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.

Happy Australia Day!

26/01/2012

After much confusion about what we were all going to do on Australia Day, we decided to postpone celebrations until the next day, Friday.

But, being Australia Day, many of the volunteers still wanted to celebrate at the Blue House and stream the Hottest 100. I, along with a couple others, did go to school however. Personally, I would have felt bad for not going: I came to experience education in the Maldives and assist the students in learning English. Sure, the fact that it was the Maldives was a pretty big drawcard, but if I was there to spend time at the school, then that's what I was going to do.

School was a completely different experience from the previous day. My teacher was very pleased that I had done maths from the textbook with the students, which was good. I was also asked to do more speaking (reading out spelling and number facts) so the kids could get used to accents. It was quite funny watching the kids screw up their faces to figure out the spelling word I had just said.

After school and lunch I went back to the Blue House to cool down (ie. swap the long skirt and t-shirt for shorts and a singlet) and listen to the remainder of the countdown. Wearing less clothing didn't help whatsoever, so Nicole and I retired to the kareoke room (ie. the air-conditioned movie room) to watch tv and make the gifts we were going to give to the children, origami koalas.

At 6pm a few of us went to see the sunset again. It would have been a great sunset, if not for the giant cloud that compeltely masked the sun. Some of the local boys joined us and again, we stayed there until dinner.

Teaching the class

25/01/2012

Today I arrived at school and my teacher wasn't there. Awesome. Some of the other volunteer's teachers had already been away so I kind of knew the drill: you have different substitute teachers, over different periods and no work is done as no plan is left by the absent teacher. Generally, it is the volunteer who is left to teach, which I was initially happy enough to do at the beginning of the day.

The day started off well. There was quite a bit of work for the kids to do in maths, so that took them straight through the first 80 minutes to Dhivehi.

During break Nicole and I went to see Ajeeb about painting. Frustratingly, the paint had been outside the Year 1 classrooms all along - he had always made it sound as if he had to go out and buy more, when in reality we could have started painting straight away. I wasn't too happy to see brushes clogged with paint sitting in blue water. Who knows how long they had been there for.

After break things in the classroom went downhill fairly quickly. The sub teachers did nothing, so I was left to teach the kids, despite the fact I had no idea what they were meant to be doing that day. It didn't help that they weren't listening at all. By the time 12:00pm came I couldn't get out of the classroom soon enough. The kids picked up on my bad mood and asked me if I was angry. They honestly had no idea what the problem was, even though I had lectured them numerous times throughout the day.

Swimming went about the same as it had in previous sessions. Over the past couple of days I had been working with a kid called Looma. He is super frustrating to teach because his attention span only lasts about 3 seconds, but he is hilarious at the same time. I have a love-hate relationship with Looma. The second session was not the best either, as none of our girls were listening. Caitlin and I gave them a lecture about how badly they were behaving, which seemed to work for all of 1 minute. Soon after this two of the girls began to misbehave again, so I told them they were going to sit on the beach for the rest of the lesson. As I made to get out of the water they freaked out - they obviously didn't think we were serious. After that they were pretty well behaved. A tip for the volunteers: if the kids are misbehaving, do take them out of the water. The first time. We always threatened them with that, but never followed up (breaking the golden rule of behaviour management). It does make a difference in how they choose to act in the water. The third session was spent trying to fine tune the girls' freestyle. Some were beginning to make slow improvements, while others were progressing very quickly. With only 3 sessions left before we leave Thinadhoo it's a shame that the kids have to wait another 6 months before they can participate in more swimming lessons.

National Day

24/01/2012

Being National Day we had no school or swimming. We had the whole day to ourselves!

Later in the afternoon we met up with some of the local girls to play a game of Bashi. Bashi is pretty much backwards tennis played only by girls and women. There are two teams: one stands behind the net while the other takes turns to hit the ball. You stand on a square bit of wood, with your back facing the net and hit the ball over your head. We didn't do too well in both games that were played... I was hopeless. The Maldivians? My God they hit the tennis balls with so much force you almost need a glove to be able to catch them.

After accepting coconuts the local women insisted on us drinking we legged it across the island to watch the sunset. By the time we got there the sun had pretty much set, so we chilled on the beach with some of the kids. The kids entertained us until dinner - they sang and danced, obviously loving the attention.

After dinner we went to another cafe for milkshakes/ice-cream. For future volunteers, the place is called GoCya and is on the way to school. It's set back from the road, but there is a sign out the front. The milkshakes weren't too bad and the ice-cream was exactly the same as BaaBaa Scoop. While they provide a menu (a rarity!) half of the food listed on it isn't available, and the prices listed on it aren't correct. I think you had to add about an extra 5 Rufiyaa. We frequented that place pretty often on the weekend and I'm sure they made quite a bit of money out of us.

