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.

Lots of blogging goodness today.

I have now caught up somewhat. Everything was delayed by wanting to get the piece on Kakadu up (in chronological order) and that meant getting the photos on Flickr and that meant getting the internet at home (which we have at last) and that meant getting organised. All of which I have now done. Normal service is resuming.

Some comments have appeared regarding adviser salaries up here, with that expert on running a lean, mean organisation, the Hon Alexander Downer, putting his 2c in. For those of my readers who know him and his track record, my advice is to read his contribution, apply as much belief as you would have to any of his previous statements, and you are all too likely to arrive at the truth. I'm not going to comment further on the issue, as the criticisms have not been based in fact, and responding to them is like putting out a fire by pouring on petrol.

Kakadu

We set off at a leisurely pace, following the route of the tourist bus, but about 3 hours behind it. The first place we stopped was a really wonderful nature lookout called “Window on the Wetlands”. Very highly educational, in a kind of Questacon/Powerhouse Museum sort of way and its upper storey was a terrific viewing platform looking out over a vast wetlands. With free telescope. In fact the whole thing was free!

My favourite bird, the wedge tailed eagle (Autralia’s largest raptor), inhabited the area in quite large numbers. Unfortunately, my attempts to photograph them failed due to battery failure, and, when the batteries were replaced, they were insufficiently powerful to drive the camera. Getting ahead of myself, on the way back they were too shy or too close to the road (meaning that they bolted as soon as the car approached) to offer a decent photo opportunity. It doesn’t matter too much, it’s a widely photographed bird for those that don’t know it, and for me the pictures will live in my mind.

We stopped at Nourlangie Rocks, which has some absolutely spectacular aboriginal rock art. Photos are on Flickr here. We spent quite some time wandering around and looking at things. We spent the night at Cooinda, where the accommodation was good and inexpensive and the food was passable and hideously costly. The word ‘gouged’ was on our lips a few times.

The following day we arose at dawn to take the Yellow Water Cruise. We saw sea eagles, kites, several salt water crocs, including a largish one about a metre away from the boat and a very big one on the shore. There were other highlights as well, including jabirus in their nest in a tree and a sea eagle pinching a fish out of the water just before the saltie got there! Again, photos on Flickr.

We drove up to Ubirr to look at more rock art and back to Jabiru for an hour’s flight over the Arnhem Land escarpment. It was wonderful, as we were right at the end of the wet season and the waterfalls were still flowing (just). The only downside was the haze as the pre-dry burns were going all across Kakadu. After a pretty full day, we jumped in the car and drove the 250k back to Darwin. For some reason, I was a bit tired that night.

Eventually we got back to Dili. As usual, our first plans didn’t work, but I was back to work in time and Just Add Water came a couple of days later. It is clear that Dili Customs don’t really know how to use their equipment (our overshopping was a challenge and I probably ended up paying a little too much duty), but even that was an amusing, if a little extended experience. It took an hour to clear customs, but we’re home again.

Our excellent adventure

None of us had ever been to the Northern Territory for more than a few days. Even then, it was only me and I’d been there on business, no real time to tour and in any case not recently.

Darwin is almost unrecognisable from 10 years ago, much less from the scenes of wreckage that Cyclone Tracy left 35 years ago. It’s an interesting, cosmopolitan city. All the restaurants are proudly badged with one ethic cuisine or another – Turkish, Indian, Thai, Italian etc. The pubs are open air bars and there is a real pulse to the place. There’s a real racial mix to the population, as well. Along with the standard white Aussies, many aborgines are visible, plus Chinese, Vietnamese, Indian and even African faces.

I’d always thought Canberra was pretty multicultural, but Darwin leaves it for dead. The developing countries I’ve been in usually have something of a mix, especially in the expatriate population. The UN in particular draws its field staff from a wide range of countries. In Darwin, however, you get the feel that these people belong here.

We took off from Dili at an ungodly hour and arrived in Darwin, only to find that rental cars were like hens’ teeth. Apparently all the rental companies are getting ready to sell of their present fleet and very few were available. I’d had no luck booking on the web, but we travelled hopefully and the wonderful woman on the Hertz desk managed to wangle us exactly the car we wanted. Hooray!

One bad thing about Dili is that although you can get most things, the prices are hideous. It is seriously cheaper to buy what you want, fly it back to Dili paying excess baggage prices and duty at the other end rather than buying it in Dili. So we hopped into our rentacar, drove to a huuuuge shopping mall and did in about 2000 bucks worth of purchases. We are still going to have to get it through NorthAir, Customs and Dili Customs, which should be entertaining.

Just Add Water attempted to have her dive gear fixed, but the guy who had taken it apart in Dili had even done that wrong so she didn’t have the crucial bit. An hour later she had a whole new subunit, and she’ll install that herself. Next time, she’ll bring home the right bits and get it all fixed.

We collapsed into our room with our booty in the midafternoon. The first thing we did was to haul out our empty bags and fill them. Yes, we arrived and we packed. Nobody promised normal, alright?


After dinner, we returned to the room and watched Spicks and Specks and the Gruen Factor and laughed ourselves silly, so much so that Just Add Water was worried that we might have disturbed the next door neighbours. I reflected that it was more calming to hear a whole family giggling like maniacs than fighting like savages. A bit, anyway.

Next day, we were off to Kakadu.

