leaving eyes...

I've always loved leaving eyes...how suddenly all of the colors are brighter and everything is a little more dear than it ever was before.

In two days I'll be in India, where I plan to travel for two weeks. I'll see wonders and beautiful places unlike any I've yet seen. When I return, I'll have three more working weeks before my best friend comes for a two week visit. I'll return to work for one or two days before flying to Thailand. I'll spend the month of June traveling to all of the places in SE Asia that I've missed in my two years here, then off to London. From London I will probably take a couple of short jaunts in Europe to see my beloved Barcelona and mates both there and possibly in Roma.

Tonight after work I will return to my island, have a drink, perhaps watch some Monty Python as I pack my bag and re-dye my hair. I know that come Tuesday, the most tremendous sequence of events will begin and even though there are a few weeks yet left in Maldives...they'll be gone in the blink of an eye.

There's something incredible about a place like this; living with people who have never seen snow, or felt anything colder than 20 (an airconditioned room) in their life unless they work in the kitchen and need a parka for the freezer room. They've never pet a dog (dogs are illegal except for the one in customs to smell for drugs). To meet a girl, guys just give each other numbers of girls from their islands. They call and chat with the girl and if they like each other, the guy will go on holiday on her island. It's the only way to meet people from other places. They can't see the point in skydiving...or any other adventure sports aside from surfing.

People in the Maldives build their own homes. There is no buying of homes here. They apply to the government for a plot of land and they have so many years to build a house on it if they are to keep it. Some people have a couple of homes because when their parent died, it was passed on to them, but perhaps they got married and moved into their husband's home. Old homes are made of coral, but new ones are all made of cement blocks.

In the north of the Maldives, many of the homes still have traditional Maldivian bathrooms: outdoors, no roof (I've never visited a home in monsoon season) and there is a well that is half in and half out of the bathroom wall, the floor is poured concrete with a drain or two. There is a toilet with no seat and no running water, but a bucket next to it. You pull a small container of water up from the well over and over again, filling the bucket so that you can bathe yourself or pour the water down the toilet (which forceably flushes it). Larger bathrooms may also have a table with a large water container on it, and most of the household dishes. This is because it's the only good place to wash the dishes, since it has drains in the floor.

On most islands there are very few if any cars. Some islands still don't have a jetty, so going to shore means either swimming from the boat or rowing in a dinghy. Status symbols here are mostly mobile phones and motorcycles. Guys will spend 6 months salary on a mobile phone. Motorcycles are almost entirely Honda Waves. Guys get this kind of far-off dreamy look in their eye when contemplating buying a motorcycle.

Then there's the local traditional music, or "bodu beru". It's African in origin, not surprising since Maldives isn't so far from Africa if you're a seaman. Maldivians are a mixed up race that has its beginnings in all of the countries touching on the Indian Ocean.

Then there are the colors...the blues from the sky and the sea are unlike anywhere else. The silky white sand blends with the sea and the sky until it all looks like a watercolor painting...and a simple one at that.

The ocean speaks here. Sometimes it's petulant like a child, other times it rages with frustration like a teenage boy. Some days it's as calm as a Buddhist in meditation. Everything inside of it communes with and supports one another. I laugh to think that parrot fish sometimes eat coral and when they poop, they poop this beautiful white sand that fills our beaches.

I will miss this place.