Packing Part 2

Our house used to resemble Aladdin's cave. Dirt on the floors, chests everywhere and loaded with treasures (if only you could find them). And don't even get me started on the storage warehouse called the garage that looked less like a place in which a car had ever been parked and more like Ground Zero in New York City. And enough spiders to make Shelob's lair look like a haven for arachnophobes.

We have cleaned, polished, tidied, gardened and most of all disposed of the accreta of several decades. Our neighbours unknowingly allowed us to fill up their bins on garbage night, and still it comes. We have not yet begun to pack. Just Add Water's passport has not been issued yet and I'm pretty irritated since we paid over $100 more than a week ago for priority processing.

Other things are progressing. I've signed my contract, we're flying out in less than two weeks. We don't know where we are staying, but that will sort itself out. I hear that One More Bar in Dili has closed, which is a pity as the proprietor not only ran a decent bar but was a qualified butcher and served up some pretty good tucker.

We're getting tradies in to fix everything we should have done long ago. Just Add Water is putting in a sterling effort and Three Strokes has been of assistance.

And of course we're leaving Canberra just as the weather starts to improve.

Packing - part 1 of many.

We are getting ready for the move, which is less than 3 weeks. It's been a salutatory lesson on how much you can get done if you have to, rather than if you vaguely want to. My study, a source of personal shame and disgrace, will be tidy and ready to vacuum today. Fidget's bedroom is already done. He saw it on Skype and was gobsmacked. For the first time I actually believe that we can do this. Things are moving quickly and stars are falling into alignment.

Even the weather is cooperating. It's spring in Canberra and it isn't pouring with rain and sleet.

We had a mild disaster last night when a shelf gave way and dropped onto my computer chair. It was about 100 kilos of shelf and papers. However, I was downstairs and it somehow missed everything of value, including my main computer. Just Add Water was terrified that I'd been injured, only to find me arriving and asking what the blazes was going on. Picked up all the mess and got ready to continue, but I decided it was bedtime.

There are going to be a few time consuming things, and the question will be whether to address the problem now or do a Pablo Picasso. Picasso was notorious for crating everything up when he moved house, and never uncrating, but simply accumulating more possessions. By nature, I am very minimalist (with a couple of exceptions, mainly T-shirts), but Just Add Water gets sentimentally attached, particularly to books. It's a question of approach - I ask "Will I ever read this again?", whereas she asks "Will I feel comfortable getting rid of this?".

We still have a long way to go, however, and the question of our trio of pets is very much unresolved.

Diak Malae rises again

It has been 5 years since I posted and much water has gone under the bridge since then.

I left my job in Dili and returned to my Department in Canberra. Leaving there, I went to AusAID, which became the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. I left there, thinking to retire, but found that retirement was a gig that was too hard for me. I haven't had one of those for a long time.

Plus Fidget has announced his intention to pursue an education in Melbourne. Or Canada. Or anywhere that is (a) expensive and (b) far away from his loving parents.

Just Add Water has had no water added for quite some time, and I think a return to Dili and its diving may do her the world of good. It's possible she could write 'colour pieces' for the new Timor Tourism initiative.

We've got about three weeks to pack the house and get it presentable for letting and it's panic stations already. I'll post as I get time, but everyone I speak on the phone says I sound excited and happy (subtext: for the first time in ages).

I am looking forward to the Dili morning sky.

A Dili miscellany.

I haven’t written for a while, largely due to work pressures but also thanks to no large focus.


So I’ve assembled a few small things, a bunch of verbal gewgaws.


Some Tetum expressions: oin midar (“sweet face”) translates to “smile”. “La halimar” (“not playing”) translates as “seriously” in the sense of “very” e.g. tasi bo’ot la halimar means “seriously big waves”. Oi-oin (face-facing) means “a variety”. Manas (“hot”) is fun. Rai manas (“hot land”) actually refers to hot weather, but if you are suffering from hot weather, you cannot say “hau manas”. That is either ungrammatical, or slang for “I’m crazy”. You can say “nia manas” (s/he hot) and that translates out straight into our English idiom of “She’s hot!”. Isin rua (“two bodies”) means pregnant; it’s a useful phrase in my office.


The deer who graze by the shore have vanished. I hope Christmas in July did not feature venison. The tents for the night time barbequers also all vanished one night, although the people did not. The wood and bamboo scaffolding round the statue of Jesus is no longer there. Unfortunately, it didn’t vanish. It was simply untied and pushed down the slope.


I see so many things that take my fancy here, it really is a different place. Last weekend, I was just wandering and a family invited me to sit down and have a drink with them. I smiled and declined, as they were drinking Coke and Fanta. Asking for tea might have been too much and asking for water may have been unhealthy, so it was easier to pretend I had somewhere to be rather than refuse hospitality. Nevertheless, it made me feel good.


For those who don’t know, Just Add Water is now a Dive Master, to add to her impressive list of credentials. Solves the problem of answering: “And what do you do here?”, although what she is currently doing is learning Tetum, an activity for which she hasn’t had time to date.


The dry season has started. No, it hasn’t. Yes, it has. No, it hasn’t. Yes, for the moment, it has.
Except it rained last night.


Work progresses, and I’m going to leave that description right there.

Update from the trenches

I haven’t written for a while, and this one really is just an update for those who are interested in personal happenings. It will be of less interest to those who read for an understanding of Timor-Leste.

I spent two weeks in Canberra. Subjectively, they were two of the coldest weeks I have ever spent and my normal clothing amounted to 5 layers, including thermals. Fidget was running around in shorts, a t-shirt and a hoodie. The hoodie was a fashion statement, he wears one in subzero temperatures and +30 degree temperatures. Naturally, just as I was about to come home I started to acclimatise.

Work has been crazy in any number of senses. We are at a key period and tension is running high. Our national (i.e. Timorese) management team in the office have been promoted or reshuffled and all are new to their jobs, which does not help, so the international advisors are working as change managers, have higher support requirements being placed on them and also are still trying to deliver on the original aims set in a somewhat different environment.

Tempers are not in short supply, but good tempers are.

I’m fielding a few job offers (or at least inquiries as to my availability) at the moment, here and elsewhere. Just Add Water has noted that diving facilities will be a key criterion in determining acceptability – one of the options fares rather poorly in that regard. And Three Strokes would reverse-disinherit me if I tried to go somewhere a little dubious. Like Afghanistan, Iraq or Pakistan. So places like that aren’t on the list. Although I am told that the hazards are somewhat overstated.

The dry season has arrived at last. Only no-one has told the weather, so the rainfall this week has been torrential.

Just Add Water is still in Australia and will be for a few more days. She’ll be thoroughly dehydrated by the time she gets back. And she acclimatised to Canberra’s cold awfully quickly, so I suspect she’ll be suffering a bit when she gets back.

I’ll try to get out for more Timor colour, but I appear to be working 7 day, 90 hour weeks at the moment.

A picture is worth a thousand words…

...but sometimes even that is not enough.

I was walking to work, and the sky was spectacular. Even that is too weak a word. Across a pale azure ceiling, someone had thickly spread a swathe of glowing lava, with a palette knife half the width of the sky. It was sharp edged, entirely artificial and gloriously natural.

Blessed are the early risers. We have already inherited the earth.

I think the air is alive.

I work in an office with 10 women. Two are currently pregnant, one gave birth 6 weeks ago (and has now been back at work for a fortnight) and I suspect one more is starting to show. Two are grandmothers and may be largely past childbearing age, although I wouldn’t be laying any money down.

Four are unaccountably not pregnant.

At least visibly.

Today.