Shakeeba Ali, 27, from the impoverished island of Sh. Narudhoo and her 3 children aged between 3-8 do not eat the occasional bunch of banana they get from the ‘keyo feeni’ in their backyard. The good loins from the skipjack tuna Ahmed Adam’s cousin’s boat catches depending on the season also does not form a part of the diet of Ahmed Adam, 38, from Sh. Feydhoo and his family of 5 children and his wife. Only the fish head, badaidhoo, kashifathi and other parts of the fish that has zero commercial value goes into their pot of garudhiya. I wondered why. Our government supported by organizations such as UNDP among others, have been urging our people to eat good food for ages. How could these islanders still continue to be so ignorant and not heed to the good advice given to them?
I asked both Shakeeba and Ahmed why they have opted not to eat the finest food they have access to. That’s not because I didn’t know the answer. I only wanted to confirm something I had always known - the few bunches of bananas and smoked tuna loins contribute substantially to the little income they have and with that meager income they both needed to buy rice, flour and sugar.
Both Shakeeba and Ahmed have been living a life of sustenance just like the way their people had lived for generations. They had few complaints. They seem generally content with their life. They don’t have to think about the upcoming refinancing for their resort from their Singapore based banker. They dont either have to think about concocting their next big lie needed for the upcoming Majlis session. They even don’t have think about ‘child malnutrition’, ‘poverty alleviation’ and ‘Gini coefficient’ and other difficult to pronounce and abstruse terms that our government officials and donor agencies seem to understand like the back of their hands. Happy people they are.
I asked both Shakeeba and Ahmed why they have opted not to eat the finest food they have access to. That’s not because I didn’t know the answer. I only wanted to confirm something I had always known - the few bunches of bananas and smoked tuna loins contribute substantially to the little income they have and with that meager income they both needed to buy rice, flour and sugar.
Both Shakeeba and Ahmed have been living a life of sustenance just like the way their people had lived for generations. They had few complaints. They seem generally content with their life. They don’t have to think about the upcoming refinancing for their resort from their Singapore based banker. They dont either have to think about concocting their next big lie needed for the upcoming Majlis session. They even don’t have think about ‘child malnutrition’, ‘poverty alleviation’ and ‘Gini coefficient’ and other difficult to pronounce and abstruse terms that our government officials and donor agencies seem to understand like the back of their hands. Happy people they are.
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