12. Good Friends in the Komas, I know, I know, it's serious.

Term finished on 15^th March, and I spent a few days tying up loose ends, enjoying fishing, snorkeling, and the companionship of Ihavandhoo chums. It was tough to say goodbye – in ten weeks I’d grown fond of the island, its people, and even my classes. Most of them.

One problem was posed by the tough old landlord. Two weeks before he moved into our spare bedroom, and since then Andrew and I had been communicating with him through hand signals and mutual guesswork. His fishing boat had been damaged and was undergoing some extensive repair work in the harbour, so he wanted a place away from the fibreglass dust and heat. Never mind that he was related to half the island and practically owns every house on Ihavandhoo - he was chief and was moving in, although still disappeared to his daughter's place for breakfast. At first we were happy enough for him to stay, but then five of his crew moved in and started sleeping on the floors, and sitting up chatting and smoking late into the night, so we put the metaphorical foot down. It was meant to be our place, and we were now paying the bills for eight people who were keeping us awake when we had to be up at 6am every morning. Not impressive.

 I didn't want to tell him of my imminent departure, because I could ill afford to hand over the March rent from my small savings. The wages owed to me by the school would easily cover several months, so he wouldn't be out of pocket - I just couldn't face paying and then not getting the wages. So I had to pack surreptitiously on the last night, and carefully smuggle half the suitcases to Merlin. When I left the next morning, with just two bags, I looked merely overprepared for six days in Male', and not like I  was doing a runner. (Technically I wasn't). 

In pursuit of an authentic Maldivian experience (and to save money), I eschewed a flight in favour of the ferry - a marathon 18-hour direct journey through glittering atolls and shimmering seas. (Fresh from my class on adjectives y'see). Maybe 200 people were crammed onto the good ship Komas, and this lent the journey a friendly, communal atmosphere. This did not equal comfortable. The boat was small and split into several four-foot decks, so there was only space to sit or lie. Lying on wooden boards for eighteen hours is not fun.

That night we slept on the roof, under a stunning night sky, unspoilt by light pollution. Bloody uncomfortable, but it was quieter and cooler than the cramped lower decks, and I could stand up. Everyone had warned me that it would be bitterly cold, but I was confident that the Maldivian standard of 'bitterly cold' would not overly trouble a British constitution. Wrapped in a thin cotton bedsheet it was fine. Poor Merlin suffered a little more - but no problem; finally I had a use for one of the two jumpers my mum somehow convinced me to take to the Maldives! I think it was a compromise after we negotiated her down from five.

We arrived in Male' at 7am, so I went for breakfast before scooting to Hulhumale with all my luggage, a big man-made island designed to handle both rising sea levels and the Male' population overspill in coming decades, and now is slowly filling with amenities and tenement blocks - not the most typically Maldivian of places, but a pleasant enough solution to some big problems. HM also had the best restaurant that I found in the Maldives, where a fresh orange juice and breakfast could be savoured for under a pound. My favourite was the kulhimas, a sweet spicy chutney sauce layered on chunks of meaty tuna, and scooped up with roshi. Elsewhere the kulhimas was more of a fish curry. Not so appetising for breakfast.

The next few days passed in a pleasant blur, catching up with all the other volunteers. Everyone seemed to need a break and change of scenery. All those castaway in distant atolls had bolted for the comforts and amenities of Male', whilst the people based in Male' were backpacking in Sri Lanka. Strange how even the picturesque paradise islands of the Maldives become somewhere to escape from after ten weeks.

Male' city was still rocking with political protests and marches. Two days after arriving there was a big demonstration which was met with tear gas and rubber bullets. Dozens were arrested or hospitalised, and some buildings were set on fire. Yet the next day all as back to normality, or normality as it pertains to Male' - the standard chaotic throng of mopeds, taxis, vans, and people, all weaving through each other at any and every opportunity. One night we got tickets for an Asian Champions League qualifying game. A veritable Clash of the Titans between top Maldives team Addu Victory, and the aces of Kuwait City FC. It was a decent game, ending 2-2 (as if you need to be told), although the preponderance of female volunteers meant most of the game was spent admiring the legs and hair of Addu's number 19. (I wish I was joking).

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...

10. Going Lanka.

Considering I started getting drawn back into the political situation in my last post, I figured it would be a good idea to separate this out, and amongst the general hilarity briefly mention that a few weeks ago I decided to revoke my volunteer contract with the Ministry of Education following the midterm break. This means I’ll be leaving the Maldives in April, and returning to the UK on 12 June, after a few months maxxing out my location with some spontaneous travelling in South Asia.

