Apparently, my dad enjoyed buying cars...

...and I like cars, but have been able to scrape by without one for a while in Dili.  Taxis are cheap, usually, and walking is really cheap,  but both are problematic after 8:30 pm.  Also, we own enough cars back in Canbera as it is.  However, we have finally bought a[nother] car, a Honda CR-V.  It's basically a 5 door hatch back automatic all wheel drive [AWD], relatively compact but not tiny.

Our previous experience has made us familiar with AWDs.  For Defence wonks, these AWDs are not to be confused with Air Warfare Destroyers.    For a start, instead of several billion dollars,  they cost USD 8,500.  Or this one did anyway.

$8,500 is a reasonable amount of money.  Until you go to the bank and attempt to take it out, whereupon it suddenly became unreasonable.  I've already taken out a bank cheque once and won't do that again if I can possibly avoid it.  But I did get a shock when they handed it to me in $10 notes.  All of it.  

Talk about feeling vulnerable!  I would have felt less visible with one of those huge and stupid publicity cheques, rather than with this fat bundled envelope which 50 people in the bank had seen me stuff to overflowing with banknotes and take out.

Fortunately, I was able to flick it to the seller quick smart.  In her car, soon to be my car, she pulled out a computer case and slipped the cash inside.  Then she refused a lift to the bank, hopped out and was on her way.  She was very cool about the whole thing.

It probably looked like I was dealing drugs.

Sights of Dili.

Some of these I have mentioned before, others not. It makes up some of what strikes me as different about this place.

Radiating out from the city centre, they are repaving all the footpaths with hexagonal pavers, usually in red and black, but sometimes also including yellow, the three (main) colours of the flag.

You see quite a few flags around. Most are East Timorese, but a large number are Fretilin flags. Fretilin is the largest party in East Timor (currently in opposition against a ‘unity’ coalition) and was the key political party representing armed resistance to the Indonesian occupation.

Children fly kites quite a bit here, to impressive heights. I haven’t seen the construction close up, but the string appears to be light fishing line and the kites are made principally out of discarded plastic shopping bags.

I have not seen refrigerated (iced) fish anywhere except in restaurants, and even that wasn’t top notch fresh. The man in this photo with fish on a shoulder pole had just finished rinsing them in the sea to wash away some of the smell.





The way oranges are sold is again off the pole, but they are bundled up in a really elegant way.

Children here are very openly joyous and free. At the same time, family discipline and hierarchy are very strictly observed.

The local bird here appears to be the Australian sparrow, which is a definite improvement over the Indian mynah. I’ve also seen some pretty large pigeons.

The earth near Dili has red Australian tones and there are plenty of eucalypts. Eucalypts and palm trees is an odd combination for me.

But I am continually struck by the demure, sidesaddle, scooter passengers, ankles crossed and often nursing a child.

I’ll write about this more…

Dili traffic 2

I saw it all today, but unfortunately captured very little on film. I saw 5 on a single motor bike (and the woman looked possibly pregnant).

I saw 5 guys hanging out the door of a "mikrolet" (the minibuses that are the cheap form of transport around here. Think about that for a second. The guy at the front can hang onto the door frame. The guy at the back can't quite do the same as the sliding door gets in the way, although he can if he faces backwards. That is apparently not an option, from my observations. Even the one in this photo has only glanced backwards.

So what you had was the front one (who is the conductor) gripping the frame and the seat and all others hanging by their fingers to the rain guttering!


The attached photo really is the one that got away. When I took it, they were straight in front of me, when the camera went off this is all I got.

If you look closely, the mother is sitting sidesaddle, as she has a skirt on. She is holding a small boy between herself and the father.

Completely obscured is the second child in front of the father.

I was in a taxi, stuck at a red light and by the time we could go, they were out of sight.

About the only thing Three Strokes ever told me about cameras that I understood was that lag time was a killer. I agreed with him at the time and do so even more now.

On the subject of cameras, photos etc, I have set up a Flickr account, where I will post photos. That way you can look at them if you want to without being forced to load them as a consequence of accessing this page. I'll try to put a permanent link to it on the sidebar.

Dili downsides

There's not that much I don't like about Dili. So here's a list.

