2k Journal: Haddhunmathi Hafthaa

One week into our Laamu trip and we’re learning that this is an atoll where the roads are long, the people say ‘kon heneh?’, and the riha comes with golha in it!

We’ve mostly been shuttling up and down the new link road between our Reveries base at the top of Gan, through Maandhoo, Kadhdhoo and Fonadhoo – a 12-minute trip that took more than three times as long before the completion of the link road two years ago, and still takes as long if you run out of petrol…not that this happened to us, obviously. First impressions are that the road is far safer than the Addu link road back home, with less traffic and safer driving – we even saw discounts in some bike stores for those who know their road safety (good idea, that).

Nevertheless, along the way we’ve been through hell and back at what may be the Maldives most unusual fenganda, seen the future of fisheries at the Blu Bridge sea cucumber farm, clambered up into the past at the recently re-discovered Kuruhinna Mumbaru, and met an original Amin Didi scholar at Soasun Villa (L. Gan).

Best of all, we didn’t have to contemplate writing anything about the weather, which can be awful this  time of year as one monsoon cedes to the other, but we’ve had clear skies even as things were getting flooded back in Addu.

But, our main (re)discovery this week has again been the incredible openness of everyone we meet. The people of Fuvahmulah and Huvadhu helped give us a perfect start to the project last year, and Haddhunmatians (any chance of that catching on?) are proving that this was no once off.

We’ve had some ideas for some content on our main stories section…but we thought we’d better just remind people how the blog is organised again for old and new visitors (maruhabaa/ay up), as we’ve been away for a little while.

Our blog updates – like this one – with news, etc, appear on the home page, while our ‘stories’ appear on a separate section of the site – click…here!! These main ‘stories’ are really the meat and potatoes of the project (mas and aluvi…yeah, that doesn’t translate at all). These posts are intended to be always relevant, evergreen, content and we’re always happy to alter or update them whenever we come across new information to keep them as accurate as possible.

The hope is that they can be useful for anyone interested in Dhivehi history or culture until someone puts them in a book, holograms, or mind-implants or however people curate content in the future…maybe post-apocalyptic cave paintings and in folk tales…we’re not fussy.

We’ve done over 100 of these stories since we started, so feel free to have a look. We’ll add one about Laamu Gan’s so-called naraka fenganda in the next day or so as well as a blog post (home page) with five of our favourite pictures from our first Haddhunmati hafthaa.

You can keep up with all this on your facebook or instagram feeds.