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What an awesome day spent at Eydhafushi! Trudi, James, Piggy, and I all put in a good day of work while the rest of our volunteers were working in Maalhos and Dharavandhoo.

Our trash clean up, which took place on Saturday, took its final step on Eydhafushi today when a dhoni showed up to remove all 1,000 trash bags from the island. The four of us teamed up alongside six other local volunteers to load the backside of the dhoni. We were able to move the huge lump of trash in just over an hour!

After lunch, we teamed up with about twelve student volunteers from the local school to continue surveying the island. Some of the students have joined us for a few days and are ready to lead teams of their own! They even promised to continue the project after our time in the Maldives is over. Sustainability is the name of the game and these kids are definitely the answer we have been looking for!

We are hoping to be able to finish surveying the capital island by Friday. Over 20 of the students have promised to show up (on their only day off from school!) on Friday to help us complete the surveying and continue mosquito control efforts. Overall, it was a very encouraging and inspiring day.

So often I realize that this amazing opportunity to work with 13 local island communities in the Maldives would never have been possible without the extensive support of Four Seasons! There is a reason they are global leaders in the resort industry, because they employ outstanding people! Thanks again to all the Four Seasons Staff that made this all possible!

Three days ago this mound was looming over us at Fehendhoo

A hearty rainstorm on Dharavandhoo last week

Getting ready for our scuba lesson last Friday

Three weeks since arrival (has it really been that long?!) I am working on an island called Fehendhoo. It is a very small island (pop. 272). I am working with Piko, one of the Maldivians on our team. We have spent most of the last three days that we’ve been there just working on cleaning up the trash pile that has been sitting on their island since Syd and Trudy came here last year and did a trash cleanup with them! The problem was that the big trash boat can’t come directly to their island because there is no channel dredged through the coral and sand for a boat that big. So they need to get the trash to the adjacent island, which is only a 5-10 minute boat ride away. It is peculiar that they didn’t do that for an entire year, but we are making it happen now. We finished bagging everything today and we are going to start transporting it tomorrow.

Today I learned some Dhivehi from the 5 or 6 year old daughter of one of the council members we have been working with. It was such a fun cross-cultural experience because she was just learning the names of the things in English, so we were sort of on the same level of learning. I also tried to teach her, and Piko and the council member some of the Spanish words for things. It was really fun.

I’m learning so much every day here, about this country, the world, myself, working with communities, working with a team, the things it takes to make a project like this work, and so much more. The overwhelming feeling of happiness and gratefulness for being able to be here hasn’t faded at all. Sometimes at the end of the day I am totally exhausted and feel frustrated about certain details from the day, but all of that totally washes away as soon as I sort of zoom out and remember that I am in the middle of the Indian Ocean on the biggest adventure of my life yet. Looking at it that way makes it easy to appreciate whatever is happening as part of the experience.

The rain was pouring down and huge puddles, virtually small lakes of water were forming all over the streets for much of the day. Sydney and the entire team made the most of the moment to play in the rain, splash in the puddles and dance in the street! After the rain abated slightly Syd was teaching a young woman from Dharavandhoo to swim. The joy on the woman’s face was incredible to see and in that moment a women’s life changed! A whole new world opened up to her, a world of joyful exploration. At times our project is about far more than just controlling mosquitoes, it is about building cultural bridges and communicating person to person, about bringing joy into communities and helping to bring people together. Thanks Sydney for all of the special skills, enthusiasm and joy you bring to this project!