Riding towards Majeedhi Magu tonight

I had to slow down my Wave 100 on an average road of Male' leading to the central Majeedhi Magu. There were many Wave cycles parked on the right side parking zone at 20 to 50 degrees angle from the one stone pavements. On the other side along with Waves parked parallel to the road are pedestrians squeezing through between them and the ongoing traffic of Wave cycles, bigger cycles and taxi cars. The sports car look-alikes don't come into these roads because this economy is not what the drivers of these cars want to show themselves to. The road is crowded with very small houses of three floors on average. Each house appears unfinished, or not painted after Jumhoory 30 of 1998. Dusty and corroded but still with living people and pests inside. All houses are full. Some overflowing with people. People stay in front of the house wearing a 8080 Mundu (sarong), listening to AM Radio with an antenna or wearing a BodyGlove trousers (shirtless) talking on a Nokia 6300 perched on one of the parked Wave cycles that doesn't obviously belong to him. Or a teenage boy (with long sleeved shirt) holding a girl (wearing a midi and burugaa) in the shadows.

I had to slow down my Wave 100 because a taxi was slowing down just ahead of me. It finally stopped in front of a house almost the length of the taxi. The right door opened into the sitting room cum maids room of the house. Three ladies came out of the taxi. One wearing a baby blue Buruga with glittery silver stars on it. She had lipstick on her lips and a reasonable amount of red powder on her face. She looked the eldest (in her late 50s) of the three. Then came out the other two, probably two daughters of her in their early forties. The dickey of the taxi opened to find 3 large plastic shopping bags. 1 red. The other one yellow with "Bright Brothers" printed on it. They slowly took the bags, one filled with cheap plastic wear, one with some noodles packets and the other with make-up stuff. Three of them slowly went into the house making sure the door of the car is slowly closed to make space for them to enter the house. The door didn't close properly the first time so the taxi driver had to awkwardly put his right hand over his shoulder to close the back door by himself.

It was around 11:08pm tonight. Friday night shopping has become a custom for the people of Male' now.