5. Birthday Bonanza

After a hungover birthday last year, 31 January 2012 was a slightly more sedate affair. As you might expect in a country where alcohol is banned. I say ‘slightly’, because the morning was just a wee bit hectic. For a start, my standard 6am alarm did not go off. Nor did the back-up at 6.10am. Nor did the absolute last resort at 6.20am – which is when I normally get up, have a quick shower, dress for the day and take a leisurely stroll to school for the quarter to seven start.

 Instead, my glorious birthday lie-in was rudely interrupted at 6.35am, with a loud knock on my door. I turned over, glanced at my watch, and almost jumped through the mosquito net. “Is school over did I miss it what time is it?” were the garbled questions I shouted, throwing open the door to Mrs Z’s daughter, who was ready for the day in her spotless white Ihavandhoo Madrasa uniform, carrying her schoolbooks, ready to start walking. By contrast, I sported a smelly football top, one sock, and my only pair of smart trousers, hurriedly pulled on for common modesty. My ‘alternative’ outfit and wild bed-hair questions shocked her a little, and I don’t think she understood my panicked queries. I slammed the door, and went big on condensed preparation, even ignoring the latest victim to foolishly enter my Den of Cockroach Death. Be assured he has since been dispatched to Cockroach Heaven. (Stoke on Trent).

Five minutes later I emerged, not quite a new man, wearing Monday’s un-ironed clothes, lacking a belt, with one trouser leg tucked into the sock - just to complete the “overslept” theme with a nice accessible cliche. “Late late,” parroted several groups of kids as I hurried past them, following up with the more usual greeting: “Arrrry Potter”. And, for one day only, an afterthought: “Happy Birthday”. 

I panicked when I thought my shirt was inside-out. There’s just no return from such ignominy on this kilometre-squared patch of sand. I’d have to leave Ihavandhoo forever, start a new life in Gan Atoll, and hope the gossip doesn’t follow me. Fortunately my concern was groundless – or possibly part of a dream interrupted just six minutes earlier – and I arrived in the school office ready to sign in at 6.45 on the dot. One minute later could have lost me half a day’s wages.

 

But survived the day, and even got a present from my Grade 8 star pupil, Sana. He’s a very bright kid, who was studying at a madrasa in Male’ for the past five years, passed his exams, and is now back on his home island getting a bit frustrated by classes that he completed several years ago. His English is excellent, he’s fluent in Arabic, and he dreams of becoming either an imam or an international footballer. Standard combination! He’s invited me to take a Saturday fishing trip with his father and cousins, which I hope can be arranged sometime soon. From his family I received a pack of notebooks, a hamper of fresh vegetables, and even a bar of British chocolate – an incredibly generous gesture, because the average temperature means that imported chocolates – Galaxy, Cadbury, Snickers, etc. – have to be kept in a fridge from source, and they cost an absolute bomb. Standard confectionary has a slightly different recipe, so it doesn’t melt so easily, but carries a taste and texture you can also experience from an advent calendar.

Last week was lots of fun! Everything fell into place very nicely, meaning nine days between 20-28^th January ran as follows: weekend, weekend, work, work, holiday, work, P.D. day, weekend, weekend. The holiday was National Day, commemorating the defeat of Portuguese colonists hundreds of years ago, and celebrated with an exorbitant number of bunting and flags. We had to get up at 5.30am, and gathered at the Ihavandhoo Council offices for a flag-raising ceremony at dawn, before patiently waiting as local bigwigs struggled to get the national anthem booming across the island. It’s a very nice, melodic tune – far better than the British funeral dirge – but it goes on forever, and reminds me of a theme tune to a childrens’ TV programme, so it’s a bit disconcerting to see hand-on-heart patriotism.

After the two-minute ceremony and ten-minute anthem… gallons of chocolate milkshake cartons were distributed! Of course it was. Naturally. Free chocolate milkshake for all, recalling the victory celebrations of Mohamed Thakurufaanu when he vanquished Cristiano Ronaldo and Raul Meireles all those years ago! (Also we were given artificial-strawberry wafer biscuits. A national homage to E-numbers?) From then it was a standard day-off for Maldivians – have a nap, sit in a jolli, play some volley. I went home and slept until 11am, and enjoyed doing nothing more than read some rubbish detective novel in the sun! (I found some tatty English books in the school library - Ian Rankin, Stieg Larsson, and Bill Clinton's autobiography).