I was starting to get real concerns about continuing to volunteer in the current political situation and this ultimately discouraged me from continuing. If you want to read about the sequence of events, stuff is available everywhere. Try the Guardian, Minivan News, and Haveeru. It’s both an interesting and seriously worrying situation, and there’s lots of lessons for the future, especially with regards the Arab Spring states!

Anyway, we had four main link bodies in the IVP programme, and all four were either disbanded or their involvement with us was terminated. The Friends of Maldives – who were supporting and funding us from the UK – were unable to continue their role after 7 February, and their founder and chairman was denounced all over state-run television. The next day there were some properly awkward questions in the staffroom over IVP links to the FOM. The UK High Commissioner and her deputy (the new President’s brother) also resigned in protest and advised us to leave. The Maldives Volunteer Corps was forcefully disbanded after the army and police sacked their offices early one morning. And finally our ‘volunteer’ contracts with the Ministry of Education were transferred to the Ministry of Youth and Human Resources without us being consulted. This may have been because the YHR was considered more institutionally aligned to the new regime than the MOE, which is apparently quite dominated by MDP supporters.

So it’s been a weird reversal in the info and support we’ve been getting. Supporters of the new government, who formerly denounced us as missionaries and imperialists, are now desperate for us to stay – because it shows continuity, and that nothing has fundamentally changed in the Maldives except for the President. Meanwhile, many of the people who put us here have since asked us to leave, to ignore the non-political clause in our contracts, and speak out. They want to show Maldivians the real and significant impact on the ground of the events they describe as a coup, and twenty-four British teachers leaving simultaneously would actually make news. This country has the population of Leicester – it doesn’t take too much to make the headlines. I don’t like being played by either party to be honest, but decided to jump the frying pan.

My resignation was effective from the mid-term break – so I’m happy that I held out and completed at least a one-quarter chunk of the planned year contract – and I would consider going back if elections were held and the volunteer programme reinstated, but I’m not optimistic. So in the meantime, I’m going to Sri Lanka, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos etc., for a spontaneous few months of travelling on the borrowed dollar, plunging my overdraft into new shades of red. India was always number one on my list, but who knew that sleeper trains are so oversubscribed with bookings two months in advance? Every train from Mumbai to Delhi had literally 200+ on the waiting list. That will be another year… and for now also means I can keep my blog address!

9. Alidhoo-dhoo-dhoo, push pineapple shake the tree...

Well… it’s been a while. Too long if I’m honest. Over six weeks since the last update, and I’m not entirely sure that I remember what’s happened in the interim. So you may have to settle for a long, confusing and incomplete summary split into several incoherent chapters – the sign of a master story-teller at work.

But I’ll get at least some chronological balance, because one of the proper highlights happened way way back in late February, and is pretty much unforgettable. After seven weeks ensconced on my own little acre of Indian Ocean real estate, and with unmistakeable signs of islands fever setting in, I was able to jump ship and experience beautiful Dhidhdhoo, lured by the glowing recommendation of the Chris Collective. (Plus there was an unconfirmed rumour that a nearby exclusive resort offered a decent rate to previous cohorts of volunteer teachers). I chartered my own bathtub and driver for a quite monstrous 1000 Rufiyaa (£40) and set out across the Ihavandholippu Channel. It was a choppy twenty kilometre journey through tuna-infested waters, and took nearly two hours, but the time, money, danger and soggy clothes were rendered worthwhile when I stepped onto the hallowed Dhidhdhoo jetty, where Chris and Chris were waiting for me.

That afternoon we sang, danced, got merry on Coca Cola, and generally enjoyed our youth by going fishing. It was not the most successful of expeditions.  I first screwed up by letting go of the reel when Chris H threw the baited line in. Cue some spontaneous swimming to recover this vital equipment - it was more of an embarrassed clamber than triumphant return to the pier, and left me sodden for the rest of the afternoon. But even holding the reel didn’t improve the fishing; our expertise only stretched to snag every single discarded garment that was quietly rotting under the pier. Some shirts, dresses, a headscarve, blanket, and pair of trousers later, and we were ready to set up a fashion house, Liam Vuitton, specialising in reclaimed wet and rotting Maldivian junk.

