A Frenchman and a Football Match

I spent the start of my week recovering from a busy weekend, and getting over a bout of sickness – safe to say I’ll be staying away from Dahl curry for a week or so.

Wednesday I was feeling better so I called Philippe. Flipping through a magazine in our apartment my first week here, I came across a short article about a Frenchman living in Villingili who had sailed through Maldives and pioneered safari boats in the late ‘70s. My friend Salle had his number. So I called.

Philippe was more than willing to meet for an interview. “Tomorrow? Yes, is fine for me,” he said in a heavy French accent. He started to describe the location of his apartment but the whirr of construction intervened. We agreed to meet at the Big Mosque at 3 o’clock.

“Again, your name is?” he asked before we hung up.
“Aylie.”
He started to repeat it just as a large boom sounded in the background. There was a pause.
“Ay-lie. Aylie Marguerite,” I proffered.
“Ah! Marguerite!” he exclaimed, his French floating seamlessly over the phone.
“Tomorrow, Marguerite!”

The Big Mosque (not to be confused with the Old Mosque) is perhaps the most manicured of all buildings on Villingili. Sleek, white walls fall in swooping curves around dark, wooden shutters with gold inlay. In the outer courtyard, pairs of black sandals line the white stone steps and a minaret spirals upwards to float among the coconut palms. As I watched, two men dressed in red traced the courtyard cleaning the lanterns with long brushes. An older man in a white cap gargled water at the washing fountains.

I glanced down the tree-lined street towards the Goanbili café, where men sat bent over card tables playing chess and chattering in the afternoon shade. Outside a wheelbarrow was parked, two six-foot tuna draped over its handles.

I recognized him immediately as he approached. Philippe ambled easily down the street, a slight kick in his step, his white linen shirt fluttering open at the top button, silvery hair ruffled as if just back from the sea. When he smiled his face opened, kind eyes squinting behind delicate blue spectacles. (Photo taken by Humay's husband, Martin Whiteley, see his photos on flickr)

He and his friend led me back to his apartment, through a door and into a simple courtyard, up a flight of steps, through a door.

The far wall was all windows. French doors opened out onto a balcony where some dozen coconuts sat piled in a corner. Stretched taut across the white walls were large canvases washed bright blue and green, speckled with curving rivulets of tiny red, yellow and orange fish. They seemed to shimmer in the light streaming in.

We settled into chairs and chatted about his art for a while, flipping through various prints, each executed with meticulous detail. He works mostly in watercolour, he explained. Fish seemed to be the predominate subject.

But Philippe only recently set about cultivating his art. At 68 years, he has lived many lives, it seems.

After a divorce at 36, Philippe left his life as a printer in Paris and hopped on a bus headed east. In India he met a French couple traveling to the Maldives Islands, a place still relatively unknown to Western Europe, and not yet teeming with tourist clientele.

Then, Male was thick with mango trees and there were only a few resorts around (Villingili among them). Having sailed in the French Navy, on a whim Philippe jumped aboard a sailing dhoani and set off on a long adventure through the atolls.

After a brief stint in France, Philippe decided to return to Maldives and build a safari boat, Baraa Baru (“Everything is good”). Philippe had no prior experience in boatbuilding, so he learned as he went. It was difficult. He told me how they set about scouring the islands for copper to make rivets and without electricity it took three men to drill a hole. At that time coconut palms were sold for 1 rufiyya each, with seven rufiyya to the US dollar. Baraa Baru took a year to build. For 10 years Philippe hosted tourists and sailed through the atolls, moving with the wind rather than any fixed itinerary. How things have changed.

Philippe was using maps dating from 1868, and a CB radio that lost communication 30 miles offshore. Velidhoo, the island where he built his home and married his wife, used to be a distance from Male before the introduction of speedboats.