Back to school

22/01/2012

School was fairly uneventful today, as was swimming. There weren't too many kids at the lessons, so I spent the majority of my time floating on kickboards keeping an eye on the kids and watching the safari boats in the distance. It was quite an overcast day, and we quickly learnt that clouds in the sky signalled choppy, cold water. We finished the final swimming lesson early because we were cold, the kids were cold and they certainly weren't enjoying being out in the water.

After dinner we visited the school to pick out our Maldivian dress for the pre-National Day celebrations that were to happen the next day. After struggling to even fit my head and an arm through some of the dresses I found one that fitted and went straight back to the Yellow House to sleep.


23/01/2012

We arrived at school early to get changed into our costumes and have our hair done. My teacher and Nicole's teacher (who just so happened to be cousins) were no where to be seen. I figured they had gone to go and find something to put in my hair, seeing as I was the only one of the girls who didn't have anything. The next thing I know, Nicole's teacher has burst into the staffroom and pulled me into the hallway to do my hair. They had picked a bunch of little pink flowers to pin into my hair; I was quite pleased with the end result.

The day at school passed fairly quickly. While some work was done in the classroom, we also played games and took many photos.

Swimming was not as bad as the previous day. Again, I had nothing to do in the last session so I watched the kids and floated on some kickboards. The students in the third session (Years 6 and 7) are not bad swimmers: they can move from A to B. Their strokes however are not pretty to watch, so we did spend some time trying to correct their technique. I'm proud to say that my girls' arm strokes in freestyle went from smacking the water with their hands to gliding them in. Well, they tried. Breathing whilst doing freestyle is also a challenge for them.

All grassed out

21/1/2012

As per Ajeeb's request, we (the volunteers who weren't burnt to a crisp and the teachers) set out to collect grass from Kaadhedhoo (the airport island) to lay at the school.

We were on the ferry over to Kaadhedhoo by 7:30am and once we had unloaded the equipment we set out to eat a Maldivian style breakfast: baked beans and tuna, flat bread and green mango juice. Delicious.

We then walked to a field where we were to collect the grass from. The field itself was just set back from the runway. Nice. The grass... Yes, the grass gets a specific mention. I have never seen grass quite like it before - It was all up in mounds, but the mounds weren't solid. You kind of fell through them as you walked. We worked in the field for quite some time; the men would cut the grass, the teachers and us volunteers would then pull the roots up, roll the grass, stuff it into bags, carry the bags to the road and then repeat the process. It didn't take too long before we were covered in dirt and sweat.

While all of this was happening we noticed that four of the volunteers were missing. Concerned, we notified Ajeeb who said he would spread the word around the island. I mean, how hard could it be to spot four white Australians on an island of very few Maldivians? Eventually they found us: They had apparently taken a few wrong turns, tried to find us, found a beach and went snorkelling instead. When they decided they should have another look for us they stumbled across Ajeeb who was having a smoke underneath a palm tree while people fetched him coconuts to drink. Needless to say, at the time, those of us pulling up the grass were a little annoyed; it's only now that I can see the funny side.

After moving to a couple of different areas we went to collect the grass to take it back to the wharf. By this stage most of the teachers had disappeared. Sitting ontop of bagged grass, on the back of a truck driving around Kaadhedhoo was probably the best part of the day.

After lunch we had a quick play on the playground and made our way back to Thinadhoo to lay the grass at the school. To say that the afternoon progressed smoothly and without any confusion would be a total lie. What appeared to be an arguement bounced around between the teachers before a system for laying the grass was worked out. The system involved the men digging shallow holes in the ground, others dumping bags of turf next to the holes, the women removing the turf from the bags and laying it in the holes and someone else watering the laid turf. We slotted ourselves into the system where ever we could. By the end, only Katy, Nicole, Caitlin and I were left. The quad looked ok, but Ajeeb seemed happy enough, which is all that mattered, I guess. He did shake our hands and give us fist bumps.

After a (fully clothed) swim with the teachers and a dinner of chicken and chips we sat on the wharf with a well deserved ice-cream, watching the safari boats in the distance, planning how we could sneak on board to have a hot shower.

Dolphins and turtles, oh my!

