I managed to get into Baucau (125km)
http://www.endomondo.com/workouts/229959898/11927928 in 38th place (6th for veteran men) in 6:38min. A good measured day of cycling within my ability. I lost 2kgs by the final weighing at the finish line. Solution: drink water bottles of .... water and then add 3 sachets of orange-flavoured gastrolite to the mix.There was a concert put on by dancers from local primary schools (no boys to be seen)
Tomorrow we cycle to Ossu (only 75km, but over steep hills). We'll go off road and visit the local hot springs.
Day three is Ossu to Same (well 4km south of the town centre) --> 127km
After a big late lunch and a double helping of the evening meal, I am now well filled and the bed beckons.
More reports om Sat/Sun next
Monday, September 2, 2013
Monday, August 12, 2013
One Less Bar – Stone Me – ANZ Banking where you want it – UNPaz - Telephone companies talk to each other - Power to the people – That’s not a knife – Security – Miss TL – Tour de Timor - Helmet shop – Padaria – Little trenches – Fertility clinic - Scrabble - Not a Dali clock - Wee batteries
Photos added; just double-click to view the large size
Friday week ago OMB (One More Bar) closed and then sold off everything over the
next two days. Sunday evening was open season for locals and I observed sink
units and toilet bowls being stacked up for relocation; probably to sheds where
they’ll gather dust and wait in expectation of more prominent bums. Some rumours say that the new rent for the next 2-3 years was $1million
and that was a just a bit steep. Apparently the place is also prime real estate and will now be knocked down for a five storey hotel. The neighbouring building
on the corner (facing the angel statue and across from the bishop’s residence) has
already been flattened to rubble, so construction of a monster edifice using both
sites, won't be far off, in Timor terms. At night the site is now a dark ghostly shell, partially lit by a single street light. Two security guards look after the remaining walls and roofing
iron.
Stone fish are crafty little buggers that don't bother to warn you about
their presence until the ‘Got yah!’ spine shoots through your foot. I was told
a story, two weeks ago, about such an experience in Australia. The bloke as
walking on a tidal sand bank and thought it was just a piece of metal or
something similar. The excruciating pain, copious blood, blue rings around the
ankle and leg (this is a neurotoxin at
work) convinced him it was pretty serious. Fortunately he got medical
attention within 45 minutes and a doctor recognised a stone fish’s work. Morphine pain
killers had no effect :-p and the best treatment was to put the limb into
extremely hot water – reducing the pain from a 9 or 10 out of 10 (he said he would have accepted an
amputation just to get rid of the pain) to a 5. He still had a hole in the
sole of his foot 10 days later. Some US State flags have a snake on them with
the legend ‘Don’t tread on me’ – maybe Australia should use the stone fish?
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| ANZ - no queue on Sunday afternoons |
The ANZ announced that their old branch would close and all business would move to Timor Plaza. The new ATM (on the right) has been out of action for nearly a month now. The close-down and move date has come and gone, yet the old branch still appears to be operating. The current advertising line ‘We live in your world’ appears to mean the west end of Dili, not Balidae and the east. To be fair, ANZ were always here as a business bank and the ATM/private customer thing is not a profit maker.
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| Celebrations central and the admin building is back & centre |
I was asked to check out a PC or two at UNPaz (University of Peace) a privately funded institution located just East of Dili Institue of Technology (DIT). They were having a celebration because of some international recognition for a component of their curriculum. There was a lot of regional dancing going on and I was invited to share lunch with the staff. The large white administration building cost them $60k to complete and the Prime Minister came to look at it because the Government departments require $1million to build the equivalent.
Timor Telecom (why
don’t they have a fan page on Facebook?), Telkomcel and Telemor now all
talk to each other. This means a SIM from any one company can make a local call
to the other two. With Government encouragement, cough, it all happened on
August 1st.
Power to all is stepping up by over 100% when the new power
plant in Betano (double the grunt of the station at Hera) officially opens on August 20th.
