Daily Archives: 20 December, 2007

Security blather

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In Dili, it seems fine to me but one should remember that stuff is still happening from time to time around the place. Take this snippet from the UN Security report for yesterday for instance :

Fighting erupted yesterday morning between two martial arts groups at
Buikaren market, Viqueque. Approximately 100 members were involved and
had used weapons consisting of machetes, knives and sling shots. One
20 year old gang member, badly injured, passed away at Viqueque’s
Hospital at approximately 14:15 hours. One suspect has been placed
under arrest.

On Monday afternoon, a 12 year old boy, was seriously injured by a
mailman wielding a machete, in Wailili – Waturou de Baixo, Baucau’s
District. The victim was admitted to Baucau Hospital and the suspect
has been arrested. The investigation into the incident is continuing.

Now if this sort of stuff happened in Hawthorn (in Melbourne) or Crows Nest (Sydney) or wherever you would like to insert*, you’d be a bit worried … no ?  These days, barely rates a mention here in Dili.  Thank god Dili has no mailmen !!

* Glenelg in Adelaide (New Year’s Eve excluded) or anywhere on “schoolies week”.

Some pre-Christmas titbits

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It is raining right now for about the 10th to 15th time this wet season. By this time last year, it had probably only rained about twice and that was in November from memory.

The horrendous power cuts of November appeared to have been solved on about the 27/28 November. Those cuts which started about 20-25 October were due to a mechanical failure in the big new generator installed in early 2007.

The “Sanan Rai Foun” restaurant (or “New Sanan Rai”  sanan=cooking pot, rai=ground) has opened about 100 metres east of the ANZ Bank on Rua Nicolau Lobato. Also 50 metres east of the Roo Bar (Tropical Hotel). I presume this is an up-market version of the original Sanan Rai down the western end of the same street.

Like last year at this time, there appears to be a slight difficulty getting eggs. A tray is costing $7. I seem to recall paying around $4 about 6 months ago.

Beer at bars seems to have increased from the $2-50 mark to the $3 mark. I am mainly talking OZ beer here which has mainly risen due to the change in OZ/US exchange rates. Tiger and Bintang ought to be cheaper. I also notice an increase in Filipino San Miguel beers including the cheaper end “Red Horse” beer. This reflects the increasing influence of Filipinos in the commercial sector, particularly construction. $2 happy hours may become more popular.

I saw my 1st bookshop in Dili in the Audian shopping street towards the eastern end. There may be a small amount of books and magazines in other shops and the odd books sold on the pavement but this is a whole shop with a sign out the front saying “Loja Livru Galeria”. Will go in one day.

If you want Christmas trees, then the strip of shops across from the stadium is chock-a-block with trees of the tinsel and plastic variety.

Nativity scenes are cropping all over the place and seem to be significantly more numerous than last year. There are some quite flashy ones including some quite advanced ones with flashing lights which at first, could be mistaken for a police vehicle attending a security incident (when seen from a distance).