Full Circle

Almost two months ago, I sat in the same chair at roughly the same time of day writing the first post on this blog. I vividly remember, how excited and how nervous I was at the outset of this trek to the Muslim world. I embarked on this adventure not knowing what I would find, and left not wanting to leave.
Sitting here in suburban Los Angeles it is hard to believe that I was there less than a week ago. However, I obviously was and am much the better for it. The seven weeks I spent in Maldives were a whirlwhind. During that time I experienced the life of the people, and became familiar with how another country views the world. Through covering the many economic problems in the country I learned that the rising cost of living around the globe is having a much bigger effect on this tiny country than it is on my own.
My time in Maldives also showed me a glimpse of what it must have been like in the U.S. more than 200 years ago, getting to see the events like the ratification of the constitiution, and observing the problems the country faces on the road to democracy.
Being in this country proved to me that the right to vote, something many Americans take for granted, is indeed important. It showed me that despite cultural diffrences, people arround the world are still people.
Still, there is no one thing that I can put my finger on as the most important experence I had in Maldives. I enjoyed life in the counry as a whole, and those are the most important memories that I will carry with me., as I go in with my regular day-to-day life

On the Return to the US

Upon my arrival back in the United States, I realized that I had grown used to things that are different in Maldives. It took me a few days to get used to non-military time, cars that drive on the "wrong" side of the road and English units of measurement again. When I first arrived in Maldives I found all of these things to be very diffrent. It wasn't until I got home that I realized how much I had come to take these aspects of life in Maldives (and other countries) for granted.
I also missed going to the office and reporting stories every day, and the time spent with my new friends on the other side of the world.

Singapore Birthday

We left Maldives on my birthday and had to spend another day long layover in Singapore. So we went into town and had lunch at Raffles Hotel to celebrate. Also at the table was our boss, Terry Anzur, and Gary Ponticiello, the programming producer on our team. His birthday was two days before.

Last Day

Today is our last day in Maldives. We came into the station to say good bye to everyone. At first it seemed like business as usuial, but as the time for us to leave drew near it became more and more apparent that it was not. The news staff invited us to a traditional Maldivian meal of masuni (a tuna, chili and coconut mixture) and roshi, which are similar to tortillas. Afterwards I was presented with a DVD of all the reports I had done and a letter of recommendation from the news director. Shortly thereafter it was time to leave. We said our good byes.Close friends hugged the breath out of me! Then we had to go to our hotel room to pack. It was sort of sad. I really don’t want to leave Maldives. But if my life must move on, this was a good way to end my time in the news room. Thanks to all helped me on the job, and gave me this send off. I shall return!

Cultural Conduct

One cultural facet that I think deserves its fifteen minutes of fame. In Western culture it is customary for men to shake hands with other men and hug women that you know. However in Maldives it is exactly the opposite. The men hug the other men and shake hands with the women! Needless to say this took some getting used to. I am told that really devout Muslim men don’t touch women (other than their wives) at all and kiss other men on the cheeks by way of greeting.

Vilingili trip

It has become rather evident that I will not be able to visit any inhabited islands outside of Male while I am here. So I called JD, one of my friends from the news room, and we went to the suburb island of Vilingili. The island is supposed to be the closest thing to an inhabited island near Male, except that it has some paved streets and one or two three-story buldings. Old dhonis (traditional boats) litter the beaches . The lifestyle is supposed to mirror that of the other inhabited islands, in that it is really slow and laid back. Traditional Maldivan rope chairs seem to be strewn all over the island for anyone who wants to take a nap. After about an hour there, we felt ready to fall asleep so we came back to the city.

Recognition

I was eating breakfast at the hotel restaurant when the chef came out to speak to me. She wanted to talk to me about the reports I had been doing. The chef watches the English news every night, and wanted to commend me on my work. Also in recent days many school groups have been coming through the news room. The boys and girls are brought in in separate groups. While the girls are very quiet, the boys seem to enjoy running arroud getting everyone's autographs, inculding mine.

House Cleaning for the Ramazan

During the month of Ramazan, Muslims must fast and remodel their houses. Because of this, many furniture and appliance stores have sales on their goods to take advantage of the holy month, which falls during September.