Well I think that’s what the giant
bill board banners mean. There is a crowd of camo-wearing men in the poster foreground
and the new power station is in the background. Falantil and the years
1975-2013 are also mentioned. There is a connection somewhere there. Like many
others, I am keen to hear how the station will be fueled, as there isn’t a
pipe line and as late as Febuary, there wasn’t a local supply wharf (Betano being on the south coast and the Pertamina fuel facilities are here in Dili on the north coast); leaving
the option of tanker convoys from Dili?
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| Just wait until a coconut fails to 'respect' me |
A few weeks back four of us (Sue, Tracey, Robyn and I) visited Ataturo Island. Sue and Tracey
are right into singing and Tracey can play guitar and ukulele pretty well, so
that spiced up the evenings. I bought a locally made machete from the Saturday
market for a good price (for the seller).
Made from an old leaf spring and some local wood (handle + scabbard) I was happy with $25, but it should have been
around $10-15. While I waved it around at Barry's he advised me to bury the blade into
a banana tree trunk for 3 days to cure the blade. So, back in Dili, I managed
to find a tree at a friend’s place and the blade was stuck there for four days.
I haven’t got it back yet, but Holger says the blade doesn’t appear to be that
much different, apart from some extra rust – hmmm.
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| Outside: traffic and dust - Inside: dogs, pigeons, roosters & pigs over the fence |
The front gates to the family compound and
yard (where my apartment is) are now repositioned further into the yard and have been rehung so the
ends don’t jamb together when closed. A padlock was added two weeks ago and it
is locked about 10pm every night. The Martial Arts Gangs (MAGs) are… working
through some differences with each other, since one member died on a business
trip to the west end of the island some 3 months ago. The night time traffic has dropped off
considerably and more local people are minding their immediate street areas.
The police patrols are typically noticeable by the flashing lights, deep
sounding fog horn blasts and higher speed than usual. Surgical visits to some
areas are done by the BOP – a special police section, trained, I think, by the
Portuguese GNR. Two weeks ago a friend of mine witnessed a surprise visit at
the soccer field area near Lita supermarket; around 5:10pm. The guys were
dressed in khaki and one was using a baton to hit a bloke near the fresh fish
sellers. The other fish sellers had dropped all their fish and were running away. Heaps
of traffic and witnesses, as it was rush hour out through Ariea Branca. My witness
decided not to use a camera, but to quietly get out of the area immediately and go home. I
left Timor Plaza, for Bidau, about 20 minutes later and passed two open back
vehicles (outward facing seats) as
they headed toward the airport on Comoro road. The front one had blue uniformed
police and the second had guys in khaki T-shirts and cam trousers. They looked
a bit flushed, as though from recent physical activity. Maybe a match to the
earlier report?
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| Discussions continue: Which tourists is this event aimed at? |
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| If there is more advertising, then no one I know has seen it |
The Ministry of Tourism is also running the Tour de Timor for 2013 (Sept 2-6th). This is a big change from the group that ran the event for the past four years, @ $1,000 an entry. The entry fee is now only $500 and entries close on August 19th. It promises to be quite different from previous years as this time around there will be no assistance from the UN, expat military or international volunteers. I am holding onto my precious $500 (no refunds) for a few more days until a minister’s retreat is concluded and we find out if a certain portfolio change occurs and what impact that change might have on the above two events.
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| It was...in the empty space across the road |
A local landmark corner office block is now gone. It was
just to the south of the central bank, east of the Palacio and just over the
road from Café Brasil. Squatters had been living there for a long time and the
distinguishing feature was the sale of motorcycle helmets - long rows of them
were lined up parallel to the street. Apparently, it all happened one Monday
morning with a strong police presence. The squatters were moved out and then wreckers immediately moved in and flattened the place.
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| This cross was used by the Templer Knights - what could the connection be?? |
Padaria Brasa continues to be a favourite place for coffee and baguettes on Wednesday and Saturday mornings.
Christopher Columbus used the same cross on the sails of the Pinta, Nina and Santa Maria - who sponsored that advertising?
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| Trench across the road + ex-traffic light stump |
Something is changing at intersections all over town. It
could be that traffic lights may be returning. There are narrow-cut trenches everywhere.
