Hello from Maldives

A year ago I didn't know there was a country called Maldives. Today I live and work in Male', an island 2 km by 1 km with 80,000 residents, the capital of a country made up of a string of atolls in the Indian Ocean consisting of 1900 tiny islands stretching 800 km in a line due north from the equator to just west of the southern tip of India. "Waterworld", I call it. I fell in love with salt water when I was a young teen living for a time in Florida, but during the 45 years I've spent since then in places like Cleveland, Rochester NY, Chicago and Kalamazoo, there's been only the fresh water of the Great Lakes. Until I came here for the first time last January, I didn't realize how much I missed for the sea.

And what a beautiful ocean it is, calm and clean. The islands of Maldives can rightly be called a kind of paradise though the place is not without its warts. The 90 or so luxury resorts here attract millions of visitors every year, mostly from Europe but also from Asia and the Americas. Tourism is the number two industry after tuna fishing and the income from it keeps this Islamic country of 400,000 relatively prosperous and stable compared to some of its neighbors in this region of the world. Divers come for the coral reefs, sybarites for the sun and the beaches and the spas, and there's even a bit of surfing.

I didn't come here for the sea and the sun, though. I met my fiancee, Lena, on the internet, and she is an obstetrician/gynecologist here. I love her. I would have gone anywhere to be with her, even to Siberia where she was born and lived until two years ago, but it was a bonus to find her in a place that defines the meaning of warm and sunny.

However delightful the tourist resorts may be, Male' isn't paradise. It's a crowded and chaotic Asian city. It is so built up, in fact, that as small as it is, there are relatively few places on the island where you can actually see the water. From our apartment window on the 5th floor we can just barely see a tiny patch of deep blue, and unless you walk along the shore you might completely forget you're on an island. Two Fridays out of three we take a day trip to Giravaru, a small resort island located 45 minutes due west of Male' by dhoni, the open 20 meter wooden boats that ferry most local people around the islands. For six hours we are on tropical vacation--snorkeling along the reef, basking in the sun on pure white sand, frolicking in the surf and enjoying a simple lunch at the outdoor restaurant overlooking the lagoon.