Maldives Edition
World Common Cup Day leads today's complete edition for Maldives.
Daily Edition
Official observances, world days, local context, and everyday celebrations for people who need something worth reading, sharing, or talking about today.
A day for tea, coffee, water, juice, and the conversations that begin when someone offers another person a drink.
Before the dhoni, there was the odi : a larger, ocean-going sailing vessel that carried trade goods between the Maldives and India, Sri Lanka, and the Arab world. The odi was the vessel that made the Maldives a node in the Indian Ocean trade network, carrying cowry shells (used as currency across Africa and Asia : the Maldives was the world's primary source of cowry shells for over a thousand years), dried fish, coconut oil, and coir rope to foreign markets, and returning with rice, spices, cloth, and ceramics. The odi season (the southwest monsoon, when the winds blew from the southwest) was the trading season, and the arrival of the odi fleet in Malé's harbor was a major event. The odi is now extinct : replaced by motorized vessels and cargo ships : but a replica was built in 2014 for the National Museum, and the tradition is remembered in Dhivehi poetry, folklore, and the names of Maldivian shipping companies.
A day for checking the remote, the toy, the flashlight, the clock, and the one drawer everyone opens first.