Tips

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School

• The most useful items you could donate to the school would be library books and goggles. With regards to library books, just consider how suitable the book would be: a book exploring world religions or one containing various states of undress may not be the most appropriate text for the primary school.
• Educational posters would also be useful.
• If you want to work towards finishing the classrooms get onto it straight away! You need to liaise more so with the teachers and see what they want. We ran out of time.
• If you are asked to do something (ie. paint a wall) find out all of the nitty gritty details before you begin the task. At least then you might not find yourself being asked to paint an 8m high wall!

Swimming

• Definitely check out the swimming area before lessons start. Also, be aware that it changes every day - one day, the water might be quite shallow, the next day it's up to your shoulders in the same spot.
• Send kids out of the water if they're misbehaving (at least let one of the teachers know you will be doing that). We should have done that more often.
• Try not to take white boardshorts/swim shirts... Yes they go see through in the water, and you may as well not be wearing them.

Dress

• School: We wore t-shirts, the girls wore long skirts, the guys long pants. You could get away with wearing clothing that is a little shorter than that, but the teachers were happy with how we dressed. Also be careful that your t-shirts do not show any underarm. Apparently showing your underarm is quite offensive.
• Around the island: Again t-shirts. Girls can wear anything below the knee. Guys can wear anything on the knee or below.
• Again, white. Make sure those white t-shirts/skirts/pants aren't see through.

Shops

• There are numerous shops on the island that sell everything from toiletries to food to hardware. Unless you like a specific brand or need a specific hygiene/sanitary product, you can get pretty much everything you need on the island.
• Be aware that GST (at least when we were there) isn't included in the price - It's added on at the end.

Other

• While snorkel sets and fins are available on the island, bringing a mask from Australia is probably a good idea. Those who bought masks from the various shops on the island said that they didn't work too well - water would always seep in.
• Mosquito nets will come in handy. While there aren't too many mozzies at the Yellow House (there are screens covering most of the windows), there are plenty of them at the Blue House. I also don't think there are screens covering the windows at the Blue House. Bring some sort of twine/thin rope with you and/or a removable sticky hook. If you are sleeping next to a window you can tie the net around the curtain runner and tuck the net around and under the edges of the bed. If you are sleeping away from a window you can then stick the hook to the wall and tie the net up that way.
• An electric powered mozzie repeller is also a good idea. 
• Do not buy duty-free alcohol at the Male' International Airport if you are transiting through Singapore on the way back to Australia as it will be confiscated.
• Just because it is practically Summer all year round, does not mean you will not get sick (as I naively thought). Take some cold and flu tablets and betadine solution. Your newly acquired cold/sore throat will thank you for it.

Goodbye Maldives!

5/02/2012

Breakfast was included at the hotel... Cereal and toast! Suprise, surprise! After downing a good helping of toast I sat and had a chat with Nicole and Paul about everything... life back home and life in the Maldives. The one thing I learnt over the course of the month was that nothing in the Maldives makes sense. Once you accept that, things aren't so stressful and it's a pretty good place to be.

By 9:45am we were on the shuttle bus back to the airport to say goodbye to the others who were catching the early flight and dump our stuff before checking out Male' again.

Our time in Male' was spent walking, shopping, walking, shopping, eating, shopping and walking. In the heat it was exhausting! After browsing through some souvenir shops the others decided to try bartering with the shop assistants. The shop keepers seemed to enjoy it, and they did lower the prices for us when we said that we had been volunteer teaching for a month. The artificial beach was interesting to say the least, and the fish and produce markets were well worth the visit.

We left Male' at around 5:00pm and ended up camping out at a cafe/restuarant next to the airport for three hours before retrieving our bags and checking in. The relief that I felt when I saw BNE on my suitcase was immense and very unexpected. Despite the fact that I thought I didn't want to go home, deep down I obviously did.


6/02/2012

The next day or so was spent in transit.

The flight back to Brisbane was tedious, but the seeing the city from the air was exciting.

Volunteering in the Maldives is a once in a lifetime experience and, despite the confusion and frustration, I am so glad I can say that I've done it. If you are prepared for the heat and the beautiful sea breezes, the repetitive diet and the generosity of the locals, the frustration of a class not listening to a word you say and little heads popping out of doorways to watch you walk past, the expanse of litter, the beauty of the water and 'island fever' you will grow to love the place.

The 15 or so other Australians you spend the month with will only make your time better.

Goodbye Thinadhoo, hello Male'!

4/02/2012

After living on Thinadhoo for a month, I can say there are a lot of things I won't miss... But there are also a lot of things I will miss, including:

• The stars
• Being surrounded by the most intense shades of blue water
• Call to prayer
• The children
• Having children call out, "Miss! Miss!" from at least 50 metres away
• The cheap milo
• The cheap food
• The generosity and friendliness of (most of) the locals
• The culture. Comparing life back in Australia to life here... So totally different.
• The marine life

We left Thinadhoo at around 11:30am and wasted a good few hours eating and playing Scattergories before our flight boarded at 2:20pm. The flight was fairly uneventful and seeing Thinadhoo and the many reefs from the air was great.