I was fortunate to witness the first batch of traffic lights being commissioned
during 2006 and then I witnessed the last, dusty, scratched ones, going out for
good earlier this year. I wonder what
the life span of the next generation will be.
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| Only $5.25 here |
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| After hours, the price goes up |
I heard a garbled report of a fertility clinic or some sort of supply system down my end of town. That can’t be right. I kept my eyes open and found some low profile advertising that appeared to be a lead. Pretty bold, I thought, but that’s marketing for you. Getting to the source took a night visit, fortunately no stake out required. The product is dried and dispensed in 20kg paper sacks. But it wasn’t adding up. Easy answer was to look at the phonetics Semen = cemen(t)
Katy, Rob, Christina and I had a scrabble game yesterday. It
was a brunch event that had two warm up sessions of Bananagrams and then the
main event until around 4pm. Huge use was made of two and three letter words
that no one uses in normal life. No triple words came my way and the best
double-word was only worth about 22. I came last on 147 with Christina top scoring
on 165. Life is so unjust.
Early on Tuesday and sometimes Thursday, mornings I run with some friends from Ocean View along the beach, past the airport runway and on to the building where the Pope spoke many years ago. On Tuesday the sea was very high and had come over the top of the concrete walls backing onto the giant concrete caltrop collection (sea erosion prevention). Everywhere, the land was being washed away and several palm oil trees had toppled over into the growing beach area. Maybe there is one Honda 'Scoopy' too many on the Dili streets and this is our local climate-change reward? I picked up a sea-cured plastic clock facing. Kind of appealing in its own way. I call it 'Timor Time' and am waiting for someone to offer me lots of money for this 'one-off' 
Batteries are a problem, until you can find a reliable and cheap source. These batteries are essential in my smaller bike lights. They're also used on some PC motherboards. In Timor Plaza, I was quoted $3 each, yet the Loja Lidwi (long counter parrallel to the road) in Colmera sells them for $1 each. Apparently they're even cheaper at the $2 shops in Oz, but there are delivery difficulties involved there.
Tuesday, July 2, 2013
Nothing much has happened recently apart from the Dili Marathon, finally moving office from Motael into Timor Plaza, the new Portuguese bakery on Lobato, , new drains in Bairo Pite, bamboo furniture, world war G, Insects away & liquid medical kit
Blog finishing 2nd July 2013
Dili Marathon
The Saturday marathon really started three weeks before the event when
the rumour mill ran hot. The people who’d previously done the organising and
run the web site had ‘left’. No one was doing website updates nor responding to
emails. There was no course map, method of entering or other details such as the
start line.
My concerns were more about would I run the half or the
full? After knocking off a heavy hill
and flat-mixed 10km run on the previous Wednesday in 56 minutes and feeling
good afterwards, I decided I would take
on the full distance of 42km + a bit more. Nagging thoughts kept bugging me
about a lack of training (true, but not helpful for race preparation). These
thoughts were cast aside – ‘You are either with me or against me’. Reality gradually
focused my mind around the 30km mark – the wonders of lactic acid..
I'd decided to enter on the morning of the event, 06:10 to be
exact. My guess was that it would kick off in front of the Palacio on the
waterfront and that was correct, a morale-boosting location. When I reached a tent that seemed official enough to accept entries, I was told ‘Entries are full/closed'. Speaking to other
runners at the start line, it turned out that you had to hear by word of mouth that the entries had
to be made at some building two days prior. At least one runner had to insist
on an entry, even though the attendant claimed it was ‘full’, by pointing out they
still had piles of numbers on the table.
“Darn it,” (family classified blog) I said. No number for
me, but I resolved to run anyway. This was not a problem and the Minister of Tourism,
after a double take, still draped a tais around my neck at the finish.
I’d borrowed a Garmin GPS + heart meter from Karin and this was running the whole time I was out there. Neat piece of kit as there are heaps of stats and a dotted track of dots to overlay onto Google Earth.
No one was writing down numbers so that kind of stymied an official result list.
