Memories from a UNDP trip

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.

On vilivaru and Biyadhoo...

Hiriga (Haveeru Online 18th October 2007) is absolutely right about Vilivaru and Biyadhoo. You and I didn’t go to Lincoln’s Inn. But we also know that our government has absolutely no legal basis for deciding to compensate Yacht Tours Maldives (no ill-will intended to the company or its owners) simply because the government’s team in its report concluded the company ‘had an opportunity to win the bid’. Hiriga has done a marvelous job with presenting his arguments on the case very succinctly. So, I’m not doing that.

If ‘opportunity to win the bid’ really is a basis for a sovereign government to compensate one of the richest companies in its country then I can’t think of anything more outlandish than that. To add to the pain is also the fact that this decision comes at a time when the government is stretched to the limit in the management of its public finances. You might say that I'm exaggerating if I say that our central bank and Finance ministry are bordering on bankruptcy but please see MMA’s monthly stats. So, this decision defies all logic, reason, moral and ethical standards.

Sigh!! I’m not running our government. So, I obviously can’t do anything about it. But I wish instead of compensating Yacht Tours, our government had decided to compensate:

• The 10,000 odd people who are registered on Municipality ‘dhaftharu’ who had waited several years for a place to live.
• The thousands of people who are forced to live like packed sardines in matchbox sized rooms in Male.
• The thousands of 'rajjetherey' people who migrated to Male in search of emplyment, education and basis health services. They've been paying the riculously exorbitant Male rents with their arms and legs for years.
• The hundreds of people who 3 years after the tsunami are still living in ‘vaguthee hiya’
• The 30 odd thousand civil servants for the meager wages they had received for several years.
• The several thousand people in outer islands for having to live without access to proper healthcare, education, housing and a means to generate any income at all.

Xenophobia – what’s the cost?

‘They will colonize us… invade us...enslave our children and their children, eat the juvenile tuna swimming in our seas, take over our resorts and preach Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism and a whole of other ‘isms’ to our children to the extent that they will completely obliterate even the last bastion of ‘iman’ within us’. For more than one reason, I believe that this thought is almost ubiquitous in our country - its there in the papers, the harangue of our politicians, our Friday sermons and our Majlis debates.

C’mon, wait a gosh darn second. Who wants to colonize us? Who wants to invade us? Who wants to preach the ‘sms’ to us? The answer is NO ONE. (I’d like to remind you again that I’m someone with very average cognitive powers).

I think as a nation we’ve paid already paid a huge price for this ‘xenophobia’ thingy. My father was unable to learn the language I’m bogging now because the authorities back then made him and our people believe that learning this ‘faranjee / vilaathu’ language would make him a ‘kafir’. Our policy makers haven’t been able to debate on the issue of 99 year resort leases only because of their ‘xenophobia’. It is also one primary reason why we have lagged behind in our legislative, judicial, political and civil society developments. We haven’t been able to open up our country to foreign investments (I’m talking about a number of legislative and regulatory bottlenecks here) like several other countries have done also because of our fear of foreigners. We’ve been pussy-footing on several important economic reforms and liberalization of a number of areas for FDI for the same reason. I know I don’t need to remind you here about all that Dubai has done and the economic benefits they are reaping from their openness to foreigners.

Maldives - without an army?

We've all been observing stark criticisms of the institutions of our Army and police for a while. As we spend about 6-8 Laari out of every Rufiyaa we get on these, it is definitely bound to be a cause of concern for a lot of us. But then these are very important institutions for a country. So, how can you do away with them? After all they are there to defend our nation and safeguard our public safety. How can we even think of going on as a nation without an army?

How many states in the world are able to maintain their nationhood and sovereignty without an army? Liechtenstein, (a principality – well, is it very different from a sovereign country?) the richest country in Europe with a per capita income of US 54 thousand doesn’t have one. Mauritius, located not very far from us, with a population of 1.2 million people and per capita income of USD 3,700 doesn’t have one either. Iceland, (which incidentally has a population the size of Maldives) the fifth richest country in the world in terms of per capita income also does not have an army. Some other countries that do not have armies are Andorra, Costa Rica, Dominica, Kiribati, Marshall islands, Micronesia, Monaco, Nauru, Palau, Panama, St Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, Samoa, San Marino, Solomon islands, Tuvalu, Vanuatu and Vatican city.

Now, I’m asking myself this question. Could the Maldives continue to be a nation if we were to do away with the institution we call our army? This is perhaps an issue we should open for a public discussion.

Aliens? How prepared are we for them?

“Alhamenge Islaamee killaagai rendhu alhuvaalan ulhey ulhunthah nethi kuravvaa faandheyve” I thought a little about what the Imam was saying as I waited under the shade of the big gofi-eley tree in front of Islaamee marukazu. I looked around at the lanky youths (parteys?) clad in Billabong and Bodyglove T-shirts around me and wondered what they could be thinking about. They don’t even seem to be listening to what the Imam was chanting. Surely they couldn’t be thinking about the “islaamee killa” or the “rendhu” even if they heard what he said.

