Son et lumière
Abidh wandered in a couple of evenings ago as I was making dinner and borrowed my computer to type something. He carefully deleted it before I saw it; perhaps it was the same as last time he did the same, when he wrote (in Dhivehi) a short and charming love letter to a girl in his class. (I was disappointed when he deleted it, because I was hoping to get an insight into Dhivehi sentence structure by studying it after he left.) Typing on a keyboard (as opposed to a phone) is a novelty for most of the kids here. On Kendhikulhudhoo more had access to computers.
Abidh is a very, very small student in Grade 7. He has endless energy and looks healthy to the point of embonpoint so I do not think his small size is due to malnourishment, but I never knew him when he wasn't hungry. Whenever he happens to catch me in the road anywhere near the cafe he looks slyly at me and says 'Sir I am hungry' or perhaps 'Are you going cafe?'. So naturally now when I offer him some of my dinner he accepts. He gives the thumbs-up to my bubble-and-squeak - most of them look with rank suspicion on food that doesn't look very Maldivian - but after all it is food. There will be bodu-beru later, he says.
Later, the sound of drumming. It does not appear to be coming from the maizan near the jetty as usual, but from the other direction. I follow it round the school and past the football ground and it is still ahead of me, though from here the road is unlit and peters out into the beach. But I step boldly into the darkness and there they are on the sand at the top of the beach, black shadows in blackness playing and singing. I have no idea who was playing or even who I sat next to who spoke to me, so thick was the darkness, but I know the music was magical. I notice a couple of tiny specks of blue luminescence in the sand at my feet. I don't know what causes this; you can pick one up on your fingertip. They look strange and beautiful, otherworldly. If you strike the sand with your hand you might see a speck appear, and I wonder if triboluminescence is involved, sand crystals converting impact to light.
Then a couple of boys rush up from the shore, and throw their hands in the air. They are carrying huge handfuls of luminescent sand. It rises far into the sky and falls in an elegant swirl on the road. Back and forth they go down to the shore, and come back to add their sprays of light to the music: an extravagant blue firework display, and swirl after swirl lands in the road till it is shining as if a bright light is on it, and more handfuls land on the trees to either side, like a dusting of snow.
I followed them down to the water's edge and there it was, heaps of shining blue sand. I had no idea why. I picked a handful up and added it to the display. It arced gracefully skywards and landed in a flourish of blue.
Someone told me something confused about fish blood, or jellyfish, having something to do with the effect. The boys were mixing and turning the sand energetically with their hands before picking it up, which seemed to enhance the effect. A web search suggests that it is in fact bioluminescence, and that mixed in the sand were tiny light-making plankton, which may indeed have been jellyfish but were more likely algae, a bloom of which had just been washed ashore. They luminesce in response to being disturbed. Or alternatively, perhaps they heard the music and came to join the fun.
Abidh is a very, very small student in Grade 7. He has endless energy and looks healthy to the point of embonpoint so I do not think his small size is due to malnourishment, but I never knew him when he wasn't hungry. Whenever he happens to catch me in the road anywhere near the cafe he looks slyly at me and says 'Sir I am hungry' or perhaps 'Are you going cafe?'. So naturally now when I offer him some of my dinner he accepts. He gives the thumbs-up to my bubble-and-squeak - most of them look with rank suspicion on food that doesn't look very Maldivian - but after all it is food. There will be bodu-beru later, he says.
Later, the sound of drumming. It does not appear to be coming from the maizan near the jetty as usual, but from the other direction. I follow it round the school and past the football ground and it is still ahead of me, though from here the road is unlit and peters out into the beach. But I step boldly into the darkness and there they are on the sand at the top of the beach, black shadows in blackness playing and singing. I have no idea who was playing or even who I sat next to who spoke to me, so thick was the darkness, but I know the music was magical. I notice a couple of tiny specks of blue luminescence in the sand at my feet. I don't know what causes this; you can pick one up on your fingertip. They look strange and beautiful, otherworldly. If you strike the sand with your hand you might see a speck appear, and I wonder if triboluminescence is involved, sand crystals converting impact to light.
Then a couple of boys rush up from the shore, and throw their hands in the air. They are carrying huge handfuls of luminescent sand. It rises far into the sky and falls in an elegant swirl on the road. Back and forth they go down to the shore, and come back to add their sprays of light to the music: an extravagant blue firework display, and swirl after swirl lands in the road till it is shining as if a bright light is on it, and more handfuls land on the trees to either side, like a dusting of snow.
I followed them down to the water's edge and there it was, heaps of shining blue sand. I had no idea why. I picked a handful up and added it to the display. It arced gracefully skywards and landed in a flourish of blue.
Someone told me something confused about fish blood, or jellyfish, having something to do with the effect. The boys were mixing and turning the sand energetically with their hands before picking it up, which seemed to enhance the effect. A web search suggests that it is in fact bioluminescence, and that mixed in the sand were tiny light-making plankton, which may indeed have been jellyfish but were more likely algae, a bloom of which had just been washed ashore. They luminesce in response to being disturbed. Or alternatively, perhaps they heard the music and came to join the fun.