11. Frugality Is My Watchword

With my mind made up to leave, the last few weeks of term have drifted by rather quickly. February became March, and nobody noticed. The students were busy revising for their midterm tests, so lessons became quite repetitive recaps, where I bored myself rigid with explaining how a question tag works. It’s like this, isn’t it? She can’t go there, can she? We should write the answer, shouldn’t we? It was only worth 2 marks out of 40, and they still got it wrong.

My head was elsewhere, filled with overambitious and expensive travel plans, and I spent hours staring forlornly at Google Maps and Skyscanner, willing the perfect route to somehow present itself. Meanwhile, my extravagant £6 per-day living was cut down to take account of the expensive months ahead, and I dabbled in c.1944 Home Front levels of frugality, aiming to get by on less than 50 Rufiyaa (£2.10) per day, and saving the rest. I would claim that it was like a return to student days, but as Mai, Kieran and Joe will attest, I was not the most frugal of students. Although in my defence, what I spent on cheeseboards I made up for in bags of bargain potatoes.

However, when pushed, I’m discovered that I’m extremely good at living the old frugal lifestyle. It was actually quite easy (maybe Edwina Currie is talking about the Maldives?), although admittedly my diet became even more repetitive than I otherwise thought possible. For 20 Rufiyaa (80p) at the local cafe I got a pile of spicy tuna and vegetable rice with ubiquitous fried egg, popadoms, a chicken sausage, and a glass of intriguingly fluorescent ‘orange juice’. Sometimes there was even a slice of cucumber on the side - for the necessary vitamins and minerals. This was by far the most cost-effective and filling fare on offer, and I ate it most nights for three weeks, although I did try alternatives. A low point was reached when I started fishing for little minnows in the harbour, and frying them up with potatoes and onion – very underwhelming – especially when the victims still looked like goldfish. On another occasion I attempted to break the monotony by making cheesy pasta (with canned cheese from Bahrain) but it nearly made me vomit, so I returned to the café. I stopped buying Coca-Cola, sweets, coffee, snacks, phone top-ups, internet credit, or washing powder. When an invite came to someone’s house, I took it and didn’t eat for the day, so I could fill up on the banquet that was invariably prepared. (They really did load the tables when Mr Liam was coming to dinner. There would be about two dozen options – each bowl loaded with enough food to make a meal in itself).

Altogether I’ve managed to squirrel away 10,000 Rufiyaa. This equates to about £400, which I’m hoping is more than enough to see me through two more weeks in Male’ and then ten days exploring Sri Lanka. Seven weeks in SE Asia, however, will be financed purely through the power of overdraft...