Advertisement

Beyond the resorts: volunteering in the remote Maldives

For most visitors, the Maldives are synonymous with luxury resorts, white-sand beaches and some of the world's best diving and snorkelling. But retired school principal David Bryant found a way to gain a different insight into the country.

It started off as a lark. I was nudging seventy, tentatively embarking on retirement, sloppily nurturing three grown-up children and possessed of few immediate ties. I had been dabbling in late-life diversions including learning to sail, prospecting, motor-biking and fixing a shack in Mandurah. I suppose I should have avidly pursued several or all these ideas, but I felt drained of energy and motivation. My bucket list had a leakage problem.

Late 2013, I stumbled across a program for people volunteering overseas. I went along to an introductory meeting. The first presentation was by a young speech therapist who had worked productively in Fiji. Her experiences were replicated by a more senior speaker, who had done several stints as a haematologist in Cambodia. I cornered this latter lady and plied her with questions. She was a serial volunteer.

I drove home imagining which exotic destination might require the dubious skills of an ageing school principal. Next morning, I checked out opportunities online. There was a dream assignment for a teacher trainer in the Maldives. A spectacular lark!

I fired off the extensive application. Mistakenly, I mentioned the application to my children. They thought it to be another late-life crisis akin to the unridden red motorcycle in the shed. With the pressures of the oncoming festive season, I all but forgot about my geriatric island delusion.

Come late November, I was surprised to be shortlisted for the Maldives, and had to wrestle with a seriously long psychological questionnaire. That in turn triggered a searching telephone interview and an intensive medical. Subsequently I was offered an island… Komandoo.

I'd seen resort advertisements but knew nothing about the "real" Maldives, and less than nothing about Komandoo. Information from volunteer headquarters designated my island as "remote" and very small: 315m in length and 250m wide. Komandoo was the smallest island in the Shaviyani Atoll but the second-most populated, home to 1900 people.

With a week of training in Sydney under my belt, two cars sold and the house leased, I was waved off at Perth Airport by my pregnant daughter. The baby was born one week after our volunteer team landed in the Maldives' capital, Male. "Remote" was going to mean separation from the happy and comfortable domestic life to which I was accustomed.

Male was my first experience of seriously small and clearly overcrowded island, having an area of 2sqkm and a burgeoning population of more than 100,000 people. It is densely populated, and vulnerable to ocean inundation. Sharing the Maldivian average elevation of 1.5m above sea level, it boasts an all-encompassing tetrapod sea wall, donated by the Japanese government. But residents seemed unconcerned about waves slopping over onto adjacent roads. They were more interested in frenetic late-night shopping, endless football games and their motorbikes.

Male offered another week's training for me and my three colleagues. Twenty hours were spent learning the local Dhivehi language, and I mastered the equivalent of "good morning", "thankyou" and "banana". The latter was a lousy conversation starter, and there weren't even that many bananas around.

At 6am on February 7, accompanied by my in-country manager, I flew out of the impressive international airport aboard a small Maldivian plane, jam-packed with Chinese tourists bound for various resorts. The landing was at Hanimaadhoo, a busy little regional terminal carved out of the natural palm vegetation on an attractive, thinly populated and remote northern island. Our spectacular flight had given passengers a kaleidoscopic aerial introduction to some of the 1190 coral islets spread over a watery 90,000sqkm below.

Hanimaadhoo is a hub for high-speed launches that service various resort islands and, less often, other isolated inhabited islands. Launch travel is very expensive and beyond the financial reach of most Maldivians. Local people travel to and from Male using the big traditional ferries, which are slow and uncomfortable but inexpensive. My manager and I were the sole passengers on the slick Komandoo-bound launch. After an hour's travel, we identified the distant smudge on the horizon as Komandoo.


Remote Komandoo Island. Picture: David Bryant


I was not sure what to expect, but the island was certainly small. Gliding into the harbour, our launch manoeuvred to share moorings with various traditional fishing craft. Stepping onto the concrete wharf, I was exposed to the fierce heat of the afternoon sun and to the attention of the nervous little troupe of young students dressed in national costume and bearing artificial roses by way of welcome. They were supported by the dignified members of the Komandoo Island Council.

To escape the ever-present heat, we adults walked to the Findhandhi Restaurant, where we were offered black tea and sweet biscuits. It was simple fare, a reflection of the thoughtful efforts to make me feel welcome. As it turned out, there were three such restaurants on Komandoo, similarly basic and consisting of a series of cabana-type structures. The cabanas could each accommodate half-a-dozen diners, and the decor was strictly limited to verdant potted plants. The menu offerings were simple, with the main midday offering being chicken and rice or fish and rice, both sporting a fried egg atop. Breakfast was mas huni, a mixture of rice, shredded tuna, onion and chilli, accompanied by roti and eaten by hand. Mid-afternoon, the restaurants served sweet or savoury cake-like snacks, presented under the label "short eats" (hedhikaa). These rich goodies provide local men with a mid-afternoon boost to tide them through to the substantial 10:30 evening meal. Hedhikaa is also an occasion for discussion and the settling of business.

