3rd Update

SO out of nowhere another week has passed, and in less than a fortnight now we’ll be back in, what I hear is a very rainy, England. The weather is still nice here and the hot patches are broke up with regular cooler cloudy spells, and the odd bit of rain. The rain doesn’t mess around in the Maldives we got caught in the rain on a 2-minute walk home from school on Tuesday and we were all saturated by the time we got home!

We decided at the start of the week not to go to the neighbouring island as accommodation, food and ferries to the island would be a bit too costly for only a couple of days and decided to spend the weekend on Lhohi instead.

            On the day of writing my last blog I mentioned the Euro’s and how we should be playing in the final tonight. Unfortunately our footballers on £200,000 a week, still cant hit the target from 12 yards, yet again, as we lost miserably in another penalty shoot out, and the locals didn’t half let us know about it as well! We seem to have settled in with some of the older people on the island now, having only really known the children through school before.

            I really wanted to write this week and say that the food had became more varied and exciting… but I think England were more likely to win the Euros! (Small note to any of our parents are reading this, if we see a single noodle or grain of rice in the next 3 months serious actions will be taken)

            This week we started our islands football tournament, as we each took charge of a house, in a vague attempt to help them out. I took Blue house (the team with the big kid), Fretters took charge of Green (reigning champs) and Stolly took red house (the team that tries hard (being polite there)). After an uneventful series of group matches we reached the final, as Mourinho’s blue house took on AVB’s greens. In essence, the first 30 minutes of the final were relatively boring as green scored a controversial penalty to take the lead. After half time my team were awarded a penalty for a passback (for all the galdem reading, that isn’t a penalty).  The penalty was converted and with just 5 minutes to go the score was 3-2 to the blues. Then as Fretters went to attend to an unconscious child, some of the local people supporting green decided to take green off the pitch in outrage at the penalty. Some of the house started crying in anger and the game between 7-10 year old kids became somewhat feisty. There was about a half an hour break in play, with people arguing left right and centre, until the game eventually restarted with new referees; not that it made any difference as the game finished 3-2. None of us could believe what had happened in a kid’s football tournament but the entertainment value was priceless, and its shows how seriously the Maldives local take their football.

            Yesterday we spent a day on biology practical with some 17 and 18 year olds at the school. I imagine the practical’s couldn’t be much more different to England as it consisted of rowing out into the ocean, and snorkelling around the reef whilst spear fishing. All of us had a good time and Fretters even managed to catch a fish with a spear (he hasn’t shut up about it since). One of the locals managed to catch and octopus as well which we enjoyed in some sea food noodles last night. We’ve spent a fair amount of time this week off snorkelling around the coral reef and seen an array of fish and turtles, as well as some eels and a giant stingray, which would have seen Steve Irwin tremble in his grave!

            Cricket this week has been somewhat limited due to the football tournament, but in the only session of this week the 4 against 4, England vs. India tournament continued. In a game with some massively controversial fielding England were set a target of 27 to win in 6 overs. England eventually won after slipping to 10-3, but managed to win on the very last ball with an unbeaten 17 from the last batsman, meaning England now lead India 2-0.

            We had the pleasure of results day on the island and despite one or two anomalous results everyone seems pretty pleased with how they got on which is the main thing, and hope everyone else did well too as I haven’t had a chance to speak to anyone at home yet.

            After finishing the kid’s football tournament, we have the luxury of not getting up at 5.30am anymore for football coaching. Instead we get a lie until its breakfast time or until the builders decide to start work with electrics drills outside our room at 6am. (Living in the nicest and newest house on the island so can’t really complain.)

            Its our last full week in Lhohi this week, but still plenty to look forward too as the senior football tournament kicks off, and our English teaching program begins to draw to a close.

Gradually developing bear features

Dodge