They are a very different group of people. They grew up eating pizza and sitting in front of TV and computer screens vigorously moving their thumbs. I am sure few of them ever saw a ‘mainnah fennudhey soofi’ or was stung by a ‘gaaviha mas’. I am also very much sure that they neither had a single spoonful of ‘antipaa’ nor did they rote any of the ‘dharus’ from ‘Thauleem Dhiyana’ in their childhoods.

At ten years of difference in age, for me these people seem to actually belong to a different evolutionary phase. They talk and think in a language I cannot fully understand. Had it not been for my good tech-savvy friend I would still be thinking a blog is something you get in your throat when you wake up in one of those stuffy-nose mornings. If I happen to be so ignorant about them I wonder how much apeople in their sixties or seventies would know about them. (I’m in now way comparing myself, a man with average cognitive powers to someone with a surprisingly advanced mental faculty)

They are the majority in this country. But the closest people to these little understood beings - those approaching their 30s or already counting their 30s and going into 40s even seem to understand them very little. They seem to have come out of nowhere to a country little prepared for them. I for one person don’t know what this country is going to do with them? Do we have space in our already overcrowded matchbox sized rooms for them? Do we have space for another ten thousand Sheesha-credit-financed Honda motorbikes on our roads? How many of the ten thousand ‘GCE O/A’ level graduates can we absorb into our cash-crunched and ready-to-burst civil service? What are we going to do when they start multiplying in the next few years? Are we going to count on the golden-egg-laying-chicken for money and the over four thousand Rufiyaa per square foot Hulhumale ‘row house’ for space?

Seeking answers for questions such as these seem to be of little importance to the people at the helm of this small country. They continue to speak and think in their own language – the language of ‘islaamee killa’ and ‘rendhu’. This is the same language they spoke when my father went to ‘Dhaarul Iqaamaa” to study Ahmed Kamil Didi’s poetry. Unfortunately, their language and thinking has since become almost defunct among today’s Maldivians and has lost its meaning and application in the lives of the majority of the people in this country now. Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not against preaching Islam in this country. All that I’m saying is that it’s time that we talk and think in their language about ‘cool stuff’ that has meaning and application in their lives.

Where you and your friend are equal

He is a Beyfulhu (Brahmin?). You are a commoner. He is rich and educated. You are not rich and not ignorant. His ego shouts a big ‘Ouch!’ if he talks to you in Beyfulhu Dhivehi. He also somehow feels it is inappropriate to talk to you like ‘aharen’ and ‘kaley’. You belch at the thought of talking to him like ‘aadhe’ and ‘vidhaalhuvey’. You both decide to make things a bit easier for each other and start talking English (yes, some of those tongue twisters are real tough for a tongue, used to Dhivehi).

The slum dwellers of Male

She must be still a few months away from 28, but she was married at least eight times to seven men. These men came and left her life for reasons little known to anyone except Maaiy Raskalaange and her mother - a sixty something, arms-akimbo-fishwife type woman. Their vestige in her life was six children whose whereabouts still remain somewhat a mystery to her. Although she had her schooling only up to grade 6, she is not mentally challenged. A friend of your author sometimes gets to answer phone calls she makes to a distant relative from the Centre for the mentally challenged in Guraidhoo – yes, that is where she is staying now. She is definitely not demented but her mother has somehow managed to convince the Ministry officials that she indeed is – ostensibly in an attempt to get rid of her!

Another distant relative of your author’s someone, is 31. Her husband, a heroin addict has had intermittent interactions with her during his time away from the prison sentences to father 8 children from the marriage. She lives along with her 8 children with her mother and her 4 children, fathered by two different men, in two match box sized slum-like rooms.

These are true stories of real people just like you. It is little wonder that rhetoric like “furathama badhalu”, “magu chart” and “islaahee agenda” has little appeal to them.

How do I get a FRIEND everywhere???

You lost your driving license today. You call up transport ministry...you will be lucky not to get your phone disconnected while your call gets tossed around among the countless number of girls sitting at the counter before you get the right person online. Then you tell him you have lost you driving license. He says that you need to fill up an LR01 form (how did I get that number?) and submit to the Ministry. You go to Novelty bookshop, get a form and then discover that you have to get a small part of the form filled by Sifainge. You go to Sifainge…if you are lucky to have a friend there you can get their Thaggadu on your form in less than half an hour (if not you might have to sit there for a few hours). Now it’s time for you to go to Transport Ministry. You know so well that it’s going to take your whole day. So you call your friend working at a govt office in Huravee building to see if he has a friend at Transport ministry. Then your good FRIEND somehow locates his distant cousin who happens to have a difficult to pronounce title at the Ministry. You got to see him and he sends one of the girls to collect your form. After a day or two your new friend at the transport ministry calls you to say that your license is ready.

