Author Archives: Squatter

Bedtime reading – the telephone directory

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I managed to get my hands on the new Timor-Leste telephone directory for 2007-2008. It was released on 4 December 2007. There was a previous one but I only occasionally got my hands on it. The new one is slightly smaller than B5 size (170×240 mm) and is about 5 mm thick. It is in both Portuguese and English and runs to 156 pages. I read it as bedtime reading in one go.

The breakdown is :

  • Commercial yellow pages section organised by business type … 34 pages
  • White pages section organised alphabetically (and repeating many of the yellow page entries) … 30 pages, including 4 pages of government phone numbers at the start and repeated again in the alphabetic section
  • Preliminary guff on Timor Telecom services, how to make phone calls, tariffs, international phone number prefixes etc. … runs to 94 pages
  • The Dili section of the white pages runs to 20 pages and seems to include every number assigned to large organisations who probably pump most of them into their pabx systems. Other numbers associated with these larger entities are probably staff houses. Its all there.

I am not sure if unlisted numbers are an option and I suspect a number of people will be clamouring to get rid of their listing.

Rather than do a sudoku puzzle, I counted the number of unique organisations/people in the Dili white pages section and it came to 848. If one takes into account the total number of phone lines, the figure is probably around 1200. Most people use mobile phones and I would think the number of mobiles is at least a couple of thousand.

There are no entries for any of the major political figures here.

This is probably the only time in my life I will have read and summarised the entire phone book as bedtime reading in one hit. Yes I know … get a life.

Restaurant blather

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The “Atlantic Grill” looks close to opening soon.  It is on the eastern side of “Caz Bar” down in the Christo Rei statue area.

The “Kabayan Bar” (ex Internet Bar) now incorporates the “Manila Restaurant”.

Andy who ran the Paradise Balinese restaurant at Metiaut (now occupied by “Thai Foods”), is now running the restaurant at the “Vila Verde Hotel” – a couple of hundred metres north of Obrigado barracks.  If he keeps the same standards, it should be worth giving a try.  The ambience is highly unlikely to approach what he had down by the beach at Metiaut, however Andy’s service and table manner is equal to the best in town.

“Fat Boys” bar now serves a modest menu in Australian workers bar style.

2008 – rain, rain and more rain

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After a fairly entertaining New Year’s Eve with lots of fireworks and lots of rain, New Year’s Day was spent tucked away at home watching it rain all day.  It seemed the right thing to do.  And it seems it has rained most of the time ever since.

Apparently there is a huge weather system that is affecting the whole region.  The more common pattern of clear mornings followed by cloud in the afternoon and possible afternoon or evening rain is not to be seen.  It is strange to wake in the morning to rain.  However, it is causing a bit of a mess even though Comorro River has still not quite run bank to bank yet.

There is a huge brown streak heading east along the coastline from the tons of silt washed down the Comorro River.  It looks like waves of mud breaking on the beaches.  On some of the roads to the west, there has been a lot of topsoil washed down onto the roads and a few of the small bridges have been overtopped and were impassable.  The road was cut in at least one place due to the huge depth of slushy mud deposited onto the road surface but there are a number of excavators working to move slush back into controllable places.  It looks like a lot of soil has moved closer to the sea and a few crops washed away.  In one place, the road has eroded to half its normal width with one half having fallen into a newly created drain.

I believe quite a number of people in the Liquica area have had to leave their homes temporarily.  It just looks like one or two more big rains could cause a fair bit of trouble.  But I would hardly have known this if I hadn’t driven out to Liquica and seen it myself.  I am guessing it is much the same in the easterly direction.

And the mosquito count is definitely up.

This is really about Nairobi

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This is not about Dili at all but reading about Kenya being on the edge of civil war brought back memories of some quite risky behaviour on my part once.

I had just finished a 4 week safari tour of Kenya, Tanzania, Zaire, Rwanda and Uganda on the back of one of those open safari trucks.  Four weeks, about a dozen people, shorts and t-shirts throughout and a fair bit of testosterone.   After farewelling all the others, I spent the last couple of days in the 680 Hotel by myself.
I was alone in the bar one night and the black guy next to me suddenly turns around and says “why do you white guys all stick to this part of town … you never come and mix with where the black people live”.  Perhaps it was the sudden absence of heaps of company (including one or two girls that I regretted not having made advances towards) or perhaps it was the drink but I agreed with him.  He goaded me before finally offering to take me to “where the black people live” north of Tom Mboya street.  I agreed.

So off we go on foot and as we pass Tom Mboya street, the general streetscape tended to head to a rougher style.  We went into a bar – rough-looking by western standards.  Not a white man in sight.  My “mate” orders 2 beers.  I don’t understand what he says but he ends up having an argument with the barman.  He finally comes back with 2 warm beers.  I say to him, “it was me, wasn’t it?” He said, “Yes”.  I gradually feel more uncomfortable and am not really enjoying this beer (too warm) much at all.  About 20 bright white eyes stare at me.

