SAARC comes to town

  

Welcoming arch on Link Road

      Two cops were stationed on our corner all day on Thursday, in anticipation of a motorcade of  SAARC dignitaries.   The caravan  was scheduled to drive from Gan in the south, go as far north as possible,  loop around Daisy Magu at the end of our street, and go down the newly paved Main Road to the Convention Center.   Flags of the eight SAARC nations fluttered all along the route.  Most businesses sported colored rope lights for the occasion.
      Around 3, the cops closed Daisy Magu.  We couldn't even walk across it.  I certainly couldn't get the car out to pick up Jon from work.   A dump truck with the bed full of men parked at the corner, ready to watch the parade.  Neighbors began gathering at intersection.  Maxine and I covered ourselves with insect repellent and joined them.  It was  a jolly time. Maine played with Aisha, our neighbor across the street.   Aisha's mother had her toenails covered with bright green mashed up leaves.  She explained, with the help of another neighbor who works at the beauty parlor, that the leaves will leave the toenails a pretty orange color. "You want?"  Not a good shade for me, so I declined.  As it grew dark, the young girls counted the stars as they came out.  I joked with them, by signs and gestures,  "You see three ?  I only see one!" Finally two sets of 6 cars with darkened windows sped along the street.  The teenagers craned their necks to see how the cars could possible take the high speed bump two blocks down.  The cops removed the cones, and the streets were opened.

Sculpture for Nepal

Sculpture for Afghanistan

   There was more pomp and speechifying elsewhere.  Further south, the motorcade featured open cars and flags.  Each SAARC country designed and authorized a public sculpture featuring the culture and religion of that country.  Two are in our neighborhood: the one from Nepal and the one from Afghanistan.  The head of government unveiled and dedicated his or her nation's statue with ceremony, necessitating more closed roads (no alternative, you just wait) on Friday.
 

  On Wednesday evening as we drove south on the Link Road to Equator Village, I noticed a large crowd along the side of the road.  It seems that the sculpture for Pakistan, which featured a bust and words of Pakistan's founder and some symbols from ancient Pakistan, had drawn a a protest from local people who thought that the symbols were idolatrous objects of worship.  Two men tried to topple the statue.  They were arrested,  and police removed the piece until the next day, when they replaced it for the dedication.  Early this morning, the monument was torched.

Offensive portion of official banner

     At Gan airport, members of the former president's opposition party arrived by boat to tear down part of the official SAARC banner.  The theme for SAARC is Building Bridges, "across more than 100 languages, across 10 major religions, across gender, " etc.  Seems that someone who looks like Jesus is just too much for some.
    

Craft fair?

        Addu Atoll has been crawling with police and security forces for weeks.   The local cops set up roadblocks along Link Road.  The first time we were stopped the officer wanted ID, and asked where we were going, and when we arrived in the Maldives, and when we planned to leave.  Sometimes they just pull everybody over, scooters and bicycles as well as cars, and write down the license plate number and count the passengers.  I was reluctant to drive for a few weeks, because I did not have my passport with me; it was in Male along with my application for a visa extension.  Once I had the passport back, I braved the roadblocks.

Cops in grocery store

       I told myself that the Maldivian police had to practice for the high security planned for the SAARC Summit.  They were just young men like the ones in the grocery store buying water.    They were  polite and not physically threatening, but implacable.  The Dynamo workers who travel up the Link Road from Equator Village have been halted for stretches of time while the police practice for motorcades.  Until the parallel Main road was finished being paved last week, there was no good alternate route. You  had to sit on Link Road until the police were finished with their exercises.
     There are hundreds of foreign security forces on the atoll as well.  Sri Lanka is providing airport security, including drug-sniffing dogs.  Dogs are  forbidden in the  Maldives because they are  considered unclean in Islam.   When there is an exception made for security dogs, it's difficult to find local people willing to care for them.
      So I knew we would encounter some police when Maxine and I set off on Wednesday to find the big exhibit of authentic Maldivian handicrafts at the new convention center.  All of us in our house were eager to see some  genuine Maldivian art and craft.  This  atoll produces fish and coconuts and bananas.  It is difficult to find anything made in the Maldives, much less useful objects made by hand.  The things for sale in tourist shops are junky and mostly made elsewhere.   For more about local efforts to improve marketing of crafts, seehttp://minivannews.com/travelandarts/local-handicraft-producers-join-forces-against-imported-counterfeits-27984 .