Every river, every drain is a stinking, open sewer. The smell suddenly hits you like a Mike Tyson haymaker.
It is possible to drive without constantly using the horn. This fact appears largely unknown.
Fresh milk is entirely unavailable.
Cigarettes are entirely too available. I saw some under 5's 'practicing' smoking with a discarded cigarette butt.
There are several 'one stop shops' in Dili. They aren't.
Street prices are more expensive than shop prices. That's just wrong.
In a coastal city in a port town which is the capital of an island nation, fresh fish is hard to find.
I don't think I dare cycle in this town. Cyclists are apparently a slightly lower life form than plague rats.

The list of what I do like about Dili is too long to write up. I leave it as an exercise to the student to infer the list from primary sources.

Dili traffic

I’ve been meaning to write about this. Dili traffic has a poetry all of its own, an ebb and flow that is particularly sea-like.

Aside from the newly marked one-way streets, Dili’s traffic adjusts to the time of day. Four any given two lane road, four lanes of traffic will flow, three to four of them in the predominant direction. Tooting seems to be about the sole form of communication with headlight flashing not only rare but random in occurrence and intent. Added to this is the habit of taxi drivers to toot all prospective fares, young men to toot pretty girls and 4WDs to toot to establish their precedence in the traffic pecking order. Nevertheless, it’s not loud and not particularly aggressive. Flow is the perspective and the word.

Things more flow into things than barge, push or shove. I’m looking forward to getting a car but they are unaccountably expensive.

A lot of writers mention bad and aggressive UN drivers. I haven’t really noticed this personally, but I’ll give it time. They do seem less patient than others, but then others can be infuriatingly slow.

As with many places, the majority of people walk. The little minibuses (‘mikrolets’) travel absolutely packed with usually 3 or 4 guys hanging out the door. This appears to be traditional, rather than required by space considerations. Taxis are also cheap but I tend to walk because I see more that way. A restaurant (Mama’s, a new Thai place) that I’ve eaten at a couple of times, the owners said that they were used to seeing me walking around. I guess most malae (foreigners) don’t walk, and those that do aren’t wearing an Akubra.

Families of four or fewer often travel on a scooter or motorbike. I have seen the occasional bike laboring along with 5 passengers. Mum and Dad have helmets, but the kids don’t. I imagine accident statistics are not particularly favourable, although I haven’t actually seen a crash scene. The main form of damage to cars is not dents from bumps, but smashed windscreens from rocks. Up to a couple of years ago, gangs were notorious for stoning cars. I passed one car yesterday with what looked like a bullet hole in the windscreen. Expats were nonchalant about the sight, suggesting that in all likelihood the hole was years old.

Update: One thing I forgot to mention is the common sight of the men driving the bikes and the ladies riding behind, often sidesaddle. It, like many things East Timor, looks very elegant.

A week is a long time in politics. And Dili.

A full week in Dili and I’m left with all sorts of impressions. There are a lot of street vendors, selling cigarettes and telephone cards, or ones with tricycles selling water and soft drinks, along with cigarettes, chips and noodles. There are a lot of roadside canteens selling basic necessities, and at least along the main drag a lot of Indonesian and other food places. I’ve been in a couple and you get a very good lunchtime feed for not that much money. Others find the vendors an annoyance – I’m glad they are doing something, anything, to raise a quid.

Hypocritically, of course, I am not consistent. Taxis beep malae (foreigners) as a way of saying ‘You’re walking, surely you want a lift’. By the twentieth beep in a 10 minute period, I get pretty jack of it. But as I say, they are only trying to make a crust. It’s not their fault I’m so out of condition that I need to walk everywhere. As penance, I’ll hire one soon to take me to Christo Rei, the huge statue of Christ that overlooks the harbour, and back. It’s about a 4-5 hour round trip on foot, and I will walk it at some stage, but I figure there’s going to be one lucky taxi driver.

A kid came up to me today to sell me a baseball cap with Timor Leste and the flag on it. I actually had been looking to buy one (or more) and was told that they cost US$3-7 depending on how hard you wanted to bargain. I was going to the ANZ machine as I was low on cash, but I asked him how much. “$5, I mean $10” he said. I laughed – the greed play was so over the top. By the time I came away from the cash machine the price had dropped to 4 hats for $10, without my saying a word. I pulled out my wallet (the cash machine was broken) and discovered $2. Total. I’ll get my hats another day.

