Transport on two wheels goes up a gear

• · Weekend bike ride (local offers support)
• · Investigating ‘Timor Plaza’ (local super mall)
• · Re-building work laptops
• · ‘New’ scooter + stuck dials
• · First run of ‘Settlers of Cataan’
• · ‘Good’ English

This last Sunday (12^th Aug) I agreed to go for a long road cycle. This was after 6-7 beers at the Hash the night before and gave me increasing cause for concern when I turned up on my $10 bike (actually, it is promised to someone else, but I’ve already invested $10 in getting new red brake handles) and observed how the other machines looked, with their disk brakes and carbon fibre frames and obligatory clip-in pedals. My bike is resembles (pause) a modified downhill beast that is also the heaviest ‘bike’ I’ve ever used. The seat squeaks and so does the rear suspension. This could be due to no lubricant being used on any moving metal parts for many months/years. No point in wasting any oil on it, as this bike is now under palliative care.

The first 15km were OK and then we hit the hills rising rapidly at about 2 degrees. The others drifted into the distance and I exerted myself more to try and get back in touch with the bunch. The volume of squeaking increased and a local four year old ran beside me for several hundred metres, smiling and no doubt offering encouragement. This is sometimes called a reality check. I told some other cyclists to pass on a message that I was turning back to town and gravity took over for a few kilometers – ahh, bliss!

There is now ‘super mall’ in Dili along the Comoro Road. It is still being occupied by businesses but I dropped in on my cycle home from the hills, in a search for interesting things and got lucky at a computer store, where I found 50 blank DVDs for only 60cents each. The going rate is about $1 each at the other computer stores, so I had found a good deal. Everything else was a bit too expensive and I felt rather odd being one of about 25 customers spread over 2-3 floors at 9am on a Sunday morning.

Now that I occupy the MIS desk and all the power that comes with it (I get to shut down the file server at the end of the day), I’m beginning to rebuild the PCs and laptops. We have a wide range of hardware and software. There is a rumour that some of the latter is legal. We have many anti-virus programs, with most of them out of date. The recent solution has been to simply install (anti-virus) a new one alongside the others that allowed a virus to make itself at home. The result is messy and takes time to resolve. My goal is to buy (!) a proper licensed product, put it on the file server, then distribute and update it to all the work machines. Hardly original, but it would make life a lot more pleasant.

For the past four days I have been making use of a scooter that has had quite a history and has also been on a recent visit to the workshop for repairs. Since Monday I’ve been using the scooter to transport me to and from the Tetun lessons (week #2). On Monday I opened the throttle up along Comoro road and the dial was hard over – nothing like the wind in your face. The dial was in the same place today (zero) when the fuel tank ran dry. Admittedly the fuel gauge has not been stuck on zero; instead it diligently indicates that the tank has always been half full, so I think more repairs are required.

I bought over a game or two and on Sunday evening & three of us tried out ‘The Settlers of Cattan’. It was popular and was well complimented by an excellent sunset (private house balcony by the beach) and then a good curry + some Portuguese red wine. I had cycled to the house and had to wear my head torch to cycle home.

There is a large quantity of clothing turning up in Timor Leste that sometimes sports unusual messages in English. Some are risqué pickup lines (girls’ tops) and others I really don’t understand. A recent example a black T-shirt with this written large on the back: "You can be money”. Not “You can be happy”. Maybe it is a relic of a failed advertising campaign somewhere? Maybe it comes from the same stable of skilled linguists that produce the subtitles for the pirated DVDs? Some of them are so bad it’s amazing, as the language sometimes doesn’t conform to basic grammar rules, let alone bare any relationship to what is being shown on screen. One day I’m going to march back into one of those shops and demand my dollar back.

Bikes, sport, words, busted, broken or blocked

2012-08-09

• · Watching the sports channels at the Dili Beach Hotel
• · Bike repairs and Tetun lessons at DIT
• · Tour de Timor
• · Scrabble and my first seven-letter word!
• · Smidgens of the Olympic games
• · Which side of a locked door (broken) do you really want to be?
• · Blocked drains

Nothing much happened the week ending on the 9th, so the above will have to do.