Thursday 26^th was PD Day 1. There are two more in the year. They are very, very long. I was asked to present for 90 minutes on phonemes and pronunciation at 5pm, and spent most of the day wondering how to bulk out a pitiful slideshow to last that long. Especially after my USB stick reformatted itself the day before, and I was left with the skeleton of a presentation. But with the judicious application of humour, waffle, and activity sheets, myself and Sobah kept some tired teachers occupied for one hour, which I am counting as a qualified success. However, if I am asked to present at the next PD Day it will have been too successful. I’m hoping I struck the right balance between fulfilling the remit, but not being forever revered as an enlightened teaching guru.  

School days are disappearing quite quickly now. In fact, I’ve been in the Maldives for 35 days, which is over 10% of the total contract already completed! Weird! I’m now teaching an average of three hours a day, between 7am and midday, although there are rumours that school might reduce my teaching hours and ask me to focus on giving top-notch lessons to just a few higher grade classes. I’m hoping this is true, as it essentially means losing both Grade 8 classes, and gaining just one Grade 10 set. The payoff is concentrating my extra time and attention on Grade 10, and preparing a variety of extra-curricular sessions, but I think I’d really enjoy that extra involvement with them, as I’ve spoken with several and they’re all really nice, intelligent kids. The top set have their GCSEs coming up in October, and are apparently a bit of a flagship group, so the school has high hopes of a 100% pass rate. I’ll take custody of that pressure when the next version of the timetable has been written - set to be the fourth revision since term started on 8^th January. Eventually a happy conclusion will be reached where teachers don’t get double-booked, but it’s trial and error to reach those halcyon days. (Incidentally, it’s not confirmed that I’m teaching Grade 10. Just that I’ll ‘probably’ be assigned them from next week, and I’ll find out for sure when I get the new timetable on Saturday – to start teaching on Sunday).

Incidentally, a few nights ago I dreamt that it was my wedding day. It was a very vivid dream, and I remember feeling quite panicked that I hadn’t organised a venue or invited any guests - even though the ceremony was due to start within a few hours. I realise that if I ever have this dream again and the scenario no longer panics me (or my subconscious) I will have adopted a truly Maldivian mindset. (This is also a message to the future - don't give me the responsibility dear).

For now, though, it’s back to the very exciting present and fast forward through the next few weeks in February. There’s a planned weekend excursion to a resort in three weeks, courtesy of Mr Chris and Mr Chris on Dhidhoo, and then the March half-term is on us in no time. (Six weeks from now to be exact). I’m hoping to save my pennies and take a whirlwind trip to Sri Lanka. Flights are £110 return, so I’ll be off in pursuit of elephants, tigers, and a beer with the touring England cricket team! Fingers crossed that I can at least escape lesson plans for that one week.

Peace.                                                                  

4. Manta del Ray

It's hot, and it's getting hotter. I normally handle the heat quite well, and have dutifully downed several litres of bottled water each day, but the midday sun was pushing 37 degrees on Friday. And that's really at the limit of bearable temperature for any human. As we head towards February and March, the hottest time of year in this patch of the Arabic Sea / Indian Ocean, I think 35-37 degrees will become the norm. Fortunately the intensity of that heat is confined to 10am to 3pm, and I tend to stay indoors in those hours, enjoying the cooling whirr of surprisingly effective ceiling fans. Even in Professional Teacher Garb - smart trousers, polished shoes, long shirt, fashionable tie - room temperature is quite comfortable. 

Swimming is a far better way to escape the heat. The sea around Ihavandhoo is a beautiful cyan colour, and closer in temperature to a swimming pool than the bitterly cold Atlantic. (Also it's transparent and has pretty fish - so all in all an improvement on the Atlantic). My weekend was basically spent making the most of that fact. On Saturday I took an early morning boatride to a coral reef about 2km from Ihavandhoo, with Tamehiro - a Japanese volunteer teaching P.E. - and one of his visiting friends. Those two went hunting fish and octupus/octupi, whilst I swam, dived, chased fish, and watched a school of dolphins splashing around a few hundred metres away. The ten-year-old girl in me hoped that they were come and play with us, but I it didn't happen. Damn dolphins! (They did do some tricks around the boat as we chugged back home, so I can't stay too mad). But this swimming was a real highlight of my time so far. In particular, it was great to see a octopus, and a huge crab, and the beautiful live coral under just a metre of water in places. It's a very strange feeling to simply stand up in the middle of the ocean. I was also a bit surprised (read: absolutely bloody terrified) when a gigantic manta ray casually glided by. Tamehiro was hunting for several hours and brought home a big haul, as did the two boys who had taken us out to the reef. Although it wasn't too easy to see them unceremoniously butcher their fish without actually killing them first. Old romantic that I am.