I’d borrowed a Garmin GPS + heart meter from Karin and this was running the whole time I was out there. Neat piece of kit as there are heaps of stats and a dotted track of dots to overlay onto Google Earth.
No one was writing down numbers so that kind of stymied an official result list.
Important stuff: Total time of 4:20 hours, half time of
about 1:40, then my body began to copy the spiral of a failing finance company.
Ummm, not really true. : heart, breathing, fluids and energy all ticked the
boxes, but those legs kept complaining that they could not do what they’d done
10 years ago in London. The result was over an hour slower. Still, it rained
most of the time, so no problems with tropical heat and blazing sun. The flood
waters took my mind off the run as I guessed what was or was not under the
flowing brown water. Frequently, the roads grow large holes that everyone
drives or walks around. In the wet, one tends to miss the warning signs but not
the hole. One circuit for the half marathon, two for the full. On the second
circuit (once around for the half marathon) nearly all the flood water had gone, leaving lots of mud.
Second time round, Tracey, another VSA volunteer, came with
me to provide water bottles, bananas and photo opportunities. I posed in front
of a banner 4km from the finish and this probably cost me a podium finish :-p
I walked part way home afterwards clutching a goodies bag
from an exhibition in Shanghai 2010. Inside was a 500gm bag of roasted coffee
beans. I don’t have a grinder so the beans have been re-gifted. I tried my
first massage at Thai Herb four hours later, but it didn’t provide much relief.
The Garmin said I’d burned 2,876 calories so I ate a nice Thai rice dish and
then nibbled most of the evening. Cycling was easy next day but the lactic acid
was still a real pain. I was nearly right three days later, but the Wednesday had me nodding off all day - a 'dalayed' reaction?!
Moving up in the
world
Well, our business has moved into the new offices and that
was a mission. Just as well I organised our IT to move first so we could see
everyone else trickle in over the next three days with three rearrangements
of people and units. OK, we have our own office, so it’s easier. A longer cycle
to work, yet pleasant enough and very handy for grocery shopping.
One of our contract workers (from India) got assaulted by a
taxi driver last week. The driver must have had a real problem as he charged $5
for a $2 ride and then, even when he got his way, jumped out after receiving
the money and hit the poor passenger. They’d passed the NZ Embassy. so it may be
possible to get some film from the security cameras. Always agree on the taxi fare
before getting in! That’s been my rule. If things look bad, get out early or in
a public place with lots of people nearby, not near your accommodation. But
it’s easy to be wise after the fact.
Café culture
Three young Portuguese have opened a bakery/café, ‘Padaria
Brasia’, a few hundred metres west of
the ANZ. It’s right underneath the large white sign with red writing saying
‘Sugar Travel’. Very nice atmosphere and service. The baguettes are delicious
– so delicious that I would hesitate to get my friend Helen to collect a baguette
order and expect the whole stick to arrive back.
Water works
After the new bridges by the President’s Palace, new drains
have been progressively installed through to the Banana Road area. They have caused
major traffic disruption as the builders dictate when they will close roads by
digging holes. The benefits were there on Saturday during the marathon when all
the water was successfully drained away into the stream and under the new
bridges.
Bamboo to you
Rob, another VSA volunteer, is helping the The Bamboo Centre
in Tibar with design and construction work. The pictures look really good on
the website and I think there’s a market here – just publicity and fair pricing required.
World war G
There’s a world war going on and I know someone trying to get Dili
involved. Yikes!!! It’s called ‘Ingress’ and is sponsored by Google. Check it
out on Wikipedia. I don’t know if it’s for me as I am a pacifist – unless I’m winning
Insect spray success
This will keep little nasty things away from your skin.
1/3 Dettol, 1/3 coconut or olive oil, 1/3 alcohol- Add together in a recycled squeezy bottle, shake, spray and spread. All you need for the day.