Sunday was a nice slow day and it didn’t really take off, apart from the 06:30 walk over the hill, back over ‘Crista Rae’ and breakfast on the beach at 08:30, until 16:00 (4pm) when I met Elmo outside the NZ Embassy and we walked on down Beach road to… the Dili Beach Hotel, where we grabbed a table on the second floor balcony. No need for walls or windows there, so there were great views, over the road to the beach and beyond to Atauro Island in the distance.

We made it there just before the Super 15 final between the Chiefs and the Sharks. Lots of vocal support for the Chiefs, but the few South Africans kept rather quiet. Four bottles of ‘Bintang’ beer kept us and the bar owner happy for a couple of hours. NB: while the local brew is cheap and sold in clear, recycled water bottles by the side of the road in a range of interesting colours – bright blue and dark green seem to be common, unless they are something else??, I think it is probably wiser to stick with a more expensive, yet consistent product.

Language is important and here it is ‘Tetun’, yet the necessity doesn’t make the learning any easier for me. This was the finish of week one of lessons at the Dili Institute of Technology. Being four hours every morning in a modified shipping container with four others. I have struggled due to my consistent history of never successfully learning another language. This is slow work, yet I can pick out a word or two from the advertising around town now and say good morning: “Diak ka lae?” Literally it means ‘Good or bad?’ or ‘How are you?’

· The Tour de Timor sounded like an exciting event to turn up for except for:

• · My bike is really only suitable for a 10-15 minute trundle around the streets and no further
• · The entry for the race is US$1,000
• · Entries are closed because the event is sold out
• · The tour takes place next month and I have not trained properly and not at all in the tropics

Hmmm, maybe next year, along with better equipment, training and dosh for an entry?

Every 2^nd Monday evening, alternating weeks to the Tuesday quiz, a few of us meet at a café to play scrabble. Some players are very good and know many odd, legal words. Anyway, I started one game and got my first ever seven letter word! This is pretty good, as I was suddenly well out in front as I not only got the double word score + 50 more points as well for using all the letters J. I think the word was something like ‘Placing’.

My scrabble nemesis got a seven-letter word herself later on and beat me in the end by about 10 points L C’est la vie

I got to see some of the Kiwi team do their show jumping (Dili Beach Hotel) and then nothing more, as I don’t have easy access to a TV. The internet is US$1 per hour from home and the English newspaper comes out once a month. Still, I can check out www.stuff.co.nz once a day and peruse www.aldaily.com for variety.

The door to my room had its lock broken. Darned inconvenient as I + Elmo had our gear in the room and locked it in as we went off for dinner about 7pm. When we got back, the lock freely moved in strange ways. There was no change in the locking bar, so we eventually had to leave our gear there and go home. My house key was in my bag, in the room at work, so I had to go home and wait for my landlady to return and then have her husband let me in through the back door. Next day I think work got a professional locksmith in and the new assembly now looks and works quite nicely.

My drain in the tiled ‘bathroom’ (neither actual bath nor sink – just a toilet + a plastic bin filled with water and a scoop to fling the water around) got backed up and the close inspection showed that it had been cemented into the floor and could not be unscrewed or lifted. An old family trick came in use here: caustic soda (aka sodium hydroxide or NaOH). After buying some and dumping a quantity on the drain grill I added some water then quickly left while it bubbled, fizzed and turned the nasty stuff into soap-like stuff. All working properly now.

Back-dated news for week ending 9th Aug 2012

2012-08-09

• · Watching the sports channels at the Dili Beach Hotel
• · Bike repairs and Tetun lessons at DIT
• · Tour de Timor
• · Scrabble and my first seven-letter word!
• · Smidgens of the Olympic games
• · Which side of a locked door (broken) do you really want to be?
• · Blocked drains

Nothing much happened the week ending on the 9th, so the above will have to do.

Sunday was a nice slow day and it didn’t really take off, apart from the 06:30 walk over the hill, back over ‘Crista Rae’ and breakfast on the beach at 08:30, until 16:00 (4pm) when I met Elmo outside the NZ Embassy and we walked on down Beach road to… the Dili Beach Hotel, where we grabbed a table on the second floor balcony. No need for walls or windows provided great views over the road to the beach and beyond to Atauro Island in the distance.