20/1/2012

We spent Friday snorkelling and sunbathing. The day was amazing and I was able to cross one more ‘must see’ off my list, which included…

1)      Couples in matching clothes (see Nat Tran in the Maldives)

2)      Dolphins

3)      Turtles

4)      A shark

5)      A sting ray

I had already crossed number one off on the flight between Singapore and Male’… So many matching couples; I was in heaven.

Whilst on the way to the sandbank three dolphins swam along with us beside the boat. They were only small dolphins but seeing them up so close made us pretty happy.

When the boat did arrive at the (non-existent) sandbank we had to jump off the side to swim over to the reef. We swam around for quite a while. While no-one saw anything particularly exciting there were a lot of very colourful fish and the parrot fish were the biggest and brightest I had seen since being in the Maldives. I really can’t put into words how peaceful and beautiful it was down there – it really is something you have to see for yourself.

We then made our way to the uninhabited island. Asad had brought a paddle boat with him this time, so Caitlin, Nicole and I commandeered it for about half an hour before lunch to see what we could find. My only regret was that I didn’t bring my camera with me. I thought it might have got wet out there, but it would have been fine. While we were out trying get the hang of steering, moving the boat and quoting way too many lines from Finding Nemo ("I'm going to touch the butt!") we spotted a turtle. It was small and only above the water for a short amount of time but we didn’t really care – we had seen a turtle! I crossed number three off my list.

The remainder of the day was spent sunbaking, eating and snorkelling. The remainder of the night however, was spent wincing in pain – the sun had well and truly burnt a number of us.

Week 2

15/01/2012 - 19/01/2012

The first swimming lesson for the week was an interesting one. Again, chaos is the best word to describe the Sunday lesson. Some children, according to Ajeeb, nearly 'drowned' that day. In reality, they had only swallowed some water. This event did spur changes to how we conducted swimming lessons however. Some of the other volunteers informed Ajeeb of our concerns: the choppiness of the water, too many kids in each session who didn't understand us, or pretended not to, and the kids' general lack of listening skills. In the end, the Year 1's were cut from the swimming lessons altogether and the following swimming sessions were arranged: Years 2 and 3 for 30 minutes, Years 4 and 5 for 30 minutes and Years 6 and 7 for 45 minutes. We quickly noticed an improvement in the lessons. While they were never peaceful, we didn't feel as if we were struggling to control a mob of uncontrollable children anymore.

We had also been asked by Ajeeb if we were interested in running English lessons with the parents. We devised a four night rotational timetable and negotiated to start the lessons at 8:00pm. On the first night, a few parents turned up because 8:00pm was prayer time. After hearing this I became incredibly frustrated with Ajeeb, simply because he didn't inform us that prayer was at 8:00pm and most of the parents wouldn't be free for another half hour. If we had have known we would have moved the lessons to 8:30pm without any hesitation. As it turned out that lesson was the first and last. Each afternoon we would approach Ajeeb to find out if English was on, and each time he would say, 'Not tonight.' I have no idea what was happening, or what had happened, behind the scenes, but such undertainty and confusion are feelings I became quite familiar with, very quickly.

School picked up however, and I was beginning to really enjoy my time in the classroom.

This week I taught material nouns to the students in my class and the other Year 5 class. I won't beat around the bush: my class just didn't get it. Oh the joys of teaching. The next lesson however was more successful - the kids picked up the concept really quickly. While the kids are fun to be around they are incredibly frustrating at the same time because they do not listen. You ask them to listen, they'll stop talking, then literally 5 seconds later, just as you're about to begin teaching, they are talking, looking out the window or fiddling with pens and rulers. A lot of raised voices, death stares and, 'Do you want me to keep teaching you?' were employed to keep them under control, but nothing ever really worked. We think it is more than likely because there is no behaviour management program or policy within the school. Maybe behaviour management programs are a Western thing? I certainly missed that structure. The other thing was that there was nothing that could be taken off the students as a reprimand. The kids never went out to play, so play time couldn't be taken away. They never really got homework, so extra couldn't be given out. They were never kept in as the teachers would be under the parents' wrath. It's an interesting case.

Caitlin, Nicole and I also managed to spot dolphins later in the week from the wharf proving that they are around, you just have to have the right weather and be very lucky.

Weekend #1

13/1/12 & 14/1/12

I love the weekend for one main reason: no alarms.

We were to be spending the weekend on an ‘uninhabited’ island. I say ‘uninhabited’ because there were three people who lived there farming palm tree sap.

We left at around 2:00pm and after an impromptu drumming session by Asad and his mates we arrived at the island.

