4.1 Reef Blowing

A renowned practitioner from the capital visited Thora on Friday. It was announced on a megaphone and organised by Sunlight Club to serve the entire community of Thora. This health camp was set at Vedun Point with a desk placed in front of the stage. All folks were there and for that matter in their best clothes.

This practitioner, Mohamed Manik, was rather a slow guy wearing dark-rimmed glasses. He took quarter of an hour to check on one child. So, the crowd waited in a queue with their children. Being a doctor on an island, he had to listen to all sorts of complaints and all kinds of patients basically.

Multi-Ibre cursed and went up to the doctor and said, “I am WHO trained, I can help you ease this tension. If I may be allowed to place another desk.”

“No,” said the practitioner, “You’ll only ruin my camp. Ibre, I’m aware that you were there in Malé helping those overseas doctors with polio vaccine. How old were you then? That does not mean we are qualified.”

“You’re not,” argued Multi-Ibre, “You don’t have an overseas certificate. You are a self-proclaimed doctor. You make your own herbal medicine.”

“In my lab, yes,” nodded the doctor, “I have been practising and studying medicine my whole life.”

“Me too,” uttered Ibre.

“I’m sorry, I cannot allow you.”

“You are not licensed.”

“There’s no license required in this country. You only need a recognition and I’m acclaimed. Let me do my job!”

Ibre left the practitioner very angered. He could hardly watch and stand that sluggishness.

Muaz woke up late and when he entered the hall for breakfast, he came across that neighbour dressed like an angel; middy skirt and puffed blouse in a glittery blue. She wore ample lot of talc on her brown face and truly a beautiful lady, taller than average. She smiled. He never imagined that she could dress up like that.

“She went to the health camp,” said his aunt, “A visiting doctor is checking the folks.” And that was how he came to know about it.

Muaz headed to Vedun Point and it was close to eleven on a Friday that would mean a break. He met Ibre there and listened to his argument.

“I can do better,” he said in an irate manner, “I’m WHO trained,” he produced an ampoule from his pocket and showed, “This is a hormone injection.”

“Excuse me!” exclaimed Muaz.

“A hormone injection,” repeated Ibre, “There’s a fat kid and I have to give this dose to him and his parents fully support me. They want him to have this. I only need a syringe and a needle. And he won’t let me.”

“Oh my god!” cried Muaz, “What did you say! A hormone injection! I don’t think it’s even invented! Maybe it’s expired. You better leave it to the doctor.”

“You think I do not know anything!” Ibre argued, “True. Only a WHO trained operative could administer a dose like this with a sterilised needle heated on a Bunsen burner.”

When the practitioner took break at noon, Multi-Ibre placed another desk beside his desk and sat down to receive the folks.

Behind his back, Sunlight heads were furious but because he was a local practitioner, they didn’t know how to react. Ibre continued to check the visitors for another half an hour passing medicine from his own kit and the doctor’s briefcase left there. “I can double an effort,” was his argument.

Then came an elderly folk with complications of constipation. Ibre dug into the doctor’s medicine box and pulled out a syrup. “Drink it like a fish!” he said.

This old man could not cross the road when he felt a motion and expelled his bowels to his mundo.

Ibre was immediately removed from the site and he did not get another chance.

Such medical camps were very successful for the doctors who visited these islands and they took credit for it. Antiseptics and antibiotics worked very effectively on indigenous islanders never exposed to medicine. Those kids healed quickly from eye gunk and diseases.

 

That night when the girl came to light the lamp, he flung his legs and grabbed her and she turned into his arms submissively. He began to kiss and cuddle.

The night was hot and eerily quiet. An iridescent soil lit in the moonbeam. The house stood bare, windows open and dark inside. She heard those noises. It was loud in the hallway. She treaded to the door and listened. She knew who were in there and what was going on.

Nazima tried the knob. The door was unlocked. She opened slightly and peeped, paused for a moment to grasp a good look. Satisfied, Nazima left the door and quietly crossed the floor.