Your uncle has a swollen ankle. You decide to get an appointment with an orthopedic surgeon at IGMH. You call IGMH to get your ‘number’ and the girl on the phone says there are no ‘numbers’ available for another week. If you happen to be a close acquaintance of a Majlis member from Noonu atoll or if your FRIEND knows a someone who was caught a few years ago while engaging in lewd conduct at the office of the Islaamee Kanthah Thakaa Behey Special Majlis, you can get a special ‘number’ to see the orthopedic guy.

Your mother wants to add a room to her 180sq foot housing plot. The only way to go is up. She asks you to get your architect friend to do a drawing for her that she then submits to the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development. They say that the signature of the architect is missing in your drawing. You then get your architect to sign it and then submit your drawing. Ministry says you need a copy of the registry of your goathi. You rush home and get a copy and then run to submit it to the Ministry to find out that they also need a copy of the identity card of your mother. After several days of running to the Ministry you decide that it is impossible to get the approval you need since you don’t have a FRIEND at the Ministry. Then you go out and hire two of Bangladeshi labourers and a Maldivian raanaa man and get your job done without the approval form the Ministry.

Your sister just graduated a month ago. You received a call from the Airport to say that you have received some cargo - some stuff your sister sent through air freight before she arrived. Knowing the kind of trouble you will definitely run into, you take a leave from work and go to the airport early morning to get your cargo cleared. After several hours of filling forms and running in between Airport, Customs and Sifainge guys you finally arrive home at 4.30 in the afternoon. You decide that it’s high time you get a FRIEND in every Government Office!

My civil servant colleague was a 2nd World War POW

I'm really serious about this - my colleague was a 2nd World War POW and he is still 'serving' the Government of Maldives. He must be nearing his third pension now.

I wonder if there is any country out there in the world that gives two or three pensions to civil servants. The other day I happened to be going through a report prepared by World Bank on pension reform in the Maldives. Im i'm not mistaken I think they suggest that mandatory retirement be introduced at age 65 in our small country's civil service. I wonder what would happen to all those fossilized 'wafaatheri and ikhlaas thri' civil servants, including my collegue the 2nd World War POW if Gayoom decides to do as the World Bank team says.

Mein Kempf to open an HSBC Bank Account

My someone wanted to open a dollar account at HSBC, Male. I was thinking of opening this account as a joint account that I could also operate. I went to MTCC tower 1st floor asked asked the Srilankan gentleman at the counter where I could get an application form. The nice Srilankan gentleman pointed towards another nice young lady sitting at another desk. I waited sometime for the Sri Lankan family sitting in front of her to finish their business before she was able to give me an application form.

I rushed home to get this form filled and to get copies of the required documents. As I had some questions regarding the form and my intended account, I wanted to clarify these issues from HSBC before I submit my application form. To my utter shock and absolute disbelief the application form had no contact details whatsoever. All that it says is HSBC – the world’s Local Bank! I guess since the bank claims to be so LOCAL, the bank simply assumes that everybody would know their numbers. I didn’t stop there – called 110 got HSBC’s number and contacted the nice young lady twice to clarify the issues.

As HSBC would not take a Cheque from my Bank of Maldives account I went to BML and bought dollars to get US Dollars in Cash. I quickly went to HSBC and met the young lady at the counter. She took my form and typed a few numbers on her keyboard and after a while told me I would need copies of my wife’s and my passport and national identity card. I produced my wife’s original passport and my national ID card and asked her if these documents would not suffice. She insisted that I should submit copies of all the documents. I said yeah, OK, but if that is your requirement you should clearly give a list of all the documents all prospective account holders are required to submit at the time of opening accounts and you should also have at least your contact details on your application forms. (note: since when did Maldivians start giving consultancy to Fortune 500 companies? he he). I asked her whether she would need any other documents. She thought for a moment and said that both my wife and I are also required to submit letters from our respective employers saying some very nice cute things about ourselves (I don’t remember exactly what she said) and the salary we get! WOW, I said to myself “Thank You Very Much HSBC!”

Long ago I have come to terms with one big reality of life in the Maldives - getting things done from Maldivian Government Offices is one hell of a difficult job full of not so pleasant surprises. I guess HSBC is no different when it’s in the Maldives. It should come as no surprise to anyone as we are the small nation teaching the world ‘the art of doing nothing’.

After an intervention from an influential friend (I dint ask him to intervene because I dont believe in getting things done thru interventions) I was finally able to open my account at the World's local bank.

Shawn says that months ago he was also thinking of opening an account at the World's local bank. But while going thru the banks KYC (what bankers call Know Your Customer)he lost interest(I wonder if they asked him to produce a copy of his great grandma's marriage certificate). He still lives his miserable life without an account at the World's Local Bank.