It was a short walk down sandy alleys reminiscent of Greece to my accommodation. Block-built houses stood wall-to-wall along sandy "streets". Where there was room, a few struggling stunted trees provided welcome shade. Many houses looked to be in a poor state of repair, with the strikingly beautiful mosque and the four-storey school dominating the skyline. I was struck by the brightly painted house walls, many adorned with stencilled political slogans. It was no accident that pink and yellow were prominent among these colours - they are the colours of the two main Maldives political parties. And though pink walls seemed predominant, Komandoo was officially a "yellow" island.

The house, for which I would be paying 6000 rufiyaa (nearly $500) a month, was reputedly one of the best in town. Thankfully it was neutral blue and, remarkably, it was two-storey. A deck on the second storey was metres from the ocean and provided a panoramic view of the distant islands and of the passing parade of neighbours going about their daily morning or evening perambulation of the island. How lucky to be in such a comfortable house. It was luck that didn't last.

Once installed in my comfortable accommodation, I endeavoured to settle into my job. Headquarters was the four-storey Shaviyani Atoll Education Centre. This large school housed 450 students from grade one to 12. I shared an office with the local teacher trainer, a young Maldivian man who headed up the school's training resource centre. He and I were to develop training programs to deliver to school staff on other islands. I was also required to assist with the English-language curriculum at the Komandoo school.

My counterpart briefly introduced me to the island's facilities. There were four picturesque mosques, one for ladies only. Entertainment was served by a TV station relaying 24 channels of mainly Bollywood and sport. A modern medical centre had replaced one destroyed by the tsunami, and nearby was a small police station. Adjacent to the harbour was a desalinator which produced most of the island's water. That facility clustered with the council office and the administration block dealing with electricity and gas bottle delivery.

Then there were the shops. Officially there were 40 of them. All were miniscule, and all sold a small range of similar goods. It was to these stores that I went looking for food. Food production for local consumption is limited on all Maldivian islands and food is a major import, coming from places such as India, Sri Lanka, Brazil and Thailand. Even tuna products, Komandoo's main industry, never appear in shops other than in cans. Tuna boats take their lucrative tuna catch straight to Male and fish products are the Maldives' major export.


Tuna caught by locals on Komandoo. Picture: David Bryant


Chicken sausages are popular on these Islamic islands. They were promoted as being made from "mechanically deboned" Brazilian chickens and the packaging also guaranteed the sausages to be of "natural colour". Early on, I bought numerous packs of these slippery dull-pink sausages, but soon tired of their appearance and bland taste. Most chicken products, including drumsticks, came from Brazil, as did inedible, rubbery buffalo meat. Eggs came from Thailand.

Vegetables were sourced in the Male markets and delivered to Komandoo by ferry. In theory, the ferry was supposed to arrive every three weeks, but was quite often delayed by wild tropical weather or engine breakdown. Vegetables on an overdue ferry soon deteriorated and became almost unsaleable.

Cabbages, carrots and beans were the only reliable "fresh" vegetables and all three quickly succumbed to limpness and black spots. Sometimes the shops sourced odd green or purple Maldivian vegetables, mostly with spikes on them. These surprise packages were often bitter but possibly healthy. Tinned vegetables were my last resort.

Fruit was a little easier to source, as long as you liked apples (all from New Zealand) or oranges (variously from the USA, Egypt or South Africa). Bananas, which I craved, were hardly ever available. They usually came from the few adjacent islands where richer soil could sustain banana plantations. Two local men seemed to have cornered the market on bananas and commandeered the whole ferry stock. In desperation, I bought the little mutant bananas for 25 cents each.

The scarcity of vegetables and fruit was a daily concern, and my shopping trips were basically a forage for suitable food. There were no shops catering specifically for groceries and each shop sold unpredictably diverse goods. A shop called Perfection just near my house sold adhesives, tools, marine paint, bread, apples and cabbages. Other shops had clothing, fishing line, poly pipe, ghastly ties, brooms, notebooks, expensive toys, fish lures, kites and umbrellas. I had to go to three shops before I could find a bolt to reinforce my door and it was mid-year before I found a decent tin opener.

Another quirk was shopping times. On Komandoo, as elsewhere in the Maldives, Islam is the only permissible faith and the obligations of that faith are taken very seriously. Hence there is the call to prayer five times a day. Most shops are closed for long periods during prayer times and that always seemed to be the time I was out shopping.

Food frustrations were mirrored by the shortage of water on Komandoo. There are three basic water sources. Most houses have large rainwater water tanks but the water they collect off ageing asbestos roofing is only suitable for washing clothes and watering plants. All houses have shallow wells, but since the 2004 tsunami, the water in these has been tainted with salt. Finally there is the community-built desalinator, which produces 40 tonnes of fair-quality drinking water daily. Since the demand is 50 tonnes per day, bottled water needs to be bought.

Amid the strains of unfamiliar work, language difficulties, and food and water shortages, I unexpectedly lost my comfortable accommodation. My house with a view became a casualty of a Maldivian government policy to develop home stay opportunities on inhabited islands. I was subsequently relocated to a recently renovated house - unfortunately, painted bright pink inside and out. It also had no windows.