He sees my discomfort and after the beers are demolished, offers succour by asking me, “let’s get out here … why not come and see where we really live out in the suburbs”.  It is now dark and I am obviously in a very uncomfortable place for a white man and say “yeah, why not!”

So off we go to a bus stop and hop in a small mini-bus.  He has a another argument with the driver.  I knew it was me again.  “So what was it this time?”, I ask.   He replied, “the driver wanted the white man to pay 3 times the normal fare … don’t worry, you are my guest, it is now OK”.

It is pitch black outside and we are clearly leaving town for god knows where.  About 20 minutes later, we pull up in some village out of town and go to yet another bar.  This time, I know there is not another white man for miles.  There is a group of guys playing guitar and singing.  They all say hello to me and make me feel quite welcome.  I have a beer.  This is not too bad, I tell myself.

Then my host says to me, “I have to go, I’ll be back later”.  And he leaves.  So there I am drinking beer in a bar after dark way out of town without a clue where I am and outside the bar, it is totally pitch black.  I start fretting.  For an hour, I find solace in beer and pretend that I really have not put a skid mark on my y-fronts when I am sure that I have.

Finally, my mate returns and I spin a story that I have to get back into town as I have arranged to meet friends for dinner.  He orders a car and the guy drives me back to my hotel and everything was fine.

It was probably next day that I decided to do a brewery tour of the Kenya brewery.  I manage to find a bus going the 20kms out of town and ask the driver to stop at the appropriate place.  He did and pointed me in the general direction.   The Kenya brewery campus is huge and has a mini-bus that runs non-stop in a huge loop around the place.  I find the main office and ask about the brewery tour.  It was Wednesday and the tour was only weekly on a Tuesday.  The security guard directs me to a brewery bar instead.  Regretfully, I accept this fall-back position.

I am walking through the campus and again, it appears I am the only white guy.  Everyone stares at the white guy with shorts, t-shirt, thongs and day-pack.  I walk past a small building with a trestle seat running across the full-length of the front of the bulding.  There are black guys sitting backs to the wall, all necking from large beer bottles.  They all stare at me.  I conclude that the only way out of this was to assume this was the bar and do what nature intended in this circumstance and join them on the seat drinking beer with back to the wall.

I purchased a wonderful cold beer from the bar which was surrounded by prison bars.  Except in this case, it looked like the barman was the prisoner.  I found my spot on the wall, drank some beer, no-one looked at me anymore and life was good.  Then it started going downhill.  I had obviously sat next to the brewery drunk.  We strike up conversation.  He is drunk but I press on.  He asks me why I am there and then starts getting awfully sorry that I had travelled so far and couldn’t do a tour.  I ask if there are any trinkets like brewery caps, glasses, bottle openers etc.  Of course, in the sales department.  He goes off to clock off for the day, we hop onto the mini-bus and shuffle off to the marketing building and I purchase my stash.

Suitably satiated, my drunken friend suggests we go to another bar on campus.  I agree.  This one is much smaller but still has the bar surrounded by iron bars.  I have a few more beers then my drunken friend starts asking for my phone number and address.  Then he calls the bar-woman for more beer.  The rather large lady brings the 2 bottles over and my friend starts massaging her breasts.  She doesn’t bat an eyelid.  He could have been checking them for ripeness – slightly uncool, me thinks.  A whiff of common sense tells me that it is now time to go so I spin the old chestnut about meeting friends for dinner and say I must go.

My drunken friend follows me out the main road inside the brewery campus.  There are food stalls lining the road and my friend is getting extremely garrulous.  He starts talking to some ladies at the stalls and offers to arrange a woman for the night for me.  And oh yeah, I tell him one of the friends is my girlfriend.  My speed hastens as I head for the bus.

On the bus which was packed, my drunken friend stood up the front next to the driver and was telling anyone within earshot that I was his mate.  Gulp.  In the end, no problems.

I have since been told several times, “you must have rocks in your head … you could get killed”.  Dili is so much easier and there are no bars out of town to get me into trouble.  And never make assumptions about anything.

Old year resolution

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I am not into New Year resolutions because that gives you 365 days to be accused of procrastination.  Far safer to do an old year resolution which has a life of … 11 hours.

I achieved throwing away bedtime reading for sudoku puzzles but don’t have much time left to attain supreme levels of fitness before the day is out.  But I am well on the way.  A bit of heavy lifting of beer cartons and re-stocking the fridge should just about do it.

Living in Dili remains a roller-coaster ride.  What next ?  Another generator failure, more bowel trouble, more rises in airfares to get out, a return of local police to the streets, more yogurt shortages, TL’s first aircraft carrier … the suspense !