After landing and finally making it to our hotel on Hulhulmale' (not the hotel on the airport island - we thought something was wrong when we walked into a beautiful hotel lobby after being told that we were only paying $40 for the night) we caught a ferry over to Male' to check out the place and find dinner.

My first impression of Male' was chaos. The amount of bikes on the island is insane. One of the men from the hotel accompanied us as a guide. He ended up taking us to a souvenir place and a rather expensive restuarant. I have no idea how much money he thought we had, but he was greatly mistaken. We ended up having dinner at an Italian place. It was amazing.

We had been told to be on the ferry back to Hulhulmale' by 8:30pm due to the protests that had been occuring. Well, 8:30 came and went - we were still eating. By the time we got out of the restaurant it was 9:00pm. We didn't see any protests, but the army was driving around. Needless to say I was glad to get back on the ferry back to a hot shower and an air-conditioned room.

Night fishing

3/02/2012

At 5:00pm sharp we all made our way down to the hospital end of the wharf and turned to face our boat. The boat... It certainly didn't look too solid! After somehow fitting 13 of us, Chickoo, Happy and another local we set off to the southern end of Thinadhoo. We stayed there for about half an hour and only managed to catch each other's lines or pieces of coral. The water itself was amazing though: cobalt blue, very deep, and yet you could still see the coral on the ocean floor. We soon left that spot to find another location. After making a detour past a rocky outcrop so Happy could put two large rocks on the boat (we had lost the anchor to the reef, so the rocks became our anchor), we got going and anchored somewhere between Thinadhoo and Kaadhedhoo.

We sat there for a while before anything was caught, but after that the fish just kept coming. Among the fish we caught was an eel and a large chunk of coral. I can only say that I half caught mine however... I think the men were getting fed up with most of us not catching anything, so they took our lines, got a fish on the hook (in hardly any time) and gave the reel back to us to pull them up.

The bigger fish was mine.

When we arrived back to Thinadhoo, the fish were taken to the Blue House to be cooked. As tempting as it was to eat, I was exhausted and coming down with the cold/sore throat/cough that had apprently gone around all of the volunteers. Bed was calling my name.

Last days of school and swimming

31/1/2012

The day passed fairly uneventfully. We tried to break into the kitchen in the Blue House as the two girls there were still asleep. Our attempts failed, but fortunately the girls woke up about 5 - 10 minutes before we were due to leave for school.

As we had no swimming today (the strongest swim teachers were making their way back from the resort) we went to watch the sunset again. Attempt number 3 wasn't much more of a success. The sunset itself was nice, but there is always a bank of clouds hanging around on the horizon that make it impossible to see the sun slide into the water.

1/02/2012

Between school finishing and swimming we had a couple of the girls lead us to a souvenir shop on the island. It was a fantastic little place; the man opened the shop especially for us and we had a good look before buying a number of little trinkets and sarongs. The shop is very close to the Yellow House and is set back a bit from the soccer field that is in that part of the island. A word of advice: buy your souvenirs on Thinadhoo.... Souvenirs are expensive in Male' and easily over 4-5 times the price you'd pay on Thinadhoo. Don't get me wrong, the souvenirs at the shops in Male' are beautiful, but very much over-priced.

2/02/2012

Last day at school. Last swimming lesson. Last lunch and dinner and the cafe.

Around 12pm at school my teacher asked if I could leave the classroom for half an hour as they had something to set up. I knew it was going to be 'goodbye' orientated and spent my time eating chocolate and lollipops.

When I finally walked back up and peeped through the window my teacher shook her head frantically at me, so I quickly turned around. The next thing, one of my students is standing beside me, talking to me about the most random topics: grass, Australia, siblings, snorkelling... I asked her if she was sent outside to distract me. She replied with 'No' and great, big smile. Obviously she was.

When I walked into the classroom there was a large 'We miss you Chae Miss' on the whiteboard. I gave the kids and my teacher their presents, took some photos and then the bell rang. As I followed the kids downstairs I thought about how weird it was that I'd never see some of them again (the ones who didn't go to swimming anyway).

On that note, swimming was not fun. While we had hardly any kids, which meant that some of us could sit out for each lesson, they just went nuts. The choppiness of the water didn't help either. We somehow made it through the first session, the second session was controlled chaos. By the time the third session rolled around I was over swimming. I had done my share of sessions, it was cold and there weren't many kids, so a couple of us decided to finish early as there really was no point in us hanging around.

Resort = Heaven

29/01/2012

After a quick jet boat ride we made it to the resort. At first I didn't even realise it was Robinsons until we started to slow down.

How can I describe the resort? Fantastic is probably the best word. Robsinsons is beautiful. Back at the school Shifa told me it is only a 3 star resort... If it is 3 star I can't even imagine 5 star... 5 star must be out-of-this-world amazing.

We were greeted with cold towels, champagne (!!!) and iced tea on arrival before we were taken to breakfast. Oh wow, the food; I think I died and had gone to heaven.