This weekend I'll give it tough test vs the black flys on Atauro Island
Handy medical for the tropics
This keeps wounds clean, dry and getting a top to keep the bad stuff and moisture out. Buy iodine (about $5 for the pictured bottle, try a Dili chemist) then add to squeezy bottle for quick spray jobs. Sure it stings, but worth the grimace to avoid infection
Insect spray success
This will keep little nasty things away from your skin.
This weekend I'll give it tough test vs the black flys on Atauro Island
Handy medical for the tropics
This keeps wounds clean, dry and getting a top to keep the bad stuff and moisture out. Buy iodine (about $5 for the pictured bottle, try a Dili chemist) then add to squeezy bottle for quick spray jobs. Sure it stings, but worth the grimace to avoid infectionSunday, June 2, 2013
Bridge before opening time - Hash hits the dance floor – Reading room work – Work becomes ‘interesting’ – Atauro Island: bags and bikes – Baucau music and lit-up skirts – Ultimate road map – Sunday bikers - Turkish goes Burmese
Four weeks ago, May 11th, the Hash was out at the US Seabees compound, up the Comoro river past Timor Coffee – a darn good
feed + drinks after the run/walk. A turn-out of about 80 people (biggest most of us had ever seen). Ed
and I cycled back into town around 6:30 and the new bridge, while still being finished
off, looked rather inviting; so over we went with our cover story ready ‘We’re
engineers!’ (Well, IT engineers actually, but we
were counting on no one getting that many questions in before we got past them). No
problems encountered, so maybe we were the first to cycle across the new
structure? Anyway, it is now officially open, but I don’t know the exact day
the ribbon was cut. Yesterday (2nd ) I went over the bridge for a
practice cycle up to the first ridge on the way to Railaku; about 15km above
Tibar. It took me about 1:45 to get there from the East end of Banana road. Got a sweat up and as I
entered the cloud belt; got rained on. Down in time to go to Hash at the L&D pizza
place behind Hotel Timor and then have the circle on the top floor where the ‘Q
bar’ is, with a sound-proofed room, two poles and flashing lights. Techno music
doesn’t do it for me. Nice $5, 8” pizza for afters.
I think it was around the 25th that I dropped
into the Xanana Reading room after a Dare cycle and asked them to open up, as
the sign said ‘Open at 10’ and it was a quarter past. Interesting to view the
three rooms inside: Room on the right – long table piled with books and a PC for cataloguing the books and issuing them. “Do you know how to use this?”
asked the librarian. She startled me as I had already fired it up and been
adding my name in as a borrower and also added the book I wanted to the read. It appears she was new to the job and the previous librarians had
left two weeks prior. Evidently no transfer of skills. “Does your manager
know?” I asked. Apparently he did, but when he eventually appeared, I asked him and he
didn’t know. Hmmm. On to the room on the left, where I saw stacks
of books waiting for cataloguing and odd bits of furniture and computer parts. There was also a
PC with internet access. 'Oh goody’, time to check it out. I had to use some
special software to clear out the inevitable viruses (all on my memory stick with a write-protect switch) and then get
AVG on and….oh, I'm getting boring for non IT people. Anyway, I found another PC in
a stack of stuff and got permission to set that up for them. Same procedure,
all the way to AVG protection. The manager sat all this time in the middle room,
where the rows of chairs, TV + two VCR machines and about 100 tapes were. He
wanted me to replace the TV with a large flat-screen computer monitor. "Um, no it doesn’t
work that way", I said What exactly doesn’t work? “Both VCRS”, he said. OK, so why not
get them fixed? (Blank look). I gave
an address and contact details for a handy electrical shop between Timor Plaza
and Banana road. Some careful testing using the computers showed that the cable
connection for the librarian’s PC was faulty, possibly from people tripping
over the cable as it had to cross open space to the table. Back to the left-hand room to
search the piles of donated goodies…there were three computer stations that
were perfect, so I got the manager to help me carry one across the way and we,
sorry I, moved the issuing PC to the new station, against the wall where the
power and the (faulty), LAN connection were. There is a very nice building going up at the
back, where everything will be re-located; maybe later this year. After two
hours I had a lunch break and then left my card before heading home.
