Shaviyani Nights No. 3 (1988)

This is the second instalment of Geoffrey Griffith's despatches from the Maldives, where he is a project coordinatorfor the Shaviyani Integrated Atoll Development Projectfunded by Voluntary Service Overseas, the EEC and the Government of the Maldives. For the first two instalments, see the last issue of A.T. We hope to attract comment on Dr Griffith's despatches by readers of A.T. who are experts on development or on the problems of archipelagos. Now r ead on. It has been an exciting 2 months since I last put pen to paper for ANTHROPOLOGY TODAY. I have at last been able to employ my anthropological skills usefully. But before I talk about the trip where this happened, I must confess the first lesson I have learnt in journal writing. It is not wise to predict what the topic of discussion in the next despatch will be. In 'Shaviyani Nights no.2' I stated that the next topic would be decision-making and the work plan. This was not wise. I knew enough about development in general and the Maldives in particular to be aware that things do not generally go according to plan. What I should have said is that I will discuss these topics in a future issue. This I promise. However, I must report that the negotiations concerning the work plan are somewhat protracted but I expect that now, because I have had an extended trip to Shaviyani, any remaining problems will soon be ironed out. I believe the 36 day trip to Shaviyani turned out to be a glowing success for just about all concerned. The purpose was to spend two days on each of the 15 inhabited islands. During these two days there were three aims. First, to explain to the island people exactly how the VSO IADP project would be able to help them achieve their goals. Second, for myself and the locally employed field staff to learn more about the village communities. Third, to discuss with the villagers certain construction and training programmes in which we already knew there to be considerable interest. The method used at the start of the trip was first to meet the island committees and then to spend some time meeting villagers in their homes. There are two committees: the Island Development Committee (IDC) and the Women's Development Committee (WDC). The IDC consists entirely of males. These are the Katheeb (Island Chief) and Kuda Katheeb (assistant Island Chief) plus varying numbers of village men who are supposed to have been elected to serve on the committee by their community. Since there are no females employed as island leaders, all members of the WDC are elected. However, prominent women such as the Katheeb's wife usually have leading roles. However, meeting the committees alone did not turn out well. My experiences in the first village suggested that although the committee members were individually interested in what VSO proposed, the content of our meeting was never conveyed to the rest of the population. Hence, we decided to first inform the village leaders of the purpose of our visit. Then the project staff spread out around the village to speak to as many people as possible. Finally, in the evening of the first day and morning of the second day, meetings for the village men (evening) and women (morning) were held, to which all were invited. This proved to be a very successful formula so, by the time we left the village, all staff felt sure that the vast majority of villagers had some information and had been given some opportunity to express their opinions concerning the project. The trip proved to be a testing but valuable time for the staff. There are now seven employed to work in the atoll plus one other in MaIe. Four of the atoll staff make up the dhoni crew. Because the dhoni was still not ready when I left for the atoll, they had to follow later by themselves. They arrived on 1st December with a beautiful green and white dhoni. Its name, Siththimaawaa, was chosen because it is that of a famous woman who, as wife of a sultan, did much good work for the people of the Maldives. The crew proved to be excellent at maintaining a clean and efficiently operating boat. It was not until the last few days that I found out that this was primarily due to the very capable captain. He went on holiday as we were about to return to Mal6. Then his deputy somehow managed to point the boat in the wrong direction and get us lost, so we ended up taking one day longer than normal to reach MaIe. The other three atoll staff were, at the start of the trip, designated assistant coordinators. People here are very conscious of seniority and I wanted to be sure that they all started off equal so that a natural ranking could develop under its own momentum. This happened at a somewhat accelerated rate because an additional person on this trip, an experienced translator and village communicator, had to leave halfway through the tour because his child was ill. I was thus left with three staff, none of whom could speak much English. My understanding of Divehi grew very quickly to help bridge the gap. But to the long-term benefit of the project, the personal qualities of two of the three assistant coordinators proved substantive enough to cope with this sudden loss of expertise. The third, whom I spoke of last time as needing disciplinary action, did not. But hopefully, in a year or so he also will be able to develop the capacity to think and communicate in a constructive way with the village people. However, with regard to staffing, I had one big disappointment. I am 'bodu miha' (big person). The staff follow me. They do not walk with me. They consciously separate themselves from me, treating me with great respect. I therefore have no friends to work with; I only have employees. I hope with time this can change, but, for the moment, working in the atoll is rather lonesome. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of this atoll trip is the way a special role for the anthropologist in me developed in circumstances where projects are being planned but little is known about the local population. The main way in which this manifested itself was through my unwillingness to take for granted what others have told me about the people. The three main areas where this might, in the long term, prove to be important (this is not to say that others will not arise in due course) are divorce, diet and classification. The Maldives is supposed to have the highest divorce rate in the world (approximately 90%). Further, many people remarry many times during their lives. This is supposed to create considerable instability within households and be detrimental to the children in particular.