Since my last post there have been some major steps on in the creation of the rowing club, which is good news as although I have been, mostly, putting a brave face on things I have been getting quite down about the lack of progress and more importantly my inability to have any control over the lack of progress. A situation that is very common here but is still incredibly frustrating nonetheless, after four months of minimal progress I had been starting to question my ability to achieve anything whilst here, phew a bit of brutal honesty on the blog! However with the imminent arrival of seven shiny new boats things have suddenly taken a major leap forward, we have the new mayor of Male, Alibe, firmly behind the project and he came with us to meet the Housing Development Corporation (the development agency for Hulhumale), and we now have a promise of land, access to the sea, all the materials for a boat house and a water tank. All we need now is someone to build the boat house / shed, I know I am never happy, but until we get somewhere to keep the boats and access to the water our rowing club won't be doing a lot of rowing.
I am hopeful that over Ramadan we can keep some progress going but the most exciting news of the week (apart from Tash obviously) is that the boats have arrived in Male and are being expelled from the customs machine as we speak - a huge sigh of relief all round, now it is time to get my logistics head on to store all the boats for Hulhumale and transport the others down to Addu, clipboards and official face at the ready.
Lastly - yesterday was Maldivian Independence Day, celebrating 46, I think, years since the islands escaped the clutches of the British Empire, unfortunately I missed most of the parades as I had an interview to write but there was a lot of children in national dress and many, many marching bands - other than that I am not really sure what else happened, sorry!