Accommodation blues

By and large, accommodation is not easy here. Big companies like Patrick/Toll apparently have their own compounds as well as long term contracts on houses. The Oz embassy has a huge compound on the beach front. Most hotels have their long term options booked long term. Love the business model, hate its personal implications. Quite a few of the hotels were put up when the initial UN intervention happened. They are converted shipping containers, no joke. Even some of them have no vacancies. For quite a while there was a floating hotel as well. I think it sailed away last year to a more troublesome trouble spot when it looked like the UN was reducing its presence here and accommodation would be less profitable.

I’ve been spending some time looking for alternate accommodation. I’m quite OK where I am, but I’m mortally certain Just Add Water does not want to live in a sports bar. It’s just the way she is. She would be happy except that she doesn’t like loud noise. Or sports. Or bars. Last night ‘Jim Ligament’, my travel agent, decided he was li'l Axel Rose, Deep Purple and Screamin' Jay Hawkins rolled into one package. At about 10 pm and 120 decibels. And I admit that I’ve never heard an amateur scream as tunefully as he did. But I was glad Just Add Water missed the fun. I was discussing biz with Fully Loaded, but I eventually gave up.

Even so, anyone coming to Dili should give my present digs a try. The owner is great and bends over backwards to try and meet all reasonable requests. Some people have literally been living there for years. Contact details available.

But life keeps giving. I was all out of leads at 7 am and by 8 am had followed up a promising but futile lead. Its night, I’m waiting on one phone call tonight and an email lead tomorrow, as well as having put out a plea on the hash network (for which I will be assuredly punished, but possibly rewarded as well).

I was told, I don’t know if it’s true, that my extremely senior local boss at work moved out of his own house to rent it to someone like me! It was a deal that worked for everyone, but it speaks volumes. Cross your fingers for us.