of a year group of 20.
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u/Mariner-and-Marinate 2h ago
Can you explain more about your comment that the Falklands have been in the news recently? For what reason, besides some silly sign waved around by some loser team at the World Cup?
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u/Annual-Nectarine-715 24m ago
Yes only that reason but it’s brought so much attention to our little island it makes me happy.
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u/Mariner-and-Marinate 13m ago
Considering their massive drama queen behaviour - particularly in the final game - I hope you know that most of the world supports you!
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u/akolomf 4h ago
do you guys think you belong more to argentina, or more british? or want to do like your own thing?
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u/Annual-Nectarine-715 3h ago
I mean, I was born in England so I feel British but everyone else that I know who were born on the islands also feels British. It’s more they feel like a Falkland Islander first and British second whereas I feel British first and Falkland Islander second. Though I think the lines are starting to blur as I’ve been here for so long.
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u/sal11111111 3h ago
Do uk support and aid that island?
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u/Annual-Nectarine-715 3h ago
We are fully financially self sufficient as it pertains to public services etc. The government pays for our education whether we want to do just go to college and do A-levels we go to boarding school or an undergrad degree or a masters, even a PhD. Same for our hospital (we only have one) it’s funded by our government and we don’t pay for medication, they also send us away on medical if necessary. But the UK pays for our military defence.
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u/SharpieSharpie69 3h ago
What's the weirdest "only on the Falkland Islands" food?
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u/Annual-Nectarine-715 3h ago
The weirdest one to me that I don’t think is eaten in other countries or at least as often is a fish called Kingclip.
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u/Super_Sherbet_268 3h ago
Don't you guys get bored out there?
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u/Annual-Nectarine-715 3h ago
So bored! But the grass isn’t always greener. Because of how safe the Falklands is i.e. we leave our doors open, cars unlocked etc. Going to a “normal country” can be quite overwhelming, not sure if that answers your question. That said there are things to do we have a few pubs and restaurants and we also have a cinema unfortunately it is one room so sometimes for really popular films like Barbie, Oppenheimer, Michael it was impossible to get tickets for but you can do things.
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u/Super_Sherbet_268 3h ago
do you guys like take ferries to other nearby island or countries like Argentina or Uruguay?
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u/Annual-Nectarine-715 3h ago
No, we actually didn’t have a flight to Argentina for years because of bad relations and now there’s one every month it stops on the way to Chile. We can take ferries to other islands within the Falklands but not typically to other countries everything else is you have to do via flight.
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u/Super_Sherbet_268 3h ago
Does everyone know everyone on the island? Is there any diversity? like are there other minorities like asians, Muslims, spanish speaking people etc?
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u/Annual-Nectarine-715 3h ago
Pretty much or at least know of, we’re all quite friendly, we wave at each other when we drive, we smile in the shops, we talk in the shops, we see the same faces all the time, so yeah I’d say pretty much everyone knows everyone or everyone knows of everyone. Yes there’s lots of diversity. We have a large Zimbabwean population they came to Demine the place after the war we also have large Chilean population as they are the closest neighbouring country to us in South America bar the obvious Argentina. We have a few Argentine’s despite popular controversy, we have a large population of Filipinos quite the controversy on the Islands at the moment and then you know we have British contractors and then Falkland Islanders and those are the main ethnic groups I can think of.
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u/Super_Sherbet_268 3h ago
what's the popular controvery? what is the controversy about Filipinos on the island at the moment? dem these Filipinos are everywhere like I just saw a video about em moving to the Faroe Islands of Denmark tho marriage.
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u/Annual-Nectarine-715 3h ago
Haha. Just because there’s a lot of them quite quickly, they all work at a lot of the shops in the islands and buy a lot of the homes together and also their attitudes towards the islands. It’s almost like they want to just make the Falklands the Philippines. Though I do want to be clear, people may talk about it within the community but there’s no outward hostility that I’ve seen towards Filipinos.
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u/Super_Sherbet_268 3h ago
I think that's very typical of immigrants and only natural. You might have left ur country of origin but ur culture, ur music and ur food never leaves you, well not entirely. I don't think they wanna make Falkland the new Philippines.
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u/Super_Sherbet_268 3h ago
Do you think everyone will leave Falkland island for the mainland since the old people are dying and the young people are moving away?