But my water tells me that tonight would be a good opportunity for the “scrotes” to nudge the turps and have a handy excuse for having a bit of fun at someone else’s expense.  My advice is no matter what you do to greet the New Year, try not to get a lift in a UN vehicle … and never get caught without clean underwear.

Cheers

Finding sudoku

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Sometimes some things just pass you by living here but while in Bali recently, I was looking to buy a cookbook written in Indonesian but with western-style recipes – as a Christmas present.  Then I saw sudoku books in Indonesian.  Forty US cents for a smaller edition – seemed a safe place to start.

For the moment, I am hooked.  So today I go looking for a fresh sudoku puzzle book.  I go to the new “Loja Livru Gracia” bookshop in Audian.  Nope but I walk out with 3 copies of the “Time Timor” magazine written in Tetum.  And yes, there are a number of cookbooks in Indonesian, the usual religious tomes, some language dictionaries (Indonesian-Korean).  And a large rack of used PC magazines in Indonesian.

I had a few other little fiddly shopping chores to undertake and schmoozed through shops I had not schmoozed through for a while.  It struck me that there has been a large increase in the number of clothing shops and a matching increase in shops offering clothing repairs and adjustments.  Karaoke systems are now big as are numerous small stereo systems.  Maybe I had not noticed the shop selling electric guitars.  I did notice the absence of small electricity generators which have obviously moved from the front of the shops to down the back (where they ought to be since the reduction in power cuts).

Anyway, I called it a day and downloaded a sudoku puzzle generator instead.

The sod break-in and general fluff

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I must say I feel quite let-down after hearing about FOS’s Christmas Eve break-in at Chateau Sod.  I had a fairly full and event-free Christmas and was quite emotional at the end of the day.  But the scroats (as FOS calls them) are definitely increasing in number and starting to get smarter.

For those that don’t know, most expats live behind some form of walled property with windows ranging from iron bars to heavyweight mesh grille to lightweight mosquito netting. Many window frames are made from unseasoned wood and a good shoulder would do a job on some of those. But there are other failings which include having the hinges on the outside and some pretty weak closing/locking apparatus. It is not uncommon to see walls with spikes, razor wire or broken glass set in concrete but also not uncommon to see a simple weak point in such setups.

Forget the peaceful scene of palm frond huts and no form of security at all. The only way you could get away with that is to employ a trusted guard, either by employing one from one of the two big security companies (Maubere and APAC) or by co-opting a friendly neighbour. By employing a neighbour, you may be able to gain respect as a decent (and perhaps only) local employer and thus get full neighbourhood protection. You might rent from a landlord who also provides the service and who knows that losing a rich foreigner following a theft is not a good long-term arrangement.

Unfortunately, FOS lives in an area which has many scroats and I am not sure if he is able to co-opt locals. And yes, Doris (the dog) lets you know when you approach the premises.

There have been incidences of supposedly trusted local staff (like guards and cleaners) suspected of participating in inside jobs with their mates, although this is NOT widespread.

Anyway, it is a wake-up call that it is best to do all the right things and lock doors and windows. And it now seems that one ought to install mesh over windows and some form of “climbing over the wall slow-down device” such as razor wire.  And keep cash in used underwear in your sock drawer or something like that.  It is sad really – who wants to live in a Stalag ?

Food for Christmas

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Its that time of the year when many expats intend to gorge themselves for a day starting tonight.  Pity I am still struggling a bit with some stomach bug that has blown my guts up – blocked them up mainly.  All I need is one more wafer-thin mint and I am nearly exploding.

So I was just reading about the restaurant situation in Kabul where there are now dozens of restaurants (I will assume 50) serving cuisine from all over the world.  Here in Dili, it is possible to get Southern Chinese, Vietnamese, Thai, Filipino, Portuguese, Brazilian, Turkish, Japanese, Macau Chinese, Indian, Pakistani, Sri Lankan, Indonesian, Australian (ie hamburgers, steak sandwiches, 12 inch T-bone steaks !), Malaysian Chinese and Burmese.  I may have missed one but there are definitely no Italian, Spanish, Mexican, Greek, German, Lebanese or Mickey-Ds.

I can’t say there is such a thing as a Timorese restaurant.  Nor could I say that any of them can be categorised as a fine dining experience.  One or two come close.  From time to time, you do come across exquisite dishes – perhaps when the occasional batch of lobsters hits the restaurants at prices that would make you wilt (ie cheap).

A few of the restaurants are offering Christmas lunch feasts and I hear that turkey will definitely be on the menu as it is available in the supermarket freezer.  I notice that supplies of premium beers have fallen and my favourite tipple (for casual not volume consumption) is out of stock.

I believe I have committed to 3 different locations tomorrow so it will be interesting to see how close I get to joining Mr.Creosote in gastronomic oblivion.  May your Christmas Day be stress free.

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).