Not  spent much time on the beach yet, because: a) I have no books to read after breaking my Kindle; b) busy busy busy; c) many islanders use the beach as a convenient rubbish dump. Areas close to pathways are littered with rusty cans, plastic packaging, fish bones, and discarded rice. My best option for relaxing is to settle one of the unspoilt and secluded corners. (And I've already discussed with Merlin and Andrew the viability of having barbecues on the beach.) Then again, Ihavandhoo isn't really big enough to have many secluded corners. Walking the entire 3km island circumference is an extremely quick process. The curve is quite perceptible. It does make me wonder why there are quite so many mopeds and motor vehicles, given no place is never EVER more than 800m away. Although the two extremities are the football pitch and the medical clinic, and I can imagine that broken feet and cuts are quite common. The boys play barefoot, with surprising skill and genuine ferocity. I might end up appreciating the need for that island ambulance after all.

This post has been written in the staff room. Possibly outside the "terms of acceptable internet use", but I've done my lesson plans and preparation, and Sunday is my lightest day in terms of workload. I finish teaching my second class at 8.40, and then don't resume teaching until the final session commencing 11.50. So not an awful lot to do in the interim, and I decided to fill in the gaps left in Thursday's post.

This afternoon I do have stuff to do though. Firstly, shopping for some fresh fruit and vegetables. I've been living on noodles, rice, curry for several days now, and feeling the effects of extremely serious malnutrition. Not a word of hyperbole. A nice vegetable stew will do wonders - washed down with Coca Cola and biscuits of course. Secondly, there's a presentation to arrange. It's a PD Day on Thursday, but gone are the days when this was code for a free day off. Who knew teachers were actually working on those glorious termly interludes?!
Instead, I have to create a one-hour talk/slideshow combo and present it to the staff body. For this, I've been paired with a very nice man called Sobah. He teaches Accounting, and speaks fluent English, especially since he spent four years studying in Malaysia. He also became a father ten days ago, and I've already met and held his tiny baby son. There was a steady flow of relatives coming to the house to greet the new member, so I felt honoured to be invited along! But understandably, Sobah is rather busy right now, and I offered to compile most of the presentation.
The SMT have now decided that this is to be on "pronunciation, phonemes and dipthongs". Three days ago I only knew what one of these words meant. Now I'm selling the idea that English isn't a stupid language simply because the combination of "ea" can be pronounced in so many ways: steak, head, bead, sergeant, cereal, fear. I'm sold. English is a damn stupid language. Dhivehi - the Maldivian script - makes lots more sense. They have the consonants, and they the vowel sounds are stressed exclusively by accents above or below the consonant. Much easier.
Anyway, it's now 11.43, and I'm preparing to face 8A for the coming half-hour. It's just a simple interactive activity with prolonged class participation. What could possibly go wrong...?

3. Ihavandhoo - Have you?

Busy busy busy busy. Did I mention I was busy? I’ve been intending to write this for a week, but have literally just got the time today. To be fair, a fortnightly blog would be a decent output over the course of a year, but so much has happened in the intervening period that this post could take some time.

Firstly, Andrew and I arrived in Ihavandhoo on Monday 9^th Jan. This was just a few days behind schedule, which I’ve learnt is actually quite good going in the Maldives. The journey from Male’ is normally some trek – we’re talking a $20 and 15-hour boat ride – but on this occasion we were travelling in style! So it was a flight by a little turboprop plane (for $80) up to the regional airport on the island Hanimadhoo. This took around 45 minutes, surrounded by rich tourists on their connecting flight, who looked rather annoyed when I shoved ten toilet rolls into the overhead locker. Ignoring the Rolex-and-cologne brigade wasn’t too difficult though, because the flight was just stunning, in the midday sun, without a cloud in the sky, looking down at the tiny islands and neon blue lagoons.