We’ve had changes at work, with two key people deciding,
independently, to leave. One immediately and the other before this month is up.
Successful transition to a financial institution now depends on quickly
replacing the ‘orchestra conductor’ and the ‘tour manager’. I hope to look back
on this period and comment that my concerns were unfounded. After much thought,
I won’t make bets either way.
Miang, Tracey, Robyn and I visited Atauro Island over the
long weekend of May 18-20th. We took the local ferry out at $4 each
and came back by fast Compass launch for $35 a head, early on the Tuesday
morning and in time to go directly to work. I took my bike over again (new
bike, #3) – we all took a bike each, for the ride from the concrete jetty in
Beloi, near Barrie’s, down to Manukoko Rek, opp. Bonecas, in Villa. Only about
8km and pleasant as not much traffic, apart from the motorised trike-bikes –
the local taxi service. The accommodation was a deja-vu experience with the
same catch, on the door of hut #3, falling off again (despite Steve and I pointing this out to them in December, precisely
nothing had happened about repairing it.) We ‘lost’ the loose catch in an effort to
incite some activity on the repair front, but nothing doing. In the end I went
over the road to the local store, bought a new door catch for $1 and presented it to
the Manukoko staff. They were pleased. The same light bulb over the common area
was also still broken, so maybe that can wait for another visit. Saturday
morning is when all the ferry day-trippers hit the island, so the local market sets
up by the jetty and you can take your pick of food stalls plus a few arts and
crafts. The tomatoes were the size of marbles, so we didn’t buy any. Later that day we descended on Bonecas and
bought gifts. I went for a range of bags that are now, hopefully, in the NZ
postal service somewhere.
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| Bonecas bags |
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| Inside Bonecas workshop |
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| Flag-raising - Villa parade Atauro |
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| Singers + musicians at Barrie's - Atauro |
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| $10-$30 tais |
Last weekend Tracey, Robyn, Trisha (now back in NZ) and I went to the Baucau music festival. There
were several arts and crafts stalls there as well. One had a 60 year old tais
from Lospalos for sale. Trisha convinced them not to sell it, even for $300, as
that would remove it from the community. A better option would be to invite
sponsors to pay for the tais to be retained – maybe mount it in a glass-covered
frame? Highlights of the event included: the range of dresses hanging in the
tree at one end of the school playground. These were lit from the inside by separate
light bulbs on the Friday night and looked excellent. After heavy rain, for most of Saturday, the lights didn’t go again. Maybe because the electrics were rather exposed
and either shorted out or it was deemed unsafe; pity.
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| Close up - 60year old tais |
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| Dress light tree being admired |
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| Paparazzi from NZ |
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| old tais - kitchen picture |
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| Lospalos performers after extracting $1 for photos @ Baucau |
How does one get maps of Timor?
I’d been trying to get the ‘freebie’ ones from SDV last year. A recent donation from Sue at Red Cross is now ready for the new work premises. Recently, there has been an initiative from GIS fans associated with the Dept. of Statistic (stay with me please…) They suggest, well Dave does, that it would be good to have a general sharing of Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI) information between all agencies that deal with it. We’ve had two meetings so far and after some talk, the time approaches, similar to the little Red Hen gathering ingredients for the bread, when work has to be done. I put in my two bits worth by introducing the value of records management: good file names and version control. No one interrupted nor asked questions, so I guess everyone all ‘got it’; Right? (don’t worry, I am under no illusions. We have enough of a challenge explaining the difference between ‘debt’ and ‘credit’ to some staff in our own organisation; they have been managing funds for years; empirically in some cases, it now appears). Now, that was a Ronny Corbet diversion. David found out I was eager to get hold of a map and he introduced me to the GIS map makers downstairs - freshly installed with all the kit from UNMIT (recently departed Dili). Exciting stuff with massive printers that can do A0 - Very impressive resolution down to smallest roads and villages. I got a couple of maps run off and then took them to a laminators (‘Sugar’) where some negotiation got them done for $25 the pair. Monday 3rd pickup, as Sugar needed to dry out the edges after I got caught in a tropical downpour when delivering them on my bike.
