The Maldives is the world's lowest-lying country — its highest natural point is less than 2.5 metres above sea level. The 1,200 coral islands and atolls spread across the Indian Ocean are formed by coral reef growth that has kept pace with rising sea levels for millennia. Climate change is disrupting that balance. The Maldivian government has been warning the international community about sea level rise for decades — in 1989, President Maumoon Gayoom addressed the United Nations about the existential threat facing his country. The warming that scientists predicted in theory, Maldivians are experiencing in practice.
The luxury resort industry that most international visitors experience — overwater bungalows, crystal lagoons, private islands — is the economic engine that funds the country and is almost entirely separate from the actual Maldivian society on the inhabited islands. The local islands have a different character: conservative Muslim communities, traditional dhow boat building, the Maldivian language Dhivehi, and a way of life that the resort industry exists alongside rather than within.
Bodu Beru — the traditional music of the Maldives — is performed on large drums whose rhythms build gradually from slow to intensely fast, accompanied by singing and eventually a trance-like state called kaashi that some performers enter during performance. The tradition has African roots, brought by East African traders who passed through the Indian Ocean for centuries. It is the sound of a culture that has been shaped by the ocean that surrounds it.