Four helpings of breakfast later we were exploring the resort and hitting up the pool bar for cocktails. It was so nice to be in water that wasn't ridiculously salty and was absent of screaming children. We chilled in the pool, floating on pool noodles, for the remainder of the afternoon. Our floating and drinking was briefly interrupted when we took our bags to our room and checked-in. The rooms were, again, beautiful, if not a bit dark. The bathroom was amazing. The beach was amazing. By the end of the day I was able to cross sting-ray and shark off my list. The sting-ray was seen off the deck at the buffet, the shark in the shallow water of our private beach. It was only a baby.

The remainder of the night was spent eating, drinking, eating, drinking, drinking and eating. Robinsons put a DJ on for the night because we were there (usually they don't have any music on a Sunday night) which was great. I think we must have gone to bed at around 2 or 3am.


30/1/2012

Some of us were leaving to go back to Thinadhoo later in the afternoon, while the other volunteers were staying an extra night. I was one of the ones who only stayed a night. I couldn't really afford the extra $260 and figured that I could see everything the place had to offer over two days. Apparently in the off season you can stay there for about $160 maximum per night, so to anyone travelling during the June/July placement all I can say is that you made a very good decision!

The rest of the day was fairly uneventful, unlike the previous night. The morning was spent swapping stories, making the most of our private beach, eating and chilling out in the pool.

The boat ride back to Thinadhoo was interesting to say the least. For some reason the engine kept cutting out. Each time the men had to start it again I hoped it wouldn't and we could go back to Robinsons. No luck there. I won't lie: it was a bit of a let down setting foot back on Thinadhoo and dinner was a painful affair; I was so over noodles and now that I knew what we could have been eating? I wasn't a very happy camper. Caitlin, Nicole and I finished the night by eating a tub of ice-cream with wafers in our room. The original plan was to sit on the wharf and eat it but that got scrapped pretty quickly when we saw Chappey wandering around. We didn't feel particularly comfortable around Chappey and, for some reason I can't explain, the vibe of the island seemed to have changed too. Maybe we just wanted to go home, I still don't know.

Weekend #3

27/01/2012

Plans had been made to go snorkeling at Kaadhedhoo today. Not wanting the stress of having to catch ferries or having to rush, Nicole and I decided to stay on Thinadhoo for the day. Best decision ever. We were told though that the snorkeling on Kaadhedhoo was amazing: plenty of turtles and sharks were seen.

After having the continental breakfast at the Ocean Terrace (which consists of 4 pieces of toast, sausage made of mystery meat and an egg for 30 Rufiyaa - $2) the other volunteers boarded the ferry while Nicole and I started our walk of the island. We hadn't been completely around the island since the first day, so it was good to get out again and have a proper look at everything. After having a pitstop at the wharf, we went to lunch, only to find the cafe was closed. I had a sneaking suspicion it was closed for prayer, which was confirmed later by Asad.

Once prayer had finished we went back to GoCya. Ah, cultural misunderstandings. We each ordered a club sandwich with chips, and wrote exactly what was on the menu on the piece of paper. The staff, however, thought we wanted an extra serving of chips each, so brought out two extra plates. One plate of chips, one club sandwich and another helping of chips later I had a good food baby going on.

That night we had the farewell dinner as Darcy was heading back to Australia early after our stay at the resort. The Blue House had well and truly been transformed: Asad and his mates had created a mini dancefloor in the lounge room, a disco light had been hung up with skipping ropes and the BBQ had been set up out the back.


28/01/2012

We arrived at school bright and early this morning to start painting a mural on one of the school walls. Well, that was the plan. After lugging the paint downstairs (I managed to spill red paint everywhere - if there are red splashes of paint near the stairwell next door to the Year 6 classroom, that would be from me), Ajeeb's requests were made clear... He wanted the mural to cover the entirety of the, at least, 8 metre high wall on rickety scaffolding set up over plants covered in thorns. It was really quite comical. We told Ajeeb we were extremely uncomfortable painting the wall at such a height on the scaffolding and asked if we were able to paint something at our height. Unfortunately, it was the whole wall or nothing. We asked if there was anything else we could do and he said no. It was so frustrating and disappointing as we were all looking forward to doing something else in the school.

Later in the afternoon we visted the art exhibition that was held at the high school. The teachers seemed really pleased that we had come to see the students' work. Wow, those kids are talented; their watercolours were especially amazing.

While we were at the school a group of tourists from a nearby resort wandered in. As soon as we saw them we tried to figure out who they were and where they had come from. It was just so odd to see white people other than ourselves. Some women in the group were wearing very short skirts. Seeing that made me so uncomfortable, when only three weeks earlier I had been wandering around at home in shorts. It's funny how quickly you become accustomed to a certain way of life, and our curiosity about this group of strangers was obviously how the locals viewed us at the beginning of our placement.

After checking out the school we decided to finally play a game of house volleyball. The only problem was that local men had already taken the volleyball court, so we decided on Blue House vs. Yellow House no-rules netball. It was pretty much basketball, but with no stepping and no dribbling. We drew a crowd of locals as spectators. In the end I think we (the Yellow House) lost by a small margin.

That night we went back to the school for our farewell dinner. The food was fantastic. As we dined we were serenaded by a soundtrack consisting of jazz and the titanic theme song. Very romantic.