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After having the best day I could possibly imagine yesterday everything took an ugly turn.
The white sand and blue water had washed any almost every worry in the world but my heart sank along with the sun. After a lengthy unpaid meeting I went to get money from a bank machine as I had finally spent all of my airport money. There was a long line up, 'men' were hissing at me and saying things under their breath in divehi. Young boys were laughing back and forth through the glass with the security guard who wouldn't stop pointing at me. It was almost my turn at the machine, the two guys in front of me tried twice and were rejected, they went out to their way to usher me toward the machine to give it another try, all the while knowing that on the third try the card gets eaten.
So now my only way of getting money is gone, the manager of the school says that she has 'contacts' at the bank and I will get my card back on Sunday but her word is as solid as hot molasses. I had decided not to make a big
deal about it and continue to go shopping with the Filipino girls I live with until it happened. I had been warned that 'men' here feel they have a right to touch whomever and whatever they please but I chose to believe otherwise. It happened, i got grabbed.. and i decided that i wouldn't make a scene, I wouldn't lash out violently as my hear so dearly wished to do but i would walk away. I attempted to walk home which was only 3 blocks away. In this short amount of time I managed to receive constant verbal sexual abuse from EVERY 'man' that walked past me. Whether it be lip smacking to hissing they all had something to say. I have never had to work so hard to compose myself in my life. I did everything the books told me to I was covered up but no one told me that you're a target as soon as you're alone. A pack of filthy perverted lions is all i can equate them to.
I have officially obtained permission to shave my head from management at the school. I hope that this will instill fear into the men of this
islands minds. What else can I do? How else can I show that I won't stand for it without breaking the law?
I suppose a place of such beauty couldn't possibly weigh on one end of the scale for every aspect of its being. Each extreme needs its polar opposite, it seems, to me anyway, to be the way of life. So I will attempt to take the good with the bad, each time i am demeaned i will look deeply into their eyes and show them the pain that they have caused. No one on this planet deserves this.. oh poor Jennifer Latheef.. she has 5 more years of house arrest to 'serve' for attempting to be the voice of human rights. To take my freedom for granted in Canada seems so ridiculous and when i return I'll fight for change in this country. But not now, a voice of reason to us is the voice of a criminal.
On a lighter note.. but not all that much lighter.. my can no longer use my laptop, the voltage 'converter' I had purchased was stopped working completely. It didn't really work in the first place. To you this
probably means nothing, I can still communicate, I've still got the desktop the school as let me use. But to me this means no TV (my constant nightly lullaby for the past 7 years) and no skype. I've asked for help repeatedly to get all that i needed to settle in but acts of selfless help seem few and far between.
Today is my Sunday, so I'm going to go back to bed and hope that everything will magically fix itself for tomorrow.. which reminds me.
I promised myself that i would dream of alcohol last night and hopefully relax and what did i dream of instead? The very thing that haunts me the most about this island. I had to watch people repeatedly kill sea turtles and eat them while i was shaving my head. Thanks brain.. nice of you to give me a break.
Tomorrow is my first day actually teaching the students. I received the syllabus for the 6 different sets of students I'll be teaching with virtually no time to prepare. But it's my first time so I'm sure everyone will be patient. The children are insanely intelligent so at least I've got that
on my side.
Sorry for the long winded and extremely pessimistic entry but I'll end it by posting the beautiful images from yesterday morning. And thanks to my dear friend Kirkwood I was able to make them pack a little extra punch with the tips he gave me after his return from the Bahamas. So enjoy, and if any of you wouldn't mind.. please come and visit.
k thnx
Sincerely and lovingly,
April
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