Authentic Gadhdhoo mat

         I was unable to get any information about the exhibit other than that it was happening.  Maxine and I were the reconnaissance troops.  We drove Jon to work, came back and tamed Maxine's hair.  We packed our bags: water, a snack, hats for both of us, John Jacob in Maxine's princess backpack.   Into the car and down the newly paved Main road where crews were sweeping up construction sand with hand brooms.  Main road is an exercise in dodgem.  We got to the end of the pavement, not quite at the convention center.  Army guys had blocked the road.  "Craft fair?"  I asked, "Construction zone."  So we turned down an unpaved street back to Link Road, past the busy police station.  I waited while six official vehicles cut onto the road ahead of me.   We turned into the wide drive  to the just-completed convention center.
     This time, a very large military man with an automatic weapon stopped me.  "Craft fair?" I asked hopefully.  No English here except for the one word he spoke, "Pass."  Several other men outfitted the same way surrounded the car.  They were too big to be Maldivians.  We kept repeating the exchange.
      Grandma with kid in the car: "Craft fair?"
      Soldier with weapon: "Pass."
 I signaled that I would turn around.  They kept very close to the car until I did.

An interior life

Daytime view out kitchen window

 

      Our house turns inward.  It is surrounded by a high cement wall and oriented toward an interior air shaft.  There are bars on all the windows.  On the north side of the house, outside the kitchen and the dining room, there are heavy green shades fastened down.

Other view from living room

View from picture window

     "Stay in your cell," advised the Desert Fathers, "and your cell will teach you all things."  Staying in this cell brings me the blues, so Maxine and I go out every morning.
     The trick is to leave after 9, when the mosquitoes stop being so bothersome, and to get home before 10, when the sun becomes brutal.  I tame Maxine's wild and wonderful hair. We slather sunscreen on us, and spread insect repellent on Maxine's legs and ankles. We fill our water bottles, pack a snack  for Maxine, find her hat and sunglasses, select which shoes she will wear, and find her bear to carry in her princess backpack.  I fashion a headband by wrapping my washcloth around a cord, stuff one pocket with tissues and the other with paper napkins for wiping my brow, grab my hat, and work the keys in the two sets of double-bolted locks.  We're off!
    We might walk to the public library, or to Fazaa, the general store that has everything from baby mattresses to glitter.  We can venture as far as Multi, the crammed grocery story, or find a path to the Indian Ocean.  We might buy stickers at the Book Nook, a paper-goods store staffed by our next door neighbor, Nasim.  Wherever we go, we stop every day at the corner store, where we can buy bananas, eggs, milk, butter, cheese, and cookies.  And of course a treat for Maxine.

Corner store

Maxine's Maldivian Dance

Maxine's dance

      It was a glorious afternoon at Hithadoo Stadium when Maxine's preschool performed their  dance.  Each child had been assigned to bring ten balloons.  On the way to the stadium, I saw one child in full costume on the back of a motor scooter, holding up his ten yellow balloons.  The balloons were then tied to the fence behind the grassy area where the children danced.

Makeup session

     We had gone ahead of time to the house of Maxine's friend, Janna, where  Janna's aunt provided Maxine's first makeup job.    

      Fourteen schools were scheduled to perform, with Saeedhiyya being the 7th.  Each school wore different, sometimes elaborate costumes.   It would have been like Little League, where you sit for three hours waiting for the five minutes when your child is up,  but  the spectacle and the children's excitement made the time go by easily.  There were about 300 proud parents in the stands, with lots of children who are well schooled at patient waiting.  Maxine  watched all the dances intently, and moved along with the music.