The next day we were up bright and early for a speedboat connection to Alidhoo Resort, which zipped across to the service jetty in five minutes. Apparently they were not expecting us. The deal supposedly arranged between Dhidhdhoo’s fixer and Alidhoo’s management via some mutual friend in Male’ did not seem to have materialised, so after tentatively explaining why we were there to the lackey on reception, we quietly slunk off to the poolside bar, hoping to grab a few drinks before the management kicked us off the island. An hour later, with a cool $8 glass of Fosters in one hand, and a pool cue in the other, the manager arrived in a golf buggy. If a golf buggy can look ominous, this looked ominous. I heard the Imperial March tune from Star Wars playing in my head, and prepared for the worst… But no summary exit for us; the manager had a quick chat with Chris H, mentioned a discount on beer, free buffet meals, and some casual reference to a ‘day-room’, which he said was being arranged by reception. After being given the keys to Room 101 (again – ominous), we later discovered this ‘day-room’ was actually free stay in a $400-a-night suite, complete with kingsize-bed, Jacuzzi, outside bathroom, beachfront verandah, and a cool bowl of fresh water with hollow-coconut-on-stick-implement for washing sand off your feet. It was like blagging the jackpot!

So for the next 36 hours we swam in the infinity pool, sunbathed, read, showered (communally) in hot water (Chris C enjoyed that too much), stuffed ourselves with gorgeous buffet food, got tipsy on $2 beers, and watched hilariously inept Chinese tourists learn to snorkel in the swimming pool. One girl held on to the ladder for an hour, face down in the water staring at her feet. It would not have been so funny if she weren’t wearing a life-jacket, brand-new wetsuit, and if the pool was deeper than one metre. With such hilarious anecdotes, what wasn't to love about our new home...

It was a shame to leave Alidhoo, but the long weekend was ending and reality was calling. So we returned to Dhidhdhoo with heavy hearts but also heavy wallets, not quite believing what had happened, nor what to do next. Somehow, the earlier failed fishing expedition did not deter a return to our Waterloo. Three hours later we had learnt two more important life lessons: that crabs are mainly constituted from smelly yellow gunk, and that fish do not like eating this.

The next morning I got back to Ihavandhoo to find the island agog with excitement. Former President Nasheed, ousted in the event of 07 February, was conducting a whirlwind tour of the northern atolls - where he remains extremely popular and his Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) have a clear majority of support. He was stopping in Ihavandhoo that afternoon. Yellow banners and flags were flying across the island, and little paper Maldivian flags were being handed out to everyone. I took my camera down to the rally, and pretended to be an intrepid photojournalist. Scratch that. I am an intrepid photojournalist. Was very tempted to line up for a third handshake with the Island President, but didn’t fancy seeing myself on national television again. A photo of us volunteers meeting Nasheed back in January was being circulated on the new regime’s television station as evidence of the links between Nasheed and the Friends of Maldives (FOM) NGO - the new regime claimed this partnership was attempting to subvert the traditions, culture and religion of the Maldives. So we were already being used as political pawns, which was extremely frustrating! Anyway, I got some snaps, and being mistaken for someone important by the welcoming committee, was handed a lovely kurumba (coconut) with a straw. The life of a photojournalist….

I’m going to write my next blog post immediately. It needs a new heading, because it deals with some totally different stuff.

8. Detatched Retinas (Sic)

You may have all seen BBC News this week, and noted that there has been 'political unrest' in the Maldives. I'm not allowed to publicly comment on Maldivian politics - according to the stipulations of my contract and also about twelve e-mails, telephone and Skype reminders since Saturday. (You all know me so well.) Therefore, I can't say much here, but after doing my research - which for absolute no reason has included reading page 33 of the Maldivian Constitution - I have decided to draw a very subtle analogy. The version of events has been disputed by all parties, and personally I think it's like having a cigarette and getting smoke in my eyes, and thus experiencing tobacco up detatched retinas! It certainly feels as painful.

Can you tell that I was in a very boring meeting earlier today?

If anyone feels inclined to do some research learn more about the situation, you may read a few differing opinions from the Independent here, former President Nasheed in the New York Times here, current President Waheed's personal website here and Raajje News here. Again, I'd like to repeat that these are not my opinion pieces, I am remaining utterly impartial, and that I am in no way becoming involved with the internal partisan politics of the Maldives.

Anyway, life on the island pretty much continued, but with a few more political rallies and a few less policemen. (They weren't killed - rather summoned to help restore the peace in Male'). I'm surprised how quickly absolute normality has been restored to be honest. What recent events mean for the future of my tenure in the Maldives remain unclear, but most people seem convinced that the programme will continue without any problems.

