A letter for my grand daughter

In a letter to her future grand daughter, Sea, a Maldivian writer, reflects on the meaning of home in a country marred by corruption. 

To my granddaughter,

I grew up believing that my world was only as large as my island, which, if you look it up on the world map, doesn’t even exist at all. We, as a country, are only a few dots left as an afterthought on a grander picture, and when I found out of the world waiting for me beyond the borders of this landscapes, I cannot tell you the exhilaration that lit up my lungs like fireflies. Wanderlust has taken root in me and I am always in the yearning, constantly on the search for something more.

When I was eight years my parents put us on a plane and flew us to the city. This was my second time to Malé, and I could taste again the ice-cream from my first-journey, and I make-believed in something fantastical, non-sensical, but I was a child. When I realised we were going to be living inside a box overlooking the Freedom Square where the pigeons didn’t fly too far, I was so crushed that the weight of my dying hopes kept me rooted to the window and they couldn’t convince me to leave my spot. I only wanted to go home.