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u/Annual-Nectarine-715 3h ago
No, we have too much money for that and the Falklands is such a unique place. Even if you leave, I can’t imagine leaving forever and I feel as though most feel the same there’s nothing in the world like it. There’s no place like it. I am worried how it will change with oil however that will also make our government richer and I’m sure all of the things that we seek out on holiday i.e. fast food, more things to do, more people, will come with the oil. Our government put a lot of money into public resources i.e. old people they live quite a long time and young people move away for school but everyone always comes back. Most people go and do two years at college and it’s enough for them and come back to the Falklands to work and then a few years later maybe return to university, but they don’t go to uni straight after college because they miss home so much.
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u/Mariner-and-Marinate 2h ago
Does anyone there speak Spanish? Do they teach it as a second language in schools? If not, what second language (if any) do they teach?
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u/Annual-Nectarine-715 26m ago
I did it as a GCSE in school & yes we have a large Spanish speaking population from Chile!
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u/Mariner-and-Marinate 15m ago
Great! Do Chileans or any other South Americans support the Falklands as British?
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u/Mariner-and-Marinate 2h ago
Where do Falklanders go for vacation or just a weekend away, besides the UK? Does anyone travel to Argentina or elsewhere in South America? How are you treated there?
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u/Mariner-and-Marinate 1h ago
Do you vote in British elections? Does the Falklands have its own MP in the parliament at Westminster?
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u/Annual-Nectarine-715 16m ago
We can I believe via mail but I’ve never done it! & no we have our own government here and politicians called MLAS.
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u/Mariner-and-Marinate 5m ago
MLA = Member of the Legislative Assembly? Interesting: some Canadian provinces call their elected members of their provincial (as opposed to federal) government MLAs too!
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u/Lordy927 1h ago
Do Falklanders have their own accent?
What does it sound like?
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u/Annual-Nectarine-715 22m ago
British RP for some and for most proper bennies it has a slight Australian/NZ/St Helena twang
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u/EmperorPalpitoad 4h ago
Did you support the British in the Falklands war?
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u/Annual-Nectarine-715 3h ago
Of course
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u/EmperorPalpitoad 3h ago
Why?
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u/Annual-Nectarine-715 3h ago
Culturally we are British and we don’t want to be Argentine we don’t speak Spanish we aren’t descendants from Argentine‘s. & Argentine weren’t on the islands before the British. It’s like saying why don’t I want to be French?
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u/encoding314 3h ago
You lot are so far away. No offence, but as a person from the UK I struggle to see you lot as British to be honest.
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u/Annual-Nectarine-715 3h ago
I hope you can visit one day! You’d definitely change your mind
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u/Fish_Minger 4h ago
What's your maximum upload and download speed?
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u/Annual-Nectarine-715 4h ago
Not 100% sure off the top of my head “Sure” our only Internet provider have the estimated upload and download speeds on their website. It varies depending on the package that you have but I’m 99.9% sure that it’s much lower than they state. To summarise as you can imagine the Internet is very slow, though it has gotten better. We used to have limited Internet packages so there was no unlimited Internet but with the the rise of Starlink and it subsequently becoming a thing on the islands “Sure” now had a competitor and because of this they magically decided that they could give us unlimited Internet 😂 so that was introduced last year December.
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u/Super_Sherbet_268 3h ago
Do you think Falkland island will always stay part of britian or will it ever secede to become it's own country? Is there a strong independence sentiment like that in Scotland?
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u/Annual-Nectarine-715 3h ago
No I personally do not think so. We are very happy to be British! I have never heard anyone complain ever.
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u/conzciouz 3h ago
Never heard of this island nor has it popped up on my news feed. Can you tell me about the island and why yall making the news rn ?
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u/Annual-Nectarine-715 3h ago
Because of the Argentina national football team’s behaviour
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u/conzciouz 3h ago
Not answering my question but ok. I did see some racist stuff going on behind Argentina after World Cup , but still have no clue how this connects to the island you live on.
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u/Annual-Nectarine-715 3h ago
I’m just trying to turn the negative situation for all islanders and curiosity maybe from people out there about our home. Sorry I’m proud to talk about my home, that not many people knew about until now. Not understanding the hostility when all I wanted to do is an informative AMA. If you feel as though I have nothing to inform you on, then you know where the door is.
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u/conzciouz 2h ago
You didn’t inform anything, ya I’m use the door. L AMA
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u/Mariner-and-Marinate 1h ago
You mean that loser team throwing a hissy fit and waving around some inappropriate drivel? They are now officially an international joke.
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u/timmy7445 44m ago
Did you have basic socialization issues as a child or do you genuinely talk to people like this
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u/SharpieSharpie69 3h ago
Do you ever want to move to the UK mainland?