We made it there just before the Super 15 final between the Chiefs and the Sharks. Lots of vocal support for the Chiefs, but the few South Africans kept rather quiet. Four bottles of ‘Bintang’ beer kept us and the bar owner happy for a couple of hours. NB: while the local brew is cheap and sold in clear, recycled water bottles by the side of the road in a range of interesting colours – bright blue and dark green seem to be common, I think it is probably wiser to stick with a more expensive, yet consistent product.

Language is important and here it is ‘Tetun’, yet the necessity doesn’t make the learning any easier for me. This was the finish of week one of lessons at the Dili Institute of Technology. Being four hours every morning in a modified shipping container with four others. I have struggled due to my consistent history of never successfully learning another language. This is slow work, yet I can pick out a word or two from the advertising around town now and say good morning: “Diak ka lae?” Literally it means ‘Good or bad?’ or ‘How are you?’

· The tour de Timor sounded like an exciting to turn up for except for:

· My bike is really only suitable for a 10-15 minute trundle around the streets and no further

· The entry for the race is US$1,000

· Entries are closed because the event is sold out

· The tour takes place next month and I have not trained properly and not at all in the tropics

Hmmm, maybe next year, along with better equipment, training and dosh for an entry.

Every 2^nd Monday evening, alternating weeks to the Tuesday quiz, a few of us meet at a café to play scrabble. Some players are very good and know many odd, legal words. Anyway, I started one game and got my first ever seven letter word! This is pretty good, as I was suddenly well out in front as I not only got the double word score + 50 more points as well for using all the letters J. I think the word was something like ‘Placing’.

My scrabble nemesis got a seven-letter word herself later on and beat me in the end by about 10 points L C’est la vie

I got to see some of the Kiwi team do their show jumping (Dili Beach Hotel) and then nothing more, as I don’t have easy access to a TV. The internet is US$1 per hour from home and the English newspaper comes out once a month. Still, I can check out www.stuff.co.nz once a day and peruse www.aldaily.com for variety.

The door to my room had its lock broken. Darned inconvenient as I + Elmo had our gear in the room and locked it in as we went off for dinner about 7pm. When we got back, the lock freely moved in strange ways. There was no change in the locking bar, so we eventually had to leave our gear there and go home. My house key was in my bag, in the room, so I had to wait for my landlady to come home and have her husband let me in through the back door. Next day I think they got a professional locksmith in and the new assembly now looks and works quite nicely.

My drain in the tiled ‘bathroom’ (neither actual bath nor sink – just a toilet + a plastic bin filled with water and a scoop to fling the water around) got backed up and the close inspection showed that it had been cemented into the floor and could not be unscrewed or lifted. An old family trick came in use here: caustic soda (aka sodium hydroxide or NaOH). After buying some and dumping a quantity on the drain opening I added some water then quickly left while it bubbled and fizzed and turned the nasty stuff into soap-like stuff. All working properly now.

got the double word score + 50 more points .

Traffic - vehicles - laptop - language

I have much to tell of this past week:

• · two traffic incidents
• · a run in the hills above the old Portuguese hospital
• · the sudden departure of the MIS guy from work
• · Timor Telecom changing everyone’s cellphone number
• · checking out the local quiz competition scene
• · one failed laptop and
• · helping out the ANZ bank with its ATMs

Last Sunday I shared a midday lunch with some Australian volunteer workers (AVIs). It was in an Indian restaurant near the Comoro road and down a side street, opposite where the President’s Palace (it looks really impressive and palatial) has been built on a section of the old heliport. After lunch I walked down to the main road (Comoro) and started strolling toward the airport (a bike or scooter would have been better, but I didn’t have either then). With the growth in the middle class(?), there has been a big increase in cars and scooters on the road, so we get rush hour morning, evening and in the weekend (compounding that situation, is this story told me by a fellow workmate: when he was passing the TL Defence HQ about 07:30, all traffic (outside on the road) was stopped while the flag was raised inside).