Of course, because of inflation, and the skyrocketing cost of living in Maldives, the sale prices are higher than they were last year. Many sales have also been going on since the 1st of August. I interviewed store owners who say that there also has been less demand for furniture this year. They hope that demand will pick up, as Ramazan gets closer. However, for the time being it would appear that people will not be able to afford their yearly home makeover, and aren't buying even at sale prices.

No Debate

The other major event the voter education branch was going to have was a debate. That did not happen either. It was to be held in one of the studios at TVM, but the management of the state run TV station ultimately answers to the government and, while they say they are being objective, there appears to be some pressure from officials.

President Gayoom's party issued a press release saying he does not need to debate because he has been the head of state for 30 years. At almost the same time as this press release was sent out , the manager of TVM informed us that he was not going to let debate organizers use the studio because only two or three of the candidates were planning to attend.

Although others may feel differently, I believe this experience shows that the government TV station, while trying to give the appearance of objectivity, still caves to pressure from the government, and sees no problem with this.

Voter Education in the Maldives

Another branch of our group was brought here to focus on voter education for the upcoming presidential election. One of the things they did was to set up a voter education themed street party at the artificial beach. Since this is one of the places that Maldivians usually spend their free time it seemed like a good idea. However this was not the case. on the afternoon and night of the party there were less people in the venue that usual, and most of them were not Maldivians.

When I talked about the fact that only a small crowd turned out for the street party, my Maldivian friends said they weren't surprised at all, saying something like, "That kind of thing doesn't work here." Maldivians like to blend in with the crowd, and don't want to be seen at a political rally. This mentality has some reason to it. Not far from the beach party and concert, someone was stabbed.

Those who came got free buttons, wristbands and t-shirts, all reminding people of how important it is to choose a candidate and cast their secret vote. Unfortunately, we are hearing that vote-selling is common here.

New Party

About a week ago a 9th party was formed. There were already so many other parties in the country that I did not think about it too much when the Republican (Jumhoree) party appeared on the Maldivian political scene.
Last night, however, I realized that this party is no minor deal. Their ranks have grown to the point at which they now have the largest number of members in the Majlis. There are many that think that this party could oust the DRP and President Gayoom from office.
An interesting note, four of the founding and leading members of the Maldivian Republican party are Gasim and the three other MP's that we had lunch with. I now have a rather good idea what they were at the resort to talk about- preparing to form the new party. Gasim also has thrown his hat into the political arena and is vying to become the Republican candidate. Many think that he may be the man who can beat Gayoom. President Gayoom, meanwhile, kicked off his election campaign last night to take advantage of the lucky date 8-8-08. However, this was during the same time as the Olympics and after the 8 pm newscast was over, so the big announcement wasn't on TV until the next day.

Watching the Olympics from Asia

We had to come to Maldives to watch the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics live. We were one of the few Americans who got to do this because back at home only NBC has the rights and they air it on tape delay. However getting to see it was not easy. The Olympic committee requires that the national broadcaster( in this case TVM) get the live feed of the Olympics. The problem with this is that we did not get TVM in our hotel, because the cable provider wouldn't put it on. In Maldives it is illegal to not have TVM, so we had to go down to the lobby and threaten to get the hotel's cable license revoked by the ministry of information, unless we got TVM in our room. By the time we took the elevator back up it was on.

Despite the fact that Maldives was about the 5th nation to enter into the stadium, they are a non qualifying member and are only allowed to send four athletes. Two of them compete in track and field and the others in swimming. The problem is that there are no places for them to train. The swimmers were training in the ocean, and had to be taken to the airport island hotel pool so they would know what to do when they got in one at the Olympics. Suffice it to say I am not expecting them to win anything, but am happy that they are represented.

Business Intrigue

A subcommittee of the chamber of commerce, held a press conference accusing the executive board of the chamber of fraudulently appointing members to other boards in order to advance their personal agendas. At the press conference they showed proof that the members had been fraudulently appointed, including Papers proving that non enough chamber members had voted for them to be appointed. This is made more interesting by the fact that the 4 people on the executive council are all members of Parliament. The executive board will have a press conference this Sunday responding to the whistle-blowing sub-committee. This is important business news, but because of the aforementioned problems it has not been aired at all yet.
Perhaps on Sunday it will get the air time it deserves.

No English No Tapes, No Report

I have written on this blog many times that I have almost missed my slot on the news because the editors wouldn't edit my package early enough and because Dhivehi speaking reporters forget to ingest the English interview clip into the editing computer.

