'Life goes on' attitude

I haven’t had time to go out much but from what little I saw it is unbelievable here. After just a few years, the change hits you in the face like a bullet. I knew things had gone bad in the Maldives, but I never expected this.

Male' is a sea of humanity and concrete mixed together in an unholy bunch. You cannot walk down the street without bumping into hundred other people. The shops are full of goods that people cannot afford to buy. One third of the shops that existed four years ago are no more around. Even a pack of nappies costs over Rf120! How can someone with a baby survive on a Rf3000 salary I have no idea. Everyone you meet complains of the same thing - rising prices, escalating violence. Even today one old lady from Thaa Atoll told me that a bottle of gas costs 230 Rufiya in her island. People have had to go back and chop wood for fuel.

Then there is also a false sense of acceptance around which kinds of worries me - this "life goes on" attitude. Yes, the shop downstairs got burgled last week, yes, there was an incident one block away where someone got knifed, yes, my next door neighbour’s motorbike got stolen yesterday. All these have become such daily occurrence that people are accepting them as part and parcel of life.

I asked a few people I met what do they think is going to happen with the elections? The answer was "the same". Golhaa will stay. I asked them will you go out and vote? The reply – "what's the use? Nothing would change. They will rig the vote anyway!".
One cannot help but feel that Glhaa has covered us with so tight a blanket of despair that we have forgotten that there is a life outside.

2 days in Male;' and even I have become a defeatist!