Our transfer from the airport was, if anything, even more impressive. We were met at a beautiful jetty in Hanimadhoo by a speedboat taxi, which combined a lightweight plastic body and an ominous YAMAHA 3000 motor to skim over to my new home at 50mph. I lounged in the back, casually sported my “Genuine Ray Bun” shades (only $6 in Male’ - bargain), and watched the occasional flying fish glide across the water. It was OK.

Bizarrely, it started raining as we arrived in Ihavandhoo harbour. I hoped this was not some omen, but then remembered I’m not stupid enough to believe there’s any form of established link between the weather and doom-laden prophecies, so I put it down to coincidence. Maybe after some freak thunder and lightning…

We met the principal to receive our timetables, and then had our belongings transported to the two rooms that the school had acquired for us. Surprisingly, we are living separately, as the island is currently undergoing some substantial construction work to protect it from erosion, and most available houses have been snapped up by the construction firm to provide lodgings for their workers. So I’m living with Mrs Z, her mother, brother, and three children. The family has provided me with a big airy room, painted in various pastel shades, with a little ensuite. The only clue that I may have shunted someone out of their bedroom is the big HELLO KITTY sticker that covers my wardrobe door. But apparently these living arrangements are temporary – Andrew’s host family are moving to Male’ in March and they’re tendering to rent out their entire house. Still, I wouldn’t be too upset if I was living with Mrs Z for the year. They’re lovely, helpful, and provide me with a curry and roshi breakfast every morning! The only reasons I’m tempted to move in a few months is: a) the extra privacy; b) a kitchen where I can make pots of bland, tasteless evening meals, without the obligation to accept handfuls of chili thrown in. 

I started teaching on Tuesday 10^th January. School days run from Sunday to Thursday, as Friday is the Muslim holy day, so it was quite a short week! I’ve been handed two English classes in Grade 11 (they have 2.5 hours each per week), and two classes in Grade 8 (they have 4 hours each per week), so I’m technically teaching for just 13 hours a week. However, the marking and preparation is quite substantial, and I’ve seen the rather mystifying sheet on the noticeboard that says I am “in charge” of the English extra-curricular club. I’m not sure what that entails just yet, but I’m sure it will take a few hours of my time! There’s also the need to run extra sessions for the kids in 8A who actually want to learn anything. There are 24 boys in that class, and half of them, if I’m being charitable, “could do better”. The sad thing is they massively disrupt the lessons to the extent that I can hardly teach the other half, so I’ve realized that doing most of the speaking and feedback will have to happen in free time. I’ve also realized I’ve become every teacher I’ve ever known: “you’re wasting your own time”, “I don’t have to be here”, “Can we settle down and get this done PLEASE?!” What has happened to me?

Fortunately most of the other grades are quite friendly, and I’m enjoying the teaching, although it’s quite frustrating to have so many kids who really don’t want to be in school at all. Some are telling me, in slightly less fluent language, that their life was always on a trajectory to the fishing boat (or the hearth), and school is simply a waste of time until they can go out and earn money! Good money too, judging by some of the expensive boats in the harbor. Money and globalization is just starting to seep into the island – it obtained electricity in 2008, and now most of the homes have a little television, and occasionally a laptop. Major Hollywood blockbusters have also made it, judging by the number of shouts of “Harry Potter” directed at me when I arrived on the first day wearing glasses. This has been (quite unsuccessfully) tackled by wearing contact lenses ever since. Apparently white skin and dark hair is enough.

I’ve settled in to the school community relatively well, and getting to know many teachers of both Maldivian and Indian extraction. The other English teachers are all expats from the Southern India regions of either Kerala or Tamil Nadu, including Mr Joy, Mrs Celine, and the Magnificent Merlin Mento. He’s 29, from Tamil Nadu, and speaks excellent English. Most evenings I go over to their compound to cook, chat or watch TV with them, and we normally wander down to the harbor in the evenings to meet a few others. This is a mix of those on the fringe of Ihavandhoo society, such as one of Merlin's friends called Karupu, who is employed on the constructions. He has been working 12 hour days, 6 days a week, for 2500 Rufiyaa a month – approximately 105 quid. So it's quite a tough existence. He hasn’t seen his family for three and a half years, but his leave time is coming up in March/April, and he’s looking forward to going home. It makes my ten months – and significantly higher allowance – seem like a relative breeze... 