“At the time by sail, depending on the wind, the monsoon, it was between three and fifteen days. You can imagine. That at the time, when you was traveling, you was really traveling. And to say you’re at the end of the world, you were really at the end of the world. Today you have not the impression of traveling. So the concept of travel has changed.”

On my ferry rides I’ve been reading Blue Highways by William Least Heat Moon, and been thinking about the notion of travel a lot lately. In one passage he talks about “the true journey of an Odysseus or Ishmael or Gulliver or even a Dorothy of Kansas, wherein passage through space and time becomes only a metaphor of a movement through the interior being.” A printer, a naval architect, an artist, a restaurateur, a father, a Frenchman, a Maldivian – I thought of Philippe in this instance.

Friday I spent another glorious day basking in the wisdom of Aniya and Ahmed at the tree house. Climbing the metal stairs to Ahmed’s apartment, this time I was accompanied by my friend Sarah, who has been working on a radio documentary exploring the concept of democracy in light of the recent presidential election and the fall of the 30-year dictatorship this past October.

Upon arrival, Aniya, ever the wonderful hostess, fluttered about assembling a spread of biscuits, peppery seeds, spicy dried noodles. Glasses of water soon became glasses of pomegranate juice, then coffee. Once again the time passed without my noticing.

We talked about all manner of things. Capitalism. Sound. Development. Time. Democracy. Rights. I didn’t bother to pull out my recorder today. I wanted to listen and take in the experience.

Ahmed gave me a collection of letters collected by the British High Commission from the 1930s. Reading over them these past few days, one excerpt struck me in particular.

“I am definitely of the opinion that the less the Maldivians have to do with the outside world the better for them. They are a happy, prosperous, and moral people, and crime is practically unknown. Venereal disease does not exist except in Male’ itself, where it is unfortunately common, the infection having been introduced by islanders who have succumbed to the temptations of Indian ports. Increased contact with civilization is bound to come, and is also I fear, bound to have unfortunate results. But these can be mitigated by a strong and wise Government…” - B.H. Bourdillon, Officer Administering the Government. 6 April 1931

Later that afternoon, Aniya took us to her family apartment where she introduced us to her two kind daughters, Daanish and Niam. We stopped for Maldivian hedhika, or short eats – a variety of pastries containing various combinations of chili, fish and coconut - at Lemon Grass. Aniya recalled the November 3rd coup attempt in 1989. I told them about Maine, we talked about favorite T.V. shows, movies.

After tea, we met Ahmed and walked back to the tree house through narrow, windy streets that Aniya called “one donkey lanes.” We passed several cafes where men sat huddled playing chess and smoking cigarettes. Before they had chatted mostly about women, now, with freedom of speech, politics often dominate the hum of conversation.

That night Aniya invited Sarah and I to attend a charity football match in which members of parliament from MDP (Maldivian Democratic Party) and DRP (Maldivian People’s Party, of former President Gayoom) were squaring off. The teams were mixed.

To think that such a large open space exists in Male! The giant stadium was filled to capacity and through the shadowy haze we could see people perched high on the balconies of nearby apartment buildings. The energy was palpable in the arena. Horns honking, traditional bodu-beru drumming, shouts from men and women alike. Such clamor indicative, I think, of the general spirit of the times.

Listen and learn. Or so I’ve tried to do these past few weeks. I met with Aishath Shujune, one of the first women to be selected as a judge in the Maldivian judiciary, Ali Rilwan, one of the founding members of Blue Peace, the oldest environmental NGO in Maldives. I also interviewed Shafeeg, an incredible treasure trove of knowledge, historian of 81 years, and was warmly welcomed by his family.

Humay from UNICEF continues to be a wonderful resource. I saw Humay at the International Breastfeeding Week fair, and we sat and talked on a bench for a long time. She has a lot of great advice and has been so helpful in connecting me with others. The kindness of people here is really so remarkable.

I’d like to wish a happy birthday to Laurie, my sister, no longer a teen! And say thank you for the support I’ve received these past few weeks, it means a lot!