Time is really starting to move now though. I've now been here for 7 weeks! In just 41 weeks I'll be flying home. Ridonkulous. I've also settled in to my new (and permanent) home for the year, so now have access to a private bathroom, a kitchen, and a garden. The house is big, and shared between myself, Andrew, and the landlord's son-in-law. Proper party town! Except instead of having raucous parties we mainly steam vegetables and occasionally fry chips.

I'll leave this short - for a change - and write a full update in a few days. If your eyes are not yet tired, please enjoy this wonderful video of my new home.

Gotcha!

7. This is mainly about sand and fish

February started, as February tends to, on the 1^st of February. It also started with a tough day at school, and a v.v.v.important meeting at 8.45pm. Or this would be the assumption, from the notice that was shoved under the nose of every staff member that day. “Staff meeting, 8.45pm. Attendance compulsory”. We had to sign a sheet to prove we had seen and understood the message. The same sheet is passed back to us at the meeting itself, to be countersigned, proving our attendance. There’s lots of signing things in Ihavandhoo, so we can’t really claim to have been out of the loop.

So what would this meeting be about? As I changed into my smart clothes that evening, I was somewhat mystified. Maybe restructuring the school day – moving from double-session to single-session, as Dhidhoo is (seamlessly) planning. Maybe another debate about the merits and demerits of placing a price cap on private tuition – many of the teachers supplement their income by providing extra classes to those willing to pay – but this is a market where demand far outstrips supply, and prices are starting to move beyond the means of poorer families. We spent two hours in a staff meeting about that last week, but no conclusion had been reached, to the chagrin of the management. Were we revisiting that old chestnut?

When the meeting started with a twenty-minute speech in Dhivehi, I was guessing it could be important. The Dep-Principal is a respected man in these parts, and everyone was listening intently. Then the Principal offered to translate his speech into English, and there was lots of very admirable sentiments – developing community cohesion, promoting our virtuous profession, teachers as the masons of the nation. (I think in sense of carving the stone (bashing the children) into useful shapes, rather than being a secret cabal who control the army, government, and economy to suit our own shady objectives. If that teaching club exists I haven’t been invited yet. Maybe it’s the PTA).   The context, however, was somewhat underwhelming: the school was getting some mounds of sand delivered to recover the schoolyard, and could everyone lend a few hours on Friday morning to help out.

That was the only item on the agenda, so with an enlightened mind, I emerged from the meeting to cultivate my pretentious new theory about the transmission of information / notifications in the Maldives. I’ve decided that if some serious research is needed, or an important presentation must be prepared, you are normally given an hour’s notice to start and complete it. When there is something that would normally require a month’s notice, such as a transfer to a different island – you have one hour. If a 2-minute announcement needs to be made, there is also one hour set aside to convey it. See the pattern here?

As it was, the Sandday was a massive community event. Easily half the island must have turned up, and with a thousand workers a big job happens rather quickly. There was no general organisation or direction, but the chaos and raw effort got the job done. Groups of people set up their own chain gangs, with basic ‘specialisation of labour’ and ‘Fordist production lines’, and between 6am and 10am the whole yard was covered with 10 cm of pure white sand earlier dredged from the harbour. Adam Smith would have been proud. Men grabbed shovels and piled it into wheelbarrows. Young boys carried huge sacks filled with sand to prove their strength, whilst the women set up chains and moved a massive quantity of the stuff, whilst also chattering wildly. The older boys commandeered massive carts and turned the whole day into a festival - a dozen or more would run the cart from the stockpile to the school, with whoops and cheers and chants. Older islanders raked the yard smooth, or provided water bottles, Wagon Wheels and raw eggs to the labourers. Everyone dripped with sweat. The PA system bellowed traditional bodu-beru music over the whole island – this is loud and rhythmic drumming, and perfect for working to, and it just topped off a great atmosphere. I tried my hand at carrying sacks, shovelling sand, running with the cart, and did most of it with a big smile plastered on my face, because it’s really the first day I’ve properly felt part of this fantastic community. The schoolyard now looks great, so I don't really begrudge losing a morning!

Nor that afternoon, which was the first staff trip of the year. The Events Committee arranged to hire a boat, and so at 2pm seventeen teachers sailed off into the gorgeous blue ocean aboard a medium-sized fishing dhoni. Never to return. Like the plot to some rubbish Goosebumps story. Or it began to feel like that, when we were still bobbing through the night seven hours later, and I was starting to feel the effects of seasickness, at odds with my carefully-crafted image of a brave sailor with an iron constitution. Now the world knows different – although I did resist the urge to chunder.

