There are still very few islands in Maldives, which don’t have a harbor or even a simple jetty for the people to get-out or get-in to the island in Maldives and one such island is H. A Utheemu.
Utheemu is a pretty famous island in all-over Maldives and this can be judged with the very fact that all-most-all Maldivian’s knows Utheemu, but may have not heard or known the others islands name or even the mere existence.
Utheemu (Dhivehi: އުތީމު) is one of the inhabited islands of Haa Alif Atoll administrative division and geographically part of Thiladhummathi Atoll in the north of the Maldives. The birthplace of Sultan Mohamed Thakurufaanu, who with his brothers and his companions fought an eight-year long war to drive out the Portuguese invaders who occupied the Maldives from 1558 to 1573. Utheemu Ganduvaru is the wooden palace in which Sultan Mohamed Thakurufaanu lived and grew up. It is well preserved and evokes more than any other existing building in the Maldives, the lifestyle of the rich, centuries ago.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utheemu_Haa_Alif_Atoll
As mentioned above in the wiki extract, this is one of the most historic islands in Maldives and one of the major concerns which the island chief raised during our meeting was that the island doesn’t have a harbor or a jetty as I mentioned above, which also attracts less foreign tourists from the nearby resorts – as the resort management believe it is not safe for the tourist to come and jump out onto the shore-line and then get into the island.
A staff from the Gender Department also suffered a fracture to his leg when he jumped off the speedboat to the shore-line with a bad judgment on when to jump- where to land and more importantly how to jump. Our team went to finish the work he couldn’t undertake in the island successfully and we came back safe & happy to tell the story.
But some may ask why? Been one of the most –famous islands in Maldives, why is it so? why is there no harbor or a simple jetty. Our curiosity to know WHY was answered by the Island Chief and also by the members of the Women’s Development Committee. According to them, there have been hundreds of surveys done and thousand assessments carried out in the islands but nothing has happened and they are tired of this. Even a month back a police team came down to do an assessment on building a “floating” jetty but the islanders haven’t heard from them after that.
But later during our household visits to meet the economically vulnerable women to target a grant scheme (which was the primary reason for our visit to the island), I did shift my attention to this area also because I have been visiting other islands before we came into this particular island and I have seen far-less famous or known islands also with jetty or harbor and was wondering why not this island? What is the issue? And kept thinking something is wrong somewhere (fishy fishy fishy). It was triggering my curiosity alarm and kept on me using my brain. I tried to dig more and there I get the president of the Woman’s committee and with a lot of provoking questions one after another, she finally revealed. According to her and with facts, Utheemu is not like any other island in Maldives and it is very dynamic in nature. With the change in season, the island also changes its shape – which hinders in building up the jetty.
According to her, long time ago there was a Jetty but it also fell down because of the dynamic changes in the island shape (I was even wondering when they told me that Police tried to build a floating jetty). Anyhow this was one reason and with further provoking, she revealed the social issue which hinders the development. The islanders had different preference to build the harbor, a part of the community wanted it towards the palace entry point (from where we came in) and others wanted it in south and few others in other locations.
By 2008, the island community was able to come to a conclusion on where to build it. But I believe something could be done, EVEN the KLCC tower was constructed on a total impossible piece of land but with some good hard work and dedication it was completed. According to the registry of the Palace visitors, there are around 700 – 1000 people visiting the palace in a day (according to the island chief) and during holidays it is much-much more.
I was thinking of the last factor in all issue or sometimes the very first factor – POLITICS? And oh yes!! I did see that too, but it was just an observation – So I would let it pass and ask them not to neglect it based on the votes they got from the island but on the fact that – this is an island which Maldives can promote for cultural or historic heritage.
