14 September 2011

Male Metaphor

The Chinese are building 1,000 flats over on Hulhumale, the land created by filling the lagoon of Hulhule, the airport island. It’s the first time I’ve seen a skyline of cranes on the hard, flat, empty spaces of the satellite that was once touted as the new model metropolis to overtake Male.

The building site stands out because there is little around it. Even if it’s another piecemeal development, it’s a big one. Yet 1,000 flats is a drop of water in the well when set against Male’s 150,000 population. Actually no one knows the number of people here at any one time but it’s not less than 120,000 and could be 180,000. Rough calculations that include the floating population of Maldivians registered on other islands and all the ex-patriots, put Male up there with the densest places on earth.

The building on Male continues apace. The construction companies have probably gained rare expertise in demolishing and building in tight spaces. There is remarkably little disruption, though temporary new routes have to be learnt when cranes, cement mixers and Bangladeshi workmen suddenly block off your regular road.

Old buildings and any two storey, even three storey, buildings look like they are in the way of progress, just hanging in there with some grace period until the pressure for space and money force the wider family to come to some agreement and bring in the builder.

Just about every new building now starts with a retail space on the ground floor. A friend has been overseeing the building of a 6 storey set of flats for his family. There was no plan to have a shop, but before the concrete had set in the first columns, he had had enough requests and promises of rent to force the family’s hand. A funky young clothes shop is there now, with rock music playing out to the street and, in the window, dummies of a dancing young thing in a short black dress and a slim, jeans-clad dude with dreadlocks. The building continues on all the floors above.

Clothes shops, shoe shops and general stores make up the vast majority of the new and established retail spaces. In smaller rooms you find phone shops, video stores, tailors, barbers and tea shops. Cafes tend to be larger, fancier places. A city of this many people is going to have most things you could readily need. And the odd thing no one is going to need.

Last night I came across a shop called ‘Grower’. In the window was a dummy in full protective gear including a head mask and filtered breathing. Near him was a sprayer and canisters; on the back shelf were packets of white powder. Along another shelf were rows of packets of plant seeds with Chinese or Korean writing on, and on the floor were plant pots of many sizes. In the other window was what I really loved, a shiny new wheelbarrow. Brightly lit in a dark, damp corner of this concrete maze it startled and puzzled me like the public stunt by a surrealist.

Across the road from ‘Grower’ was a pet shop. A small pet shop with tiny fish in compact tanks and small birds close together in small cages. After the pathos came the realisation that I was looking at a metaphor for Male.

Everyone I know in Male has a strong urge to get out. For just a day, for a break, and then they can go back and live it again. Resorts are usually full, mostly don’t take day or overnighters, and are of course expensive. There is always Villingili, the very small satellite island that is not as overcrowded as Male, and the aforementioned Hulhumale. Not great escapes. And the city’s ‘picnic island’ Kuda Bandos is being grasped away from them to be turned into another tourists resort.

Chatting the other evening, a friend said he was going to Colombo. Just for the day, he hastened to add. His friend said she was going for a week, to work, she hastened to add. But there was already a sucking in of breath from a few at the table: “What would I do with a week in Sri Lanka” was the yearning left to drift into the Male night.