I was hoping that because only 3 people lived on the island the beach would be pristine; the island rubbish free. Well… the sand was lovely and soft, the marine life was incredible as always and palm trees encircled the island like a true tropical paradise but there was rubbish. Quite a lot of it too. Finding the most bizarre item that had washed up on the beach could have almost become a game.

Despite this, the remaining afternoon and night was a lot of fun. We hung around to watch the sunset, ate a dinner of fish, spaghetti, noodles and vegetables (the noodles and spaghetti were incredibly spicy), had a dance party where flickering torches became our strobe lights and played Maldivian dodgeball (which, if you are curious, is exactly the same as regular dodgeball).

The night spent sleeping on the beach was not so fun. While we had camped out on a tarp with our sheets the last thing we expected was for the wind to pick up so suddenly. I never thought I would be cold in the Maldives, but I was cold. Freezing. I was just about ready to pull the tarp over me and use it as a blanket of sorts when the men moved us into the hut. It was a lot warmer in there but sleeping on a concrete floor is an experience I don’t really want to repeat.

The next day was spent not doing too much. We got back to Thinadhoo before lunch and were all pretty exhausted from a lack of sleep the night before that we didn’t feel like doing much anyway.

The Barbies are here!

12/1/12

School this morning was interesting. As with the previous day, my teacher pretty much ignored my presence in the classroom, so I sought out Ajeeb during the break to figure out what was going on. He invited me to teach Year 6 and 7 Maths and Science with him and another teacher. I gratefully accepted his offer. About 20 minutes after our talk he came back to me, saying that he had talked with my teacher and believed there was a ‘misunderstanding’. I have no idea what the misunderstanding was and I don’t know what he said to her but it did make a difference. I guess coming over to the school, with the expectation that I was going to start teaching straight away and having that not happen threw me a little. Prior to arriving in the Maldives I thought I would be teaching a couple of lessons a day, but it turned out that my role was more as an aide, someone to support the students’ learning of English. Maybe if I had been more forward in asking I might have had more of an opportunity to teach, but I also think it depends partially on the teacher to which you are assigned.

Before school finished I showed the students pictures of Brisbane and my suburb. They went nuts, asking about 20 questions at once that I couldn’t understand due to a) the noise in the room and b) their accents. It was a really good activity and I found that some students who hadn’t said a word to me opened up a little and asked a few questions.

Today also signalled the start of swimming lessons. We had been told by Ajeeb that there would be two sessions, with Years 1-4A participating in the first hour and Years 4B-7 participating in the second hour. There were roughly 70 students in each session.

The first session was pure and utter chaos. Thankfully there were quite a few volunteers in our group who had previous experience teaching swimming – I don’t know what we would have done without them. They decided that we were going to assess the students’ swimming capabilities and then sort them into ability groups. We would then divide ourselves between these groups and teach the same set of students each day. Well, the kids (being kids) got bored pretty quickly while waiting to be assessed and started to run around, pick up the rather large rocks on the beach and throw them wherever they pleased. Trying to get them to stop was a battle. Thankfully the second session wasn’t as bad. For those future Maldives volunteers reading this, the school needs goggles. Lots of goggles. Quite a lot of the children wouldn't put their head under water unless they had a pair. And while having goggles was a pain at times (at least 5-10 minutes of each lesson was spent tightening and loosening them) they did allow the children to gain a little more confidence in the water.

Being a Thursday night (the equivalent of our Friday night) the island was a hive of activity. There were people everywhere. As we passed the Bashi court on our way to dinner Nicole and I overheard one of the children call out, “The Barbies are here!” We knew that was what we were referred to on the island by the children, but it was quite amusing to actually hear them call us that.

Day 2

10/1/12

After breakfast this morning some of the girls and I went to check out the famed Ocean Terrace. It's quite nice, with a great view of the reef. Of course, as soon as we walked up there the locals stopped talking and gave us a good stare, but they soon resumed their discussions.

We went to school today to meet our classes. I am teaching Year 5 english, maths and ES (environmental studies). My first impression of my teacher was that she seemed quite reserved, which put me off a little. She introduced me to the class, the class said hello and then I left. The others seemed to have quite similar experiences which made me feel a little better. Ajeeb and Shifa (a head teacher) then gave us a tour of the school. The school is quite under-resourced. Coming from Australian classrooms that are often filled to the brim with resources and student work, I found their classrooms to be bare, consisting only of a whiteboard, tables and chairs. The murals that have been painted on the walls really do give the rooms a bit of life however and some are amazing. Every time we would walk past a classroom the students' eyes would light up with excitement. They are very cute. We have been told that we will observe for the first two weeks then have the opportunity to teach in the final two weeks.