Sunday evening should be peaceful, but One More Bar now gets
to ‘enjoy’ the local motorcycles as they ‘hang out' around the wee gardens
between the blue pavilions by the shore and OMB. The riders like to rev the heck out
of the engines and cruise around the park for 15 minutes, in a low gear.
Conversation ceases & unwilling listeners think of satisfying, but
technically illegal responses.
The new premises at Timor Plaza are finished and we’ll
probably be moving there either this coming or next weekend. It’ll be sad day;
not to be able to store my file server in a shower and the keyboard next to the
sink.
Tony’s Turkish has been shut for a while now. Rumour is that
he’s investigating a business move to Burma.
Sunday, May 5, 2013
ANZAC day – aromatic waters – Trip to the SW: there & back again – Baking a cake – new bridge on Comoro road – twice up Dare again – well stone me – getting hold of bike bits – a very old coffee tree – meeting halfway – Flash dance
We gathered (I reckon
about 300) at 05:30 on April 25th and the Dili Choir sang four
national anthems a Capella: Timor Leste, New Zealand, Australia and Turkey.
Tony’s Turkish (Tony is taking a break and his brother is running things) supplied some delicious Turkish breads for
afterwards. There weren’t many programs as we were meant to print off our own.
Someone had thought of providing candles inside paper cups and that worked
really nicely. If ONLY the poppies had been delivered well in advance, we could
have been wearing them for a few days beforehand, rather than mere minutes. The
choir of expats sang each anthem very nicely and that meant that the poor
singing performance from the audience didn’t matter that much. A special
commendation for the choir’s rendition of the Turkish anthem (written on the
program in phonetics). Afterwards 'One More Bar' appeared to have forgotten that
they were going to provide a venue AND drinks + food. Sooooo, nearly everyone
shoved off to Castaway for breakfast instead.
My shower water smells a bit ‘off’ and I thought it was due
to the water table being contaminated by ‘other water’. Well, I‘ve heard that
it might be more to do with geothermal and so that might explain why the odour
has more in common with NZ’s Rotorua area than waste water. I hope so, but then
I haven’t suffered any ill effects.
Monday 22nd - Wednesday 24th was another IT trip,
this time to the Covalima area in the south west. We visited Liquica, Atabae
and Maliana on the first day. I stayed at a reasonably nice place in Maliana,
just 1km north of the main market. In the morning I had breakfast with a rep
from Timor Oil and Gas. He was scouting accommodation for what sounded like a
team building outing for over 100 staff. I took the opportunity to ask about
how the power station at Betano was going to be powered. Well, apparently a
pipeline will be built between Hera and Betano – right across the island with
all its hills. Hmmm. There are a few gaps to fill in as I think that those
5000l tankers are running all day from Pertamina to Hera, just to keep that site
running. Soooo, why have a pipeline unless
the fuel was going to run from the south to the north? Begs the question on how
the fuel gets to Betano, as there isn’t a wharf yet and the station looks as
though it will be finished this year. I’m sure someone will enlighten me with
the info.
We traveled the reverse way (see Feb trip) from Maliana down to
Zumalai. I was astonished to see a bus coming the other way with ‘Suai –
Maliana’ above the windscreen. Another look at the large washout showed I was a
bit dramatic in my earlier report as to how wide it is. You still wouldn’t get
me on any bus or truck taking that route.
The work in Suai went well and I showed everyone how to scan
in documents and use the power conditioner + UPS correctly. The premises are
being upgraded so part of the outside wall was missing on one half of the
building. Accommodation was initially at a place 200m away & they wanted
$20 for a bed with half a fan hanging off the wall, no furniture, apart from
the bed and a bathroom that didn’t have a water supply. Some surprise when I
walked out. Rapid conversation got me the room over the passage way with an
‘ensuite’ larger than the bedroom. Pipe plus tap, instead of a shower head, was
the shower. Fan was connected to same circuit as the ceiling light, so
lights-out meant no fan. I groaned and draped a shirt over my face and slept
with the light on.
