It may be a bit late but this weekend at the Mercado Lama building, there is a “Home and Garden Expo”.  I have been and if you are souvenir hunting, it is the place to go.  More than half the stalls are selling tais (from everywhere) and the woven grass products (from Maubara) and I would have thought all targeted at the malae market.

Yes, you can buy plants (as you can every Saturday morning across from Tiger Fuels anyway), hardware items and the odd bit of brick paving.  It feels exactly like the “buy Timorese” expo held at the same venue about a month ago.  If this were monthly and they had a bit of a coffee shop with the top shelf stuff and some bakery items, maybe a bit more furniture, I could imagine it extending into something quite worthwhile and enduring.  Freshly roasted coffee, freshly roasted peanuts, freshly toasted foccaccia  😛 …

Over the next week, there is also a photographic exhibition across the road from the Australian Embassy by Gavin Cooper (closes 6 July).

This is the funniest thing I have heard for a long time.  You had to be there but imagine a group of people in jovial mood being told that one of their (malae) number had just failed their Timorese driving test.  There was that completely uncontrolled outburst of laughter that I have not heard for a very long time – many tears.  You had to be there.