 

He was buzzed by the helicopter noise coming right over his roof that Saturday morning. In bed he tried to work out exactly where Ibre’s motorbike was rolling. It went on and on for a long while before it stopped. Muaz stuck a pillow between his knees and returned to sleep.

There came a tap on the door, “Get up! I come to pick you.”

Muaz called, “Where do you want to take me?”

“Women’s Lane,” he said.

“I am not going there.”

“Don’t be ridiculous! All are there. We’re blowing up the reef.”

“Who are?” he opened the door.

“The community. We need hands.”

“Thank god it’s not you!”

“Get on!”

It was early as seven and Muaz had no breakfast. He climbed on the motorbike with little reluctancy and they headed to Women’s Lane.

When they reached the beach exposed to a cool breeze, his mood changed instantaneously. Womenfolk from both wards prepared food, water and drinks for the workforce. Wheelbarrows loaded of watermelons, fruits and coconuts. Waves washing on the shore and the swells of a tide amplified the vast turquoise lagoon.

The red tractor popped out from Sirat Magu over two hundred yards away loaded with a stack of bags and brownshirts of the national guard. There were more piles of bags and guards around them.

Muaz had a short bite, a drink, and followed Ibre to the concentrated point. Those were tons of TNT bags, as he understood, prepared and packed in plastics to be used as underwater explosives. Those bags mustn’t touch water without their supervision and highly toxic. There were hundreds of kids in the water and nobody bothered about calling them out.

Muaz and Ibre climbed one of those little rowing boats loaded with those bags and scuttled to the reef five hundred yards away.

Out on the reef, waves roared and swells rose to rock the boat. Folks dived with those bags and laid them on top of the reef as instructed by the brownshirts. Muaz remained on the boat helping them to lower the bags. In the meantime, there were a bunch of other boats close to the reef collecting sand from the seabed and packing in bags. Men and women at work and most of them wearing sea-shorts and T-shirts, including the Bandiya girls.

Once the TNT bags were placed on the reef, they topped them with sandbags. The first detonation for the day was called at ten because this was the initial layer of explosives and perhaps the easiest round. Boats rowed back to the shore and all were called out of the water and advised to remain alert.

The national guard set up a controlled explosion with a plunger connected to a submarine cable. Each time a water sprout shot into the sky hundreds of feet high. It was a marvellous sight watched by the island folks lined up on the beach.

Someone passed him a bottle of Portello and he glanced at it twice. Not to dispute, he took a huge sip and puked at once.

“What is wrong with you?” asked the woman.

“This is Portello! I can’t take this!” cried Muaz.

“What is the matter with it?”

“It is the colour.”

“Then don’t drink it!” She passed him a bottle of Lemonade.

Back on the reef, they all dived to clear the rocks. Adam and Ashwar were on the boat with Muaz and Ibre. Ashwar grunted, “Don’t forget about the torch, you asked me to remind you. Remember!” The little craft dipped on the side he sat.

“I do,” said Muaz and he did afterwards pass it to him.

Folks dive without tanks – skindiving. Multi-Ibre could stay under water for nine minutes to hammer and lever the rocks with a pinch bar. They brought the rocks ashore for building purpose. Some rocks were still big to tow.

Muaz remarked, “He’s gone for an hour!”

Farida’s boyfriend, Adam, jabbered, “I’d like it if he’d never pop his head out of water again!”

Muaz listened to his sentiment with disbelief.

Another set up of TNT bags were laid and called off for lunch break. Second blast took place at one o’clock in the afternoon. Again, another display of water sprouts and back to work to clear the rocks.

When the swells died by the afternoon, they saw dead fish and stunned fish in the seabed. But it was more important to cut this canal through the reef to make way for boats to pass and in fact, boats were getting bigger.

A final ignition for the day was called at five and with it the brownshirts concluded the reef blowing. It was then up for the island folks to remove the rocks and clear the canal that would take a day or two.