Blogs from Dili, East Timor, Asia - page 4

We stepped off the plane yesterday into thick, damp, heat and after getting our baggage we met Constantino and Dr. Christine for a ride to Bairo Pite Clinic, dodging children, dogs, pigs and motorcycles. After meeting with Dr. Dan, I was off to the Midwifery Ward (Partera) to meet the midwives and get acquainted. After a short time, the Liddle's came to say goodbye and I was on my own. I met a doctor who is volunteering at the clinic and he gave me a quick tour of the entire clinic and I met a ton of people. The midwives and I sat and did a few prenatals as women wondered in and I was put to work immediately. Tetum is the language spoken here which is influenced by Portugese but still very different and my ... read more

Hrrmph. I've been here for several hours and I haven't seen any sign of trouble, not even a slightly irritable mob. Dili is absolutely crawling with people going about their normal business. Not only that, but I cleared the airport in moments, got a taxi easily into town, found somewhere nice to stay for only $15/night, and I even managed to lodge my Indonesian visa application and book some dive trips. All of this I achieved before lunch, which was also easy and cheap. Now I have the afternoon to fill. I've been told to go and see Jesus' backside. Apparently there's some really good snorkelling back there. I've also been told several times by different people that I'm staying next door to the best Indian restaurant in East Timor. That's going to be handy for ... read more

Dili is still treating me well. The curfew has been pushed back to 10pm, so there's a bit of going out at night. Things continue to be calm as suspects involved in the assassination attempts turn themselves in. One of the biggies, Salsinha, was thought to be turning himself in at the Government Palace the other night. Jesse received a call around 8pm that something was going on at the Palace and took off to do his journalist thing. I was left at home wondering what was happening. It turned out that Salsinha turned himself in to the Catholic Church in his home town. So nothing was really happening at the Palace, other than the PM Xanana Gusmao giving a press conference. At the clinic, I've been editing funding proposals and helping Annie train a media ... read more

We've made it to Dili no problems, almost. The only real problem is that I didn't get what I came here for, the 60 day visa. I clearly wrote "60 days" on the application but the friendly woman at the office told me it was impossible. That was after waiting around for 3 days. I went back to the window to politely insist and she said I needed to write a letter why I wanted to stay in Indonesia for more than 30 days, but that it was too late now and I could do it next time. It's like highschool busywork. I felt like yelling or throwing something but restrained myself. I've essentially come here for nothing, I could've gotten the 60 day visa in Singapore no questions asked and it would've been cheaper and ... read more

A 6 hour bus truck ride to the ferry port and 30 hours on board an even older vessel I headed for east timor. A short stop in the port town and the clear observation that this town, kupang, only had mangos, cassettes and fake import clothes to offer I took the next 12 hour bus ride into east timor- crossing the boarder and arriving in dili. For a city or rather, country, that had nothing to offer and no personal reason to stay, my 10 day stop over was fuelled only by the new 60 day indonesian visa I would get. For a country that I couldn't decide if it was having, going to have or if it had just had a civil war, daily encounters made me wonder why I was there. Having first ... read more