It finally happened yesterday when I was covering what is very possibly the most important story I have or will cover here. The editing machines crashed because they were too full which meant that the editors barely got the 8:00 show on. It wasn't until 8:20 that I was even able to begin editing my piece. The ingestion problems also reached a new low, whoever ingested the interviews didn't ingest the EEnglish and then lost the tapes. so I spent practically the whole time looking for them. I was finally about to locate only two of the four that were supposed to go in my stand up. Even working fast, by the time the package was edited the 9:00 English news was practically over.

This is going to happen again unless there are some changes. There needs to be a newsroom policy that who ever ingests the video will ingest the English. In general their needs to be more accountability at TVM. Passing the buck seems to be a favorite passtime there. No one would admit to losing the tapes last night. I haven't aired a story in the past two days because of this problem, but I have learned something about different cultures with different work ethics.

Another example: on Wednesday I was going to do a VO/SOT on accusations of corruption in the chamber of commerce. However, the story didn't air because we couldn't get a response from the accused. Why? Because the person who was doing the story with me promised to call them, but told some one else to do it and then both of them went for a snack! I personally couldn't make the call as when I try they hang up on me when they hear me speaking English. However, from the Maldivian point of view this is just the normal way of doing business.

Covering the Constitution

After the ceremony it was time to work. My job was to find dignitaries and politicians leaving the ceremony and get interviews with them. At first we didn't have a camera assigned to that, so I thought that it wasn't going to go well. But finally some of the new batch (many of whom still haven't left yet) showed up with a camera and I was able to get a total of four interviews , from international delegates, as well as opposing sides of the Maldivian political arena. Other interviews included the high commissioner of India, the attorney general of Maldives. I also spoke with one of the opposition Parliament members, and, pictured below, a one on one English interview with one of the main opposition presidential candidate, Anni. These four interviews provided a balanced perspective both from local and international points of view. The dignitaries spoke of the ratification itself, the major concerns they still have and whether or not they think the election will happen on the October 10th deadline. I also did a stand up next to the desk where the signing took place. it was a great start to one of the most important days in Maldivian history.

History is Made

President Gayoom signed the constitution on Thursday, as I was covering the event I got to watch in person as he signed the document, making it into the governmental law of the country. I found this to be an amazing experience. For many years I have learned about the Constitution and American history. our Constitution was ratified over 200 years ago, but in Maldives the adoption of a democratic system happened only yesterday. it gave me a glimpse of what it must have been like in our own country centuries ago.

The ceremony was in of course different in some ways. Before the signing, onlookers were treated to a recitation of the Koran, and afterwords, there was a prayer. They also played the national anthem three times during the ceremony.

Police Power

Right after the police bill was passed the country technically had no sworn police officers. The police force was ready to fix this problem. Less than an hour after the bill was signed, all of the police officers in Male assembled at the convention center to get sworn in under the new bill. Officers in the atolls were sworn in at the same time. It was an impressive sight to see hundreds of police officers get sworn in simultaneously. The new bill will also give the police more power. Police can now ask for anyone's ID at any time, and can search your personal property for any reason; no warrant necessary. While the country at least still has police, is is also possible that they could abuse their newfound authority.

Seeing the President

The country is now a large step closer to getting the constitution ratified and having the election. The president signed two pieces of landmark legislation today: the police bill and the umbrella bill. These bills will specify exactly what is illegal in the country, and make sure the police have power. Before this bill there was no specific piece of legislation creating a government sanctioned police force, or laws specifically forbidding things like murder (although strict Muslim law is enforced). Passing these pieces of supporting legislation was an absolute prerequisite to the ratification of the constitution which is supposed to take place at the end of this week. This was the first event where I saw President Gayoom in person. He often shakes everyone's hand afterwards, but unfortunately didn't this time. At least I got to see the president and witness his news conference.

Coming and Going

When the new batch graduated I thought that I would not see them again, but on Sunday when I walked into the news room they were all there. The news room wants them to be sent out but decided that it was up to the transportation division of the government to actually get them to the atoll bureaus. Many of them are still in the newsroom wating to ship out. On the other hand, reporters who have spent time in the atolls have begun to arrive in the news room.
In other news room happenings one of the reporters got kicked out of the news department got kicked out if the news room got kicked out for leaking information to the competiton. She is apparently working in "another department " but no one has seem her.