Home trip was via Ainaro, so another new place which I had
first heard about in 2005 from a fellow Kiwi that had been there in 1999 for
the election. Had lunch at warung and was suddenly accosted, in a very friendly
way, by a man I hadn’t seen since we worked at Ministerio de Saude in 2007.
Alvaro was having lunch there with his wife and child. We hope to catch up
again in Dili some time.
Wednesday 1st was a holiday. I had a piece of
lemon + coconut cake at Beachside and it was delicious. In the evening a
friend, Robyn, coached me through making the same cake! It took a long time to get out the juice using just a fork, peeler and a knife. The 'zesting' bit also
took a long time, but the results were even better than the morning cake. I
think I’ll have another go at this…
Finally, the little bridge near the President’s Palace has
been successfully widened. There are some teething issues with how traffic will
take to all the extra space, effectively two lanes either way, but I’m sure
everyone will adapt. An extra ‘baily’ bridge was erected, just 50m to the south, a
few weeks back and that is taking some of the traffic loading away. I get the
impression that changes are just 'made' and then we all have to wait & see how good the
results are.
Even after rain, there is dust in the air again within hours.
Very evident at night when every mote swirls around in the light beams. Maybe
Dili should be called the ‘big dust’, instead of the ‘big smoke’
Unlike last Saturday, Saturday 27th was another busy one
with Eddie and I going up and down twice. The 2nd time was for the annual
ANZAC Hash run to the top of the hill – starting from the church west of Dare.
It was heavy going and I was glad I had my off-road running shoes that didn’t
slip. I still fell over and grazed my knee coming down from the top, due to
being rather tired.
A good bit of advice in the tropics is to drink plenty of
water during the day, every day. I haven’t been doing enough of that and the
consequence was 3 hours of discomfort one night. Some stones are by the side of
the road and are a problem for a short period of time. Other stones are tiny
and a right b#####d until they go on their merry way. Lesson learnt for the 2nd
time . My next work day was exhausting for some reason, maybe due
to lost zzzzzz.
Bike #3 still needs a carrier + a few other items and I have
found someone to bring them back, via Brisbane. Getting anything bigger than a
postcard delivered by mail to Dili is not guaranteed; thus the frequent
requests of people visiting other countries. In January I bought a book from www.bookdepository.co.uk called ‘Mathematics
and the Imagination’, but it has never arrived, for me to collect anyway. I hope some
local person, associated with the postal service, is enjoying the content
including how to derive ‘Pi’ from a random series of events (ask me and I’ll tell you how I worked out the
secret, as there is no explanation in the book)
During a Tuesday morning run with some friends I heard a story
about a very old coffee tree. Apparently this was on East Timor Action
Network (ETAN) email feed. Anyway, apparently there was a world-wide coffee tree
blight in the 1920’s that was wiping everything out and someone discovered a
natural hybrid, here in Timor Leste, that was resistant to the blight. That
tree was somehow propagated around the world so that all other coffee trees
became resistant as well. Recently, this tree has been re-discovered. How is that
for an important bit of coffee trivia?
One of the new Financial system PCs had a problem at
Viqueque and I was the only one who could fix it. I estimated about an hour’s
work, but it was 5-6 hours return by car to Viqueque and I didn’t want to make such a
trip, because it would be an over-nighter and make me carsick + listen to the
driver’s sound track 8-9 times. We got the people in VQQ to deliver the PC to
Manatuto, so I could travel for only 90minutes, do the work and then go home
again. Worked nicely. Turned out that SQL didn’t like us using a specific
database name; so I changed it and everything worked fine after that. Now
identifying the actual problem and then testing a work-around took quite a
while – 3 hours.
Two weeks after starting tango lessons I was part of a
lunchtime crowd at Hotel Timor that became the first ever flash-mob in the
country! Or so we think. We entertained the lunchtime crowd in the dining area
for a couple of minutes and then dined at the pleasure of the Hotel. Exciting
and I was a bit nervous beforehand.
I am there somewhere in a white-striped shirt.
The Youtube link is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8EWRQYEBW0
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