Especially given the benefits of weekends in the Maldives! School starts at 7am and finishes at 12.20am, so it really seems like two and a half days off every week. Which is just fantastic, because there is so much relaxing that can be squeezed into that time. In fact it’s 14.15 on Thursday right now – so I have a brilliant few days stretching far ahead of me. The plan is to get up for cricket with the Indian teachers and Pakistani principal at 6am tomorrow, have a kickabout with some of my Grade 11 guys at 9am, and go hunting fish afterwards with two Grade 8 boys. Last weekend I swam out to the live coral reef with Merlin, and snorkeled amongst a multi-coloured mass of tropical fish. The highlight, however, was following an unperturbed sea turtle as it meandered around the reef.  Hopefully there will be opportunity to do that again on Saturday – or maybe I’ll raise the stakes and seek out a shark!

It’s not all a wonderful and untroubled paradise. In fact, when I made an abortive attempt to start this blog last week I had one incident which would have made everything sound quite bitter. It involved a man trying to trick me into giving his family six hours of tuition for one quarter the standard price. It seems quite funny and irrelevant on reflection, but mainly because I managed to wriggle out of any reduced commitment I made there. I don’t actually want to charge anything for the help and classes I’m running – I was just angered by a very blatant and manipulative attempt to take advantage of a newcomer to island life and culture. A better anecdote, however, is that I had to beat two massive cockroaches to death with a water bottle last Tuesday. They were two-inches long, scuttling and flying around my room, and one landed on my shoulder. Absolutely disgusting.  Also I was being bitten to death by mosquitos – until I realized that the gap in one corner of my net was merely creating a trap and keeping them in a free buffet (thanks Niall).

 But I’m in a good mood today – it’s hot, sunny, the start of a long relaxing weekend, and next week has both a P.D. day and a national holiday, and a potential visit to a resort to celebrate my upcoming 22^nd birthday! So I’ll leave on a happy and slightly smug final note…

Enjoy work tomorrow everyone! ;)

P.S. I wrote much of this whilst watching a ‘made for TV movie’ called Sharktopus. If anyone wants to be incredibly amused for an hour or two…

2. Male' and Me

Happy New Year!


I’ve had an incredibly hectic first week. Or at least, it feels like I’ve had an incredibly hectic week, because I’ve just done a quick summary of the past seven days and realised that four were spent on the beach. Pah. So I arrived in the Maldives on Weds 27^th. It was an eleven hour flight with six of the other teachers; our boredom barely punctuated by The Smurfs Movie and stale croissants. Remind me to fly Emirates on the homebound trip. Admittedly, some light relief was provided by the dawn breaking over a glittering Indian Ocean dotted with lagoons and tiny desert islands, but by now that just seems standard. (I promised a blog, but nowhere did I say it wouldn’t be smug). The landing is an odd experience, because the airport – built on its own island with a runway that juts into the sea – is nowhere to be seen until the plane is gliding at about ten metres above the ground. It’s like the pilot has given up and decided to practice his water landings.

We were met in the hot and humid airport by some guys from the national volunteer corps, and shepherded onto a squat little passenger boat called a dhoni, which cost a dollar to shuttle us over to the capital city of Male’. (Just to be clear, this is pronounced Mar-lay, hence the apparently misplaced apostrophe and supremely witty post title – all credit to Phil Makepeace – who is getting quite good at thinking up titles for stuff). Our main contact in Male’ is Razzan, a twenty year old international cricketer and general superstar, volunteering in the off season because he’s just charming and lovely. (Anything else Raz?) He spent this week arranging our hotels, visas, meals, phone setups, excursions, meetings with officialdom, and negotiating currency exchanges. And with a group of twenty-four sunburnt and grumpy Britishers to deal with, I’d say he did a sterling job. 

So for the last week I’ve been quartered in Villingili View Inn, a budget hotel at the far end of the Majeedhee Magu – by some distance this is the longest tarmac road in the entire country. Sadly, most of the other teachers are at the other end, so every day seven of us were trekking the 1.7km down for food and fun. Until we realised that a cab can be procured for a grand sum of 20 Rufiyaa – or about 30p each – and this also means we avoid exposure to the maelstrom of mopeds which slalom around pedestrians as though it were a sport. If you waited at a crossing you’d still be there four hours later, so the best tactic seems to be stepping out with purpose and hoping the squeal of brakes comes sooner rather than later. Male’ is a buzzing, hectic and relatively poor city – by some estimates the most crowded square kilometre on earth – but it seems safe to walk around, and the people are very friendly! Shopowners seem to have taken a collective decision to give their business a bizarre name and stock equally ridiculous imports – particular favourites include the ARS Liquid mosquito repellent and the Arms Trade toyshop.