Maxine and Janna

     When it was Saeedhiayya's turn, the children milled about offstage, slipping their shoes off as  the teachers lined them up and directed them onto the grassy stage.  The dance was long, about 4 minutes, and complicated, with kids moving in all directions but mostly together.  Maxine kept right up, beaming the whole time, and singing the words in her version of Dhivehi.   We all had a wonderful time.

Me acting like a grandmother

Member of the Hokey-Pokey dance team

Equator Village

Bar featuring rattan

     Every Wednesday afternoon we drive down the Link Road from Hithadoo to Gan, 8.6 miles on the longest paved road in the Maldives.  We  head to Equator Village, a resort that was formerly a British  air base.  The Sergeant's Mess has been converted into a large, semi-open bar and restaurant area, where Maxine and I linger over dinner while Courtney has her weekly meeting with the other scientists from the Dynamo project.

Bungalow room

     Equator Village is a budget resort, slightly shabby with a colonial feel.  The barracks have been converted into  bungalow -style rooms connected by paths planted with mature, groomed gardens.    The old chapel has become a mosque.  The guests are mostly German and Russian.  There is one British woman, a nutritionist,  who lives there 5 months of the year.  Her husband was stationed at Gan when it was an RAF base in the 70s.  Now a widow, she continues her nutrition education work on Adu Atoll and enjoys the Maldivian family who have adopted her.
      The pools where we swim before dinner are new.  It is fantastic to be in the water, looking up at the pink sky in the brief twilight, watching the fruit bats fly among the coconut trees.  All of the Dynamo people except for us live at Equator Village.  There is always somebody who will lend us the key to his room so that we can change after swimming.      

Fruit bat

    

Pool

     Some weeks we snorkel instead of swimming in the pool.  I am not a strong swimmer, so I stay close to the sandy beach as I practice with the mask. Even so,  I see a world of wonders under water, with striped fish swimming among small blooms of coral.  The coral reef off  Gan is  favorite of divers from all over the world.  Maxine and I watch for Courtney's big green flippers as she swims further out; then Maxine puts on her snorkel vest and swims with Courtney.  "One, two, three!" calls out Maxine, and they both put their faces in the water.
     After we eat, Maxine and I walk through the gardens, out the gate to the truly tacky tourist treasure shops.  Not many toys there, but the shopkeepers always have a piece of candy for  a little girl.  When Courtney's meeting lets out, we linger with the Dynamo scientists for a while, and then head home.  Wednesday is the highlight of my week.

Neigborhood watch

Ahmed and Maxine

     Last night around 10 Courtney got a phone call from our landlord, Ahmed.  One of the doors of our car was unlocked, and the door was ajar.  Apparently, one of the neighbors had noticed the door, called Ahmed, and stationed two teenage boys to watch over the car until we could be notified.
     Cars are unusual here on Hithadoo; most people ride a motor scooter or walk.  A few ride bicycles, including the father who picks up his little boy up at Maxine's school.  The boy stands upright, stiff and straight, on the cross bar of the bike while  the father holds one arm around him and steers the bike with the other.   Sometimes, picking Maxine up by car,  I feel as conspicuous as a Hollywood star taking a limousine to her child's school.

Jamal and African Grey

     The first time I went grocery shopping I walked.   I planned to ask the store to deliver but  I had forgotten to take our address along with me.  I told Musa, the grocer, that I didn't know the address.  "I know where you live,"  he said gently .  Sure enough, the groceries were at my door before I got home.
       Yesterday morning I parked the car near the grocery on the main street, which is torn up from construction.  I headed west on foot, toward the ocean,      in search of a beach where Maxine and I could gather shells and build sand castles. The Indian Ocean is three blocks from the main street, and  there are entrances to the shore at the end of almost every intersecting  street.   The side streets are narrow, unpaved, and contain a  maze  of deep, wide, puddles, so  it makes more sense to walk down them than to maneuver the car.
        Maxine and I were walking toward the ocean when Jamal drove  up on his scooter.  I told him what I was doing.  "Oh, no, don't go to that beach," he said firmly.  "And don't turn that way, either," pointing right.  "Take your third left from the road, and go by the hospital.  The beach is on hospital grounds.  You will be OK there." He watched until I took the correct left, and then he drove off.