Anyway, this white SUV came barreling (about 80kmph+) toward me and the ‘+’ intersection I’d just left 30m behind me. Considering the heavy traffic and the general speed of other vehicles (cars, trucks and scooters) being around 30-40kmph, this was surprising. In mitigation, they did have their hazard lights flashing, but no siren. ‘Curious’ I thought, as I carefully got well to the side of the road and watched machine speed past toward the busy intersection – ‘this will be interesting’… It was.

One of the AVIs I had just lunched with, was slowly driving/nosing into the intersection (local way of getting somewhere). We now have 'fast' meets 'slow' at right angles… The fast vehicle, no registration plates I noticed, only put on the brakes at the last second and it skidded, around the front of the 2^nd SUV, to a stop in the middle of the road. An armed local(?) soldier, wearing camouflage gear + armalite, with attached magazine, got out and approached the 2^nd SUV. He got to within 5m, stopped walking, had a good look at the driver, then turned and got back in to his SUV and they took off again at the same speed.

It appears that hazard lights do mean just that, but probably in a different way to that intended by the manufacturer.

The other traffic incident occurred when four work colleagues returned to town from a work assignment in a town to the east. Their driver had been asked to drive more slowly, but chose to drive faster than the passengers wanted. After some remonstration there was an altercation that caused the passengers to get out and walk until they could arrange alternate transport. This was, apparently, the same driver I described in an earlier blog. For the full story, you’ll have to buy me a few beers ;-)

Every Saturday there is a Hash run (Hash House Harriers) and on Saturday it was from an old, no longer used, Portuguese Hospital in the hills to the south side of Dili. I borrowed a bicycle that requires lots of TLC and gears that need to be held in place. Still, it is a quicker way to get to any venue than walking!

A ‘hare’ had set the course with sprinkles of flour, just as well I wasn’t first to run off, as I thought it was quite novel of him to use ‘flowers’. Lots of hills, up and down, with some great views. Part way round I stopped by a power pole, painted a smart black colour and rested my hands on it to do some stretching. My hands stuck to the pole as it had just been painted barely two minutes prior. The painter was further up the hillside and came back down to put another coat on while I pondered how to get my one off. In the end I rubbed both palms in the dust and that was sufficient until I got home to use some detergent.

It has been barely two weeks since I arrived and the work MIS manager parted ways with the organization and then departed the country next day – very sudden and I hadn’t picked up many pieces of info from him other than confirmation that there is no IT documentation on anything, so I’ve begun writing some. More beers required for that story.

Everybody’s favourite phone provider, Timor Telecom, moved from seven to eight digits on the 31^st July. There were some large advertising posters around town with the number ‘7’ prominently displayed along with a long message in Tetun. the English message was finally posted on the website, about 3 days prior. It turned out that all the cellphone numbers would have an extra ‘7’ added to the front of them, just after midnight, July 30^th/31^st. Easy eh? If you didn’t sit down and change all the contacts on your phone, then you couldn’t dial them anymore and their names would not be displayed when they rang you.

After three years of quiz competitions in NZ, I was keen to check out the local scene but all the usual team were not around so I walked to Dili Beach and joined up with a couple of Australian teachers. The local questions on the ‘Tour de Timor’ cycle race caught us out and the answers were a bit curious sometimes. The lesson appears to be that we’re there for the experience. I am keen to run one in the future, but it only happens every two weeks and someone else is running the next one – I’m determined to lift the standard a bit :-p

Surgeon heal thyself – my laptop has died a death, on my desk and it is in ‘Norwegian Blue’ territory. The lights went out and it stopped, so I've removed the hard drive and will plug it into another machine. Work has got me another laptop, so I’m not stuck, just inconvenienced a bit. Just as well I have backups ;-)

I went to the ANZ bank to collect my new ATM card and then found both ATM machines outside were non-operational: one would not accept any cards and the other had run out of money – it just took a while until you actually requested the money before it announced this. I went inside and tracked down a staff member to fix it. He went through the access door for 5minutes before returning and announcing the machines were now working. So they were, I just had to join the queue of local, expats & UN personnel extracting their $$ now that it was all ‘Go’ – people had been repeatedly attempting to use the ATMs the whole time I had been in the bank organising the repairs.

Thanks to a returning volunteer, I now have the use of a bicycle, the one mentioned above, and I’ll be using to get to my language (Tetun) lessons that begin next week.