For the first five hours it was a fascinating experience, learning how most of the islanders make their living. Firstly we searched for shoals of little baitfish. Several people had to jump into the ocean, and drag out net and floats to create a wall about five metres from the boat. On the other side, a few of the guys seemed to shepherd the shoal towards the wall, and then the men on the boat pulled the bottom of the net upwards as quick as possible, creating a bag which was squeezed from all directions until thousands of tiny wriggling fish could be scooped up into the hold. You can see that by clicking here, and I apologise if your eyes are scarred by exposure to "those blue briefs".

Then the real fishing started. The grizzled captain is clearly a devotee of the Brothers Grimm, because his strategy was straight from the Hansel and Gretel playbook. One junior fisherman – actually a student in my Grade 11 class – would casually throw a handful of captive baitfish overboard every ten seconds, creating a “trail of breadcrumbs” to attract our dinner. (I think this is how fish fingers are made). Meanwhile, from the back and sides of the boat, we all trailed lines with the unluckier baitfish, which were somewhat cruelly skewered whilst they were still alive. If anything is a disposable commodity in the Maldives, it’s baitfish. Some of the men focused on hooking seabirds to bring home as pets (or food – this was never quite clear), but the majority were after the sizeable and tasty reef fish.

Sadly it was a bad day for fishing – as dusk started to fall the whole party had only managed about fifteen between them. But I was informed by an optimistic Agil that the real fun happened at night, when the metre-long tuna fish are feeding. Some of the smaller catches were butchered into chunks, and this time we waited the lines and dropped much bigger hooks into much deeper water. After an hour, there was nada, zilch, nothing. Then I stepped up, dropped a line, and pulled in the catch of the day. A six-foot 20-stone monster, pulled from the deepest reaches of the ocean, caught with sheer wit, raw muscle and garden twine. There is some slight exaggeration here, but the fact is, I caught a (very small) reef fish. Now I have to experience zero-gravity and my bucket-list is complete.

 The edge was almost taken off the fun when, at 8pm, I started feeling my first ever bout of seasickness, and tried to subtly enquire how much longer we were staying out on the water. “Probably not all night” was the unsympathetic response. With my stomach curdling and my head dizzy from all the rocking, I had to go lie down to contemplate another eight hours at sea. Fortunately they were pulling my leg, in a surprisingly adept way, and massively enjoyed my clear relief when we started heading for home a few minutes later. It totally lifted the psychological pressure, and I felt almost myself again. On the journey home I sat with some of the younger teaching staff, and shared a highbrow discussion on the merits of Proust and Nabokov. Or rather, they wanted a full explanation of the verb “to moon someone”, and then became gleeful / dumbfounded / appalled when I tentatively acknowledged that British schools do indeed teach sex education, or as my highly-professional peers called it, ‘sexology’.

After 7 hours at sea I left the boat with just that one rather unfortunate reef fish to my credit. Slightly sad I couldn’t take it with me, because that’s really one of my minor goals for this year – a determination to become an expert at cooking fish. So I can host suburban middle-class dinner parties in the parties and pretentiously boast about my formative year in the Maldives and how it forms the exotic base of my gastronomic repertoire. But also so I can eat great food whilst I’m here. In Dhiffushi (see Blog #2) our host had provided sweet and sticky chilli tuna steaks, which were just incredible. They tasted like spare ribs, but far healthier and tastier, and I decided that I would perfect the recipe. By trial and error. So far I’ve used combinations of chilli, garlic, oil, sugar, lime, lemon, and salt. I have failed several times and left Merlin with some very burnt pans to scrub, but last night it worked quite well, so at last I reach base camp! When I get my wages some will probably be invested in soy sauce and honey (and honey loops) to see if that provides any impetus to perfect fish steak.

A more basic achievement is learning the skill of butchering and preparing the fish for cooking. I would say fishmongering, but I’m not sure this is even the word, nor that it is acceptable after the Ricky Gervais debacle. I’d already mentioned that I wanted to learn, so yesterday Merlin and I spontaneously bought some small tuna from a wandering fish salesman – this is how it sounds, just a hygienic wheelbarrow of dead fish and blood in the midday sun – and got ourselves three fine specimens for about £2. Merlin then showed me the process: 1) chop off fins; 2) descale; 3) chop off head; 4) pull out guts; 5) chop off tail; 6) chop off dorsals; 7) chop into pieces. Lots of chopping and pulling. We then took different routes at stage 8 – he dissected the nice meaty eyeballs and other edible remainders, whilst I performed a hilarious double-act routine with an anthropomorphised squeaky-voiced fish head. To great acclaim, and a possible Academy Award.

6. Snapshots