I walked out to some of the stores along the way on Sunday, including to the Cormoro markets where I bought turmeric root – mmm. Betel nut was on sale and I noticed more of the red mouths than I had seen before (betel nut stains everything bright crimson). There was meat on sale – I wouldn’t have touched it in a pink fit – flies all over, no refrigeration, definitely whiffy and that’s not even taking into account what the animal’s health was like to begin with. At One More Bar, where I’m currently living, the owner is a skilled butcher. He kills the animals and carves them, makes his own sausages and has a smokehouse as well. Sunday roast is a bit of a treat. This week it will be beef, pork, turkey, chicken and duck. One of the other hotels has gone into direct competition, with ‘traditional Aussie roast’ ever so coincidentally on Sunday as well. I have the vague feeling that One More Bar is going to come out on top, on this round.

More joyously, as the only meat options are frozen meat or market meat (urrgh!), the owner has agreed to sell meat to me – fresh, wholesome and tender. I’ll empty my freezer soon, but I intend to buy his sausages, which are not specially spiced or anything, just a plain good ol’ snag.

I had dinner with Fully Loaded the other night. We put away a fairly nice bottle of red that I had managed to secure and gossiped about work and the people there. His partner managed to turn on a bit of a feast including some delicious chicken. Fully Loaded attempted to find out how it had been cooked but apparently got stonewalled. I guess it was a case of 11 Secret Herbs and Spices. Speaking of which, there appears very little in the way of real roadside cooking – I’ve seen it once or twice only. That may be a function of the ‘warungs’ – the roadside cafes that are everywhere here.


I understand more barbequing goes on down at the beach area, which is about a half hour hike from my place. I’m more or less on the shore, but the beach restaurant strip is a little way away.


Xanana Gusmao is my near neighbour. For those a bit hazy on Timorese history, he was jailed for some time by the occupying Indonesian forces, became the country’s founding president and is now the Prime Minister. It’s kind of cool having a sub-prime-ministerial address, but you know it when his convoy comes through – high speed, sirens blaring and weaving through the rapidly clearing traffic. I want take a photo of his gurads, although I don’t have a camera. It’s not every day you see the National Guard carrying AK-47s (which also appear on the national crest).

I attended my first hash, in the hills above Dili. The scenery was breathtaking, truly gorgeous and other superlatives. Insert your own and be in the running to win a prize of a free, no-expenses-or-ticket-paid holiday to East Timor. You can stay with me if you don’t mind sharing a bed.

The hash master, Daisy, is a tall, long haired, tattooed hoon. He also supervises Rotary projects here and is apparently the only paid Rotary project manager in the world (it’s his full time job). Rotary has troubles raising interest and effectiveness here, which is disappointing as there is so much work to be done. I’ll attend next Thursday to see what I can do to be of assistance. The Dili hash is less tuneful than the Honiara hash, which I hadn’t thought possible. There needs to be a greater involvement of locals – few or none attended with about 50 running and walking. They also desperately need a choirmaster. I may volunteer for their version of the mismanagement committee. Hash horn, OTOH, actually managed to get a tune out of the instrument.

There are four really major supermarkets here – Landmark and Leader (about 90 minutes walk away), Cold Store over the back fence, and Lita, next to the PM’s house (i.e nearby) and across from some pretty spiffy fruit markets. Landmark and Leader are the big ones, but it’s a bit of a case of needing to try them all to find what you need. And prices are SOOOOO variable. I saw DVD machines on sale recently – not Aldi prices, but OK. Until. I got closer and read carefully. They were actually VCD machines and I’m not sure if anyone even makes VCDs anymore. The DVD machines were a little further on and went for US$200 a throw. Minimum. On special. Sheesh! I saw gas BBQs for $US500 plus. I was stunned and not tempted. I think I’d sooner eat at warungs every day.

All is going well at work. I have, ever so infrequently, been accused of being opiniated and pigheaded. Fortunately, Fully Loaded makes me look mild in a number of ways. Maybe I should be Slick Willy. I’ve been getting on well with my new boss, who for the purposes of this journal will bear the sobriquet Nixon, partly from a sonic congruence, partly because he is truly political and definitely not as a reflection on his morals or standard operating procedures. By the end of my second week I should have a work program ready for approval by all, and hopefully by the end of the following week a staff development plan.

And I’ve got to learn Tetun, the local language.

In summary, a jumbled, confused, satisfying and accomplished week. I’m happy, healthy, hale and hearty and I’m off to eat some roast duck. And beef. And pork. And chook. And turkey. And gravy. I’ll lose weight tomorrow.