A break, then a break

I haven’t posted for a while, as life has been a bit hectic with Fidget in town and adjusting to living not-alone again (hooray!) and moving house out of the sports bar to the other end of town near Embassy Row.

I will continue not to post, as Just Add Water, Fidget and I are off to Darwin tomorrow for five days. We’ll do the full tourist bit, including a dash through Kakadu. I will keep a log and update next week, when we arrive back.

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…

Storm in a teacup

First the smarttraveller site told us that a Cat 1 (lowest intensity) cyclone was headed for Timor, although by the time it hit Dili, it would again be a tropical low, having vented its fury on the south side of the island, and the mountains.

For those of us registered with the Oz embassy, the warning was repeated by email (twice, because the first time didn't work for some, including me) and by SMS.

Then we were told by email and SMS that the path had shifted, a little away from Dili.

Finally, we were told by email and SMS that the forecast cyclone would not develop, had gotten a bit dizzy and tracked back on itself, and would pass at least 100km to the north of Dili, no gale force winds expected. Several expat friends muttered about overreactions and 'Dili never gets a cyclone'. I haven't reserached the statement so I don't know if it is true. There is a lot less leaf housing (easy to rebuild after a cyclone) in Timor than you see in cyclone prone Melanesia, but is that a weather thing, or a colonisation thing?

But I'm grateful.

I knew what was happening, up to date as predictions became public. Don't forget, chaos maths was almost invented to explain weather patterns. It was neither the fault of the Oz embassy or the Bureau of Meteorology that the predictions did not come to pass. I was grateful for the continual communication and the sense that there was a plan, or one developing, as the system and the situation did. And I'm hardly disappointed that I am not living through a cyclone, even a mild one.

Well done Stephen Smith, DFAT team, Consulate and BoM. Hopefully inan ho tia (the set of my female antecedent relatives by both blood and marriage) will sleep more securely knowing that you have demonstrated that you are indeed on the job.

Is Bleg even a word??

I don’t really care, here’s mine.

I met this guy. He is concerned that in this country a great deal of preventable death could be avoided if only condoms could be efficiently distributed.

He has an idea, which I don’t like AND I think is utterly brilliant. Bear with me and remember that this man is passionate about health.

The distribution of condoms should be done in an industrial fashion, he argues, for economies of scale and utilisation of existing channels. So far, so good. Moreover, he wants the product to get in the hands of males, which makes rice and foodstuffs a bit less useful. He needs something sold in small packets on a frequent basis is to get the condoms in the hands of individuals, free and unavoidably.

So who is going to do this? Aid agencies? They’ve tried but have no real ‘leverage’ with the intended consumer, many of whom would not going to walk across the street to get a condom even it was free. Pharmacies? IF they exist where the people are, they need to profit from every product (whether or not they are paid not to). This guy’s answer?

Cigarette companies!

He doesn’t like them any better than you or I do, but they could actually assist health in this regard. Smoking in Timor is more prevalent than you can guess. I like empty restaurants because it means some jerk is not going to light up in the middle of my meal but the life expectancy is so low that I actually think that the ability to distribute condoms and control both fertility and disease would lower the incredible infant mortality rate.

A health worker told me that in the first year of life, the infant mortality rate was immense, I think on the order of 10 per cent! Much of this was preventable and could be addressed by nutritional education, but quite a bit is due to the economic pressures caused by large families, and the poor health of mothers due to continous pregnancy and poverty, which leads to low birth weight, less robust babies and more deaths.

Cigarettes are poisonous and objectionable. However, if people are going to smoke, and nearly every male in Timor seems to, then perhaps something good can be made to come out of it.

And the tobacco companies would probably be only too happy to improve their poor image.

Of course the aid agencies won't touch it with a barge pole for fear of being tainted with the accusation of supporting cigarette companies.

So here's the bleg in two parts:

(1) Can anyone think of a way to make this idea fly? It needs support and practical demonstrations before a company is going to change its manufacturing process to wrap condoms with its products, although I understand a trial has just started in Cambodia.

(2) Can anyone suggest a better product? It needs intense market penetration, a male bias (or at least not a female one) and a sophisticated manufacturing base. If the concept could be made to work with a less objectionable product and the manufacturers were will to pick up on it, that would be good. Soap is one suggestion that has been made. Are there others?

Scar tissue

I cut myself shaving, alright?

Just not the usual way and in a far more comprehensive fashion than the phrase conjures up.

I had finished my morning shower and was reaching for the razor. There was soapy water on the floor and I remember losing my footing, reaching for the bathroom shelf and falling. I woke up on the tiled floor and muzzily tried to go to work.

Fortunately I ran into Fully Loaded at the gate who took one look at the blood and sent me back to my room. I was deep in shock, I guess. I woke again a couple of hours later when someone came to make up my room, only to find blood on my clothes, bedding and mossie net. The bathroom floor was a sea of crimson.

The twin cuts on my forehead hadn't really stopped bleeding so I went to the pharmacy for some bandaids. They took one look at me, ushered me into the back room, lay me down and put a stack of stitches in. Later, the editor of the Dili Guide Post photgraphed them (along with others cuts and abrasions and his own bandages) for a what not to do in Dili issue. Looking forward to that. For those overseas, he puts up the Guide Post in .pdf format on the web.

Food for thought

It doesn't take me much to make me happy. Good red wine, fast internet and the occasional burn in a sports car.

So why Dili? Maybe I'm just not smart...