Male’ is a city that operates best at night. The heat and humidity at midday is stifling, so places close down in late morning and then reopen for a separate afternoon (3-6pm) and evening (8-11pm) shift. Fortunately beaches never close – so most downtime is spent on the sand, in the shade, and chatting with the lovely volunteers. There are twenty-four of us, aged between 21 and 36, with roughly half in possession of the hallowed PGCE. On the second day we went snorkelling at a beach a few kilometres from Male’, with stunning tropical fish of all colours imaginable. It was like having access to the aquarium at Sea World, a real-life version of Finding Nemo. The bonus was the edge of the coral reef, which doesn’t just taper away, but suddenly stops about 400 metres from the shore. So one minute the reef was two metres beneath me, and then suddenly I was just floating in the vast Indian Ocean next to a reef that just dropped off into infinity. It was kind of exhilarating but terrifying. Sadly, I underestimated the effect of the sun on my exposed back, so got some pretty nasty sunburn, but that’s cleared up quickly enough, and I’ve learnt to double slop for the Equator!

New Year was fun but understated – think school disco but with less alcohol. Everyone was very aware of a 5am start, with a long boat ride organised to take us to Dhiffushi, an inhabited island in North Male’ atoll. (To grasp how this works geographically, check out the Maldives on a map. The coral atolls are made by sediments that grew up in rings around submerged volcanoes – with the numerous islands being natural high points on these coral reefs. Now the atolls have outlived the volcanoes, and the Maldives is literally comprised of about 12 individual atoll rings). Dhiffushi was only 22 miles from the capital, but it took three hours. I now realise that Ihavandhoo, 300 miles away, is only going to be reached by plane. But on the boat trip we did have the opportunity to enjoy dolphins and stunning deserted islands, so it’s not all bad.

Each teaching pair was given lodgings with a host family for the duration in Dhiffushi. Andrew and I were lucky to get placed with matriarch Hawwa, her daughters Haafiza and Sharmiza, and 3-year-old granddaughter Irusha – who ran around, chatted excitably in Dhivehi and jumped on our beds as we unpacked. The men were lobster fishermen and away from the home for a month. Fortunately Haafiza spoke some broken English, so she was able to teach me some phrases, and ensured we were happy with our mas roshi (tuna and flatbread), tuna curry, and tuna steaks – seared in garlic, chilli and lemon. Fishy, but phenomenally nice. And eating really was a common theme in Dhiffushi – so much food was provided – and some host families passed on concerns to the island chief that their English guests weren’t eating enough and might be ill. Our surrogate mothers stood over us, eagerly awaiting comment and approval, and giggling as we struggled to adapt to Maldivian eating – right-hand only folks! (The left hand is used for less seemly purposes - toilet roll isn’t really known in these parts). Over the next day or two we snorkelled, canoed, chatted, sunbathed, read, and then did some casual Dhivehi classes, and met local councilmen and teachers for an informal advice session. So it’s not all play! Across the water was Meeru resort, costing upwards of $400 a night, with a $250 Male’ transfer. We were in the same place, but paying bugger all, with a $2 Male’ transfer. A slight mark-up?

We came back to Male’ two days ago, and it’s all been a bit more formal since then. We had a chat from the Minister for Education, and the Permanent Undersecretary, and secured work visas, residency permits, bank accounts, all manner of official documents. And then, proper highlight of the week, a reception in the Presidential Palace, with a firm handshake from Prez. Nasheed himself. They didn’t prepare me for that in basic training. But everyone’s now stuck in limbo, awaiting a phone call from the man with the plan, so we know how and when we’re transferring on to our schools. It’ll be sad to leave the big group, because we’ve got on really well after just a week, but there are school holidays and most people are planning to return to Male’ for supplies and respite from utter isolation!

Generally, it’s been a great week. The drain waters stinks of egg, and it’s bloody hot, but I’m really excited about the coming year. I’ll probably write less for each blog post as my enthusiasm wanes and the Maldives becomes old hat, but right now – all good!