Maldivian nights

Evening in Hithadooo

     Although the sun can be brutal here during the day, around 4 PM it softens.  The evenings are gentle and, if a breeze comes up, balmy.  People sit in their courtyards or hang around in front of the mosques or on street corners.  We enjoy dinner with friends in the outdoor restaurants.
      We went to the Royal Palm restaurant with Nasreena and her son Mishal.  Nasreena used to work for the Four Seasons Resort Company.  When the tsunami hit the Maldives in 2004, the Four Seasons sent its contract employees to their sites around the world.   Nasreena went to the their hotel in in Dallas, where she spent a year.  Her son Mishal, who goes to preschool with Maxine, is learning not one but three alphabets: his ABCDs for school, the Dhivehi alphabet for everyday,  and  the Arabic alphabet for reading the Koran. Maxine and Mishal careened around the restaurant picking flowers while Courtney and Nasreena tussled over who would pay the check.  Courtney and Nasreena are cut out of the same cloth, focused and determined.

Mishal and Nasreena, Courtney and Maxine

 Addu Rowing Regatta

Tash

     Another evening we ate at the Food Court restaurant with Tash, who  is the only other Westerner in Hithadoo. Tash, (short for Natasha Howard) is a British rower who competed at the Olympics in Beijing in 2008.  She has been on Addu Atoll since August to train high school students to row, preparing them for a competition during the SAARC summit. Both boys and girls train.  Maldivians got from island to island by oar and sail as late as the 1970s.  Now President Mohamed Nasheed wants to revive the skill as a sport. Tash's regatta was a great success, with 19  boats competing.  Tash is  organizing  what she hopes will be permanent programs to teach swimming and rowing in the high schools.