I wasn't thrilled about my new house, or about the ocean pollution that increasingly tainted the only patch of beach and every metre of sea wall. Rubbish and sewage disposal is a major problem on Komandoo and other islands of a similar size and population. Male mirrors this insidious problem, and large ships are employed to carry decaying loads of rubbish to a designated "garbage island". Here the waste is piled up and burnt. On occasions, palls of acrid smoke hang over the capital.

Komandoo has no strategy for rubbish disposal. Everybody has buckets or wheelbarrows which they fill with assorted trash and dump into the waters adjacent to the harbour. Everything imaginable is dumped, including plastic bottles that are carried by wind and currents back into the harbour. Other unsightly rubbish includes clothing, shoes, cardboard boxes, food scraps and household appliances, such as ageing televisions and washing machines. To magnify the disposal problem, sewerage runs untreated into the ocean through numerous blue plastic pipes. Swimming is not safe, and is saved for trips to the nearby unspoiled, uninhabited islands.

Despite the frustrations, my 10 months on Komandoo were a blessing and a privilege. I took pride in being able to survive the isolation, heat and homesickness. As it turned out, I was the only member of my four-person team to see out the 10-month span of their contract.


Reclaimed land on Komandoo. Picture: David Bryant


I think my lifelong mantra of "lucky, lucky" helped to turn challenges into learning experiences. In addition, I had planned to use my assignment to realise some of my remaining lifelong aspirations. Hence the guitar that I strummed hopefully almost every evening and the escapism provided via interesting old books from the school library. Then there was satisfying discipline of daily diary writing and the three weeks of R&R spent adventuring amid the exotic climes of Sri Lanka and India. Ultimately and most significantly, there was my running.

A lifelong runner, I had packed my joggers. How lucky was I to discover the Komandoo Island Council had an initiated a reclamation plan that would double the area of available land. Works were already in motion. Barge-loads of heavy boulders from India were piled high and massive machinery was extending the sea wall. Tonnes of coral sand dredged from an area earmarked for a second harbour was piled up like massive dunes ready for infill. A perfect place to run.

Many people find running therapeutic. For me, it was a great reason to get out of bed at 5am and head down to the scenic sand tracks for my regular three-lap outing. Initially, I was the only runner but in the course of the next few weeks a smattering of ladies hit the tracks.

My volunteer training had cautioned me about making eye contact with local Muslim women. I also understood I was the lone foreigner amid an exclusively Sunni population, and that I needed to be mindful of cultural differences. In particular, I tried to be detached from issues of island politics and Islamic law. I carefully observed the dress standards, covering up even when I had the rare chance to swim. So here I was among island women wearing their hijabs: two different worlds on the one sandy track.

Initially I ran with downcast eyes and no suggestion of recognition but, out of sheer endorphin-induced enjoyment of exercise, I embarked on an informal smiling campaign. It took some weeks to get reciprocal smiles, but eventually some came. Then I combined smiling with the formal greeting, "assalamu alaykum" (peace be upon you). This prompted little or no response so I tried "good morning". That was much more successful.

In the course of 10 months of jogging and the accumulation of more than 900 laps of the gradually extending sandy tracks, I managed to win a fair few hearts and minds. It was the lady who turned up in running shoes and out-sprinted me across the sand who finally got us all laughing together. This also provided an entree to a bashi team.


A game of bashi on Komandoo. Picture: David Bryant


Bashi is a traditional women's game involving two teams, a tennis net, a container of tennis balls and a set of rackets. Batting team members individually take their turn to stand back to the net and smash balls backwards over the net into the opposition team standing or squatting in the sand. A caught ball puts the batter out. I played bashi regularly after work, gathering plenty of bruises and making more friends.

By the end of my 10 months on Komandoo, I had worked hard and completed much of my required assignment. There had been long hours creating education presentations and magical trips to deliver workshops on neighbouring islands. At my own school, I had monitored English lessons and coordinated teachers' meetings. I had participated in special ceremonies, admiring the decorations and enjoying the celebratory food. Some evenings I was invited out on boats to go on fishing trips where gloves and heavy lines were paramount and big fish plentiful. On weekends I took opportunities to join family or friendship groups as they played games and socialised on the new sandy territory.

For my last weekend on Komandoo, a group of my school colleagues surprised me with a boat trip to the nearby Seven Palm Tree Island (Kudafuru). To wade ashore across the whitest of sand and to swim in the clearest of warm, blue water was a dream come true. The traditional barbecue of fish roasted over the coals of coconut husks was a repast no money could buy. Together we watched the sun, burnt red against the western horizon, as it sank majestically into the Indian Ocean. Almost on cue, the full moon, similarly burnished, rose in the east, silhouetting distant Komandoo. That evening was a stunning view of paradise, shared with people whose lifestyle is devout, simple, uncomplicated, supportive and cheerful.

On the day before I left my island I went, rubbish bucket in hand, down to the harbour. I wished there could have been some other way, but I reluctantly tipped my bucket in. Among my garbage was the pair of black leather shoes I had worn for work for the last 10 months. While everything else sank quickly among the scavenging fish, the shoes stayed afloat and sailed resolutely off in the direction of India.