After exchanging some US dollars into Rufiyaa, we had lunch then decided to check out where we would be teaching swimming and the reef.

The rest of the day went fairly slowly: TV, internet, dinner, bed.

Exploring Thinadhoo

9/1/12

Today started with breakfast at the Blue House (as it always does) with toast, cereal, tea, coffee and juice concentrate (the passionfruit is particularly good). Before breakfast Jo, Caitlin, Nicole and I had a stroll down to the harbor. Needless to say quite a few people stared at us.


At 11am Asad took us on a walking tour of the island. First impressions?

• The heat! I felt as if my face was melting off. 
• Beautiful water.
• Litter.

There is a lot of litter here and it really does spoil the island. When we asked Asad why there was so much he said that while there is a dump on the island people often throw their rubbish wherever they want. It is very much an attitude-based problem, combined with the fact that the disposal facilities we so take for granted in Australia are absent in the atolls.

After our stroll around the island Asad dropped us off at the school. Here we met Ajeeb (the Deputy Principal), had a little chat about the school and clothing requirements (shirts that cover the shoulders and don't show the armpits and pants to the knee or below - we all pretty much wore pants that were either mid-calf or full length). I elected to teach Year 5, all subjects except PE and social studies.


Following our meeting we had lunch. Unlike previous groups of volunteers who ate at the Ocean Terrace, we eat at a cafe a short walk from the school. Lunch varies between differing curries, rice, flat bread, fish and coleslaw. We also get fed some type of fruit... usually cut oranges, apples or tiny, lady finger-like bananas.

After lunch it was decided that we would go for a snorkel on the reef just out past Thinadhoo.

Thinadhoo from the reef

The marine life was incredible! While the coral had next to no colour there was an abundance of fish, quite a lot of sea slugs and one annoyed sea urchin whose meal of coral was disturbed when one of the locals moved it away.

Gradually the tide began to move out, making the current stronger to swim against and the distance between coral and skin became too close for comfort. Myself and some others made our way back to the boat before the locals took us closer to an island the others were swimming to. There, Asad showed us the tuna drying racks (the main purpose of the island) before walking the circumference of the island. After spotting a couple of small eels and some crabs we ran into a family who were having a barbeque. They very kindly shared their fish, coconuts and green mangoes with us.

Once back on Thinadhoo we were promptly invited by one of the men staying in the Yellow House to come night fishing. The only problem with his generous, but unanticipated invite was that we were all in wet togs and were very hungry; if we were to go there would be no opportunity to get changed or eat. Needless to say we declined his offer.

Dinner consisted of tuna spaghetti and apple. Dinners here usually rotate through spaghetti, penne, noodles and rice. They are usually a tad spicy (watch out for the jalapenos) and can get very repetitive, very quickly.

Arrival

8/1/12

The flight from Brisbane to Singapore was rather uneventful. The 5 or so hours we spent at the airport waiting for our next flight to Male' was passed by visiting the butterfly garden, converting currency, eating and camping out on the floor of the E wing of Terminal 2.

Apart from the turbulence (which actually helped put me to sleep!) the flight from Singapore to Male' was great. We (myself, Charlotte, Caitlin, Nicole and Jo) were seated in the second half of the plane. This section was so empty that the flight attendants invited us to take a whole row of four seats to ourselves if they were available. I stayed in my seat and so had two seats to myself. Certainly more comfortable than sitting next to another person, but still slightly uncomfortable to sleep.  

The best part was the descent. The resorts! We could see them from the air, even at night, and they were beautiful: tiny islands, huts branching out from the beach, orange lights flickering. Definitely one of the prettiest sights I have seen. It's an image I don't want to forget for a long time.

The heat and humidity took my breath away as soon as we stepped onto the tarmac at the Male' international terminal. We were looked after at the airport by immigration who knew who immediately knew who we were. After taking our passports (which, needless to say, I was hesitant about) we were assigned with a business visa, allowing us 3 months stay in the country. I should mention at this stage that it was about 11pm and we all believed we were sleeping at the airport overnight before catching our domestic flight at 6:30am the following morning. After being led to the domestic terminal and checking in our luggage we all came to the confused conclusion that this was obviously not the case. Apparently Asad had to fight pretty hard to get us on the flight.

We arrived at Thinadhoo around 2am. My first thoughts included:

• How quickly Asad and the other Maldivians helped us, pushing trolleys and carrying our suitcases on their motorbikes. 
• The smell of the bathroom (not too crash hot, but with the door open it's bearable)