Twenty years ago
Visited Ali, my civil servant friend, yesterday afternoon. His father was there (it's his house in fact), an exceedingly old and full-habited man of 80 with bright eyes wearing only a dhoti or sarong, whose local name I can't remember. He doesn't speak a word of English, but his presence reminded Ali to tell me about life on the island during the war, which his father has told him tales of. There were no boats delivering food, so no rice, nothing to eat beyond what coconuts grew ('they made coconut toddy') and what fish people could catch. People ate leaves. Many people died, 'two or three every day'. This detail cannot be even nearly right, as even at present levels the whole island population would be dead well within a year. I suppose it is an example of memory making colours more vivid. But no doubt it was bad.
When I got up to leave he walked me most of the way home. 'Twenty years ago the houses were built out of coconut palm leaves,' he said unexpectedly into a moment of silence, indicating coconuts and houses with an inclusive wave. In his memory, in the late 1980s (he is 30), there were only two stone houses on the island, this large one we are passing and another. Ordinary houses had roofs of palm thatch, and walls made out of thatch and wood in some way. They were often built in the shade of a huge tree, and were much pleasanter and cooler; one could sleep at night without a fan. And just as well, because there was no electricity till the island got its first generator in 1992. (Even Male' got a generator only in 1945.) At first it was good for a couple of bulbs in each house and there was power for five hours a day, from 6pm. If you wanted to make a phone call the nearest place to do so was Manadhoo, the atoll capital, a couple of hours away by a motor dhoani, until the island office here got a satellite phone in 1995. Mobiles came in 1998. When he is granted a block of land for his own house he will build it in the old style, insh'allah. Perhaps in five years. Tourism came to Maldives in 1970 and the revenue it generated has slowly changed everything. People started wearing shirts and trousers instead of the traditional sarong and building houses out of concrete. All this area where we are walking now was jungle back in the nineties. Here is the school - only the hall was built then. It was only a primary school in those days, and the children had lessons outside under a tree. The parents had built some shacks as extra classrooms. You should have come here twenty years ago, he says.
A few days later I attempt to chat to the security guard in the school, whose English is almost zero, while I wait for my students' first exam to finish. The attempt is pretty much a failure but I'm fairly sure he says that when he was at school, classes were in a building on the other side of the mosquito. I take it they were in fact the other side of the mosque. He is a bit older than Ali.
By the way, it is well within memory that the only way to travel was by sail, and travelling between Noonu atoll and Male' might take months; as an elderly chap I met in Male' in June could recall. According to a comment I read on a recent news story, as recently as the 1980s you needed a kind of visa called a 'kuda sitee' ('small letter') to visit Male' from the provinces. Now that Male' is clogged with people, the 'real' Malesiders look down on the simple-minded beeratehin (strangers) or raajethere meehun (provincials) who have only been there a generation or less.
When I got up to leave he walked me most of the way home. 'Twenty years ago the houses were built out of coconut palm leaves,' he said unexpectedly into a moment of silence, indicating coconuts and houses with an inclusive wave. In his memory, in the late 1980s (he is 30), there were only two stone houses on the island, this large one we are passing and another. Ordinary houses had roofs of palm thatch, and walls made out of thatch and wood in some way. They were often built in the shade of a huge tree, and were much pleasanter and cooler; one could sleep at night without a fan. And just as well, because there was no electricity till the island got its first generator in 1992. (Even Male' got a generator only in 1945.) At first it was good for a couple of bulbs in each house and there was power for five hours a day, from 6pm. If you wanted to make a phone call the nearest place to do so was Manadhoo, the atoll capital, a couple of hours away by a motor dhoani, until the island office here got a satellite phone in 1995. Mobiles came in 1998. When he is granted a block of land for his own house he will build it in the old style, insh'allah. Perhaps in five years. Tourism came to Maldives in 1970 and the revenue it generated has slowly changed everything. People started wearing shirts and trousers instead of the traditional sarong and building houses out of concrete. All this area where we are walking now was jungle back in the nineties. Here is the school - only the hall was built then. It was only a primary school in those days, and the children had lessons outside under a tree. The parents had built some shacks as extra classrooms. You should have come here twenty years ago, he says.
A few days later I attempt to chat to the security guard in the school, whose English is almost zero, while I wait for my students' first exam to finish. The attempt is pretty much a failure but I'm fairly sure he says that when he was at school, classes were in a building on the other side of the mosquito. I take it they were in fact the other side of the mosque. He is a bit older than Ali.
By the way, it is well within memory that the only way to travel was by sail, and travelling between Noonu atoll and Male' might take months; as an elderly chap I met in Male' in June could recall. According to a comment I read on a recent news story, as recently as the 1980s you needed a kind of visa called a 'kuda sitee' ('small letter') to visit Male' from the provinces. Now that Male' is clogged with people, the 'real' Malesiders look down on the simple-minded beeratehin (strangers) or raajethere meehun (provincials) who have only been there a generation or less.