It had to come – starting to sound intelligent I mean.
The UNDP (United Nations Development Programme) have just released the National Human Development Report 2006 for Timor Leste.
It paints a fairly black picture but at least Timor Leste has petroleum income from the Timor Sea and if used wisely, the country will get itself back into shape. But that is up to the local politicians to play a fair game.
Some snippets from the report …
The report can be downloaded here
I regard myself as a bit of a connoisseur of black beers and stouts and even brew my own on the odd occasion. I even brought my beer brewing gear here plus ingredients.
I had no idea what to expect but actually there is a fairly reasonable supply of the black stuff.
Firstly, the bad news. Yes, there is Guinness in 330 ml cans. It is made in Malaysia. It is 100% total crap and an embarrassment to the Guinness company. There is also ABC Stout which tastes very close to the above-mentioned Guinness.
Secondly, the average news. Carlsberg have Danish Royal Stout. Also brewed in Malaysia. Maybe I am just kidding myself that it is better than the 2 above. But it did seem better.
And the best news. The Portuguese do pretty good black beers. Both the Sagres Black Beer and Super Bock Stout are quite nice drinks. One day, I will do a one-on-one taste test and produce the final analysis.
Of course, I forgot the un-named helicopter company who brew their own beers and stouts in what is an absolutely incredible setup that is truly astounding. Of course, purely for personal consumption only.
Life is actually quite a bit different now. Living in a house now means access to all that stuff I waved goodbye to 6 months ago. But apart from footwear, I am still wearing the same old clothes I have been rotating for months.
It means no more hotel breakfasts and it means buying food in order to have it to eat it. The first shock is the financial one when you spend US$400 on food and end up with … well, not very much. And I had already pretty much given up on any snack foods. I had also thought I had put on weight but I actually sent over a set of scales and to my amazement, I am 5 kgs lighter than 6 months ago.
Note to file : I have to start local market shopping rather than this expat supermarket stuff.
To be honest, I have been suffering from some unknown health problem of late (presumably bacterial infection), but must wait until the doctor gets back from his 2 weeks out of the country. Perhaps this is the real reason for the weight loss (or the self-prescribed anti-biotics).
Back to the house. I guess you have to expect teething problems when everything is new, but the wooden doors are cracking, there have been electrical problems, shoddy plumbing, no water pressure, cockroaches, really bad rising damp in the walls and we still lack a bathroom basin and gas cooker. When we decide not to eat out, we use the temporary gas cooker on the front porch. And we are still waiting on some key furniture deliveries for the living areas.
As I type, there is not one drop of water emerging from any tap. The tank is full, the pump is on. I don’t know. But one day, it will be sorted.
It has rained the last few days and after this, the mosquitos have come out in force around the house. It is almost impossible to remain unbitten unless you become a walking insecticide vehicle. But there are enough local stories of malaria and dengue fever to convince you that you just have to do it.
If you are into organics and the non-use of pesticides, me thinks you will not survive here. It is pretty difficult trying to impress with the latest eau de cologne, perfume or macho deodorant when you must by necessity smell like a roach bomb (ie insect spray).
When it comes to supplies of imported items often bought by expats in Dili, there is one key item that defines the state of play with these supplies. Yogurt.
Some people ask if one has seen any yogurt in any of the supermarkets. At the Hotel Dili, the sign would read at breakfast time, “No yogurt due to no stock at the supermarket”. At the Hotel Timor, there would be no sign and no yogurt at all.
There has been no yogurt for around 10 days until a couple of days ago. So you know the boat has just come in and customs have cleared it. But there has been some enormous delays at customs over the last 2 weeks and I don’t know why.
But at least yogurt is back.
I needed it. Although it was meant to be the day we moved into our house after 5 1/2 months, being the caring and sharing guy that I am, I opted for a weekend away where alcohol played a major part in proceedings.
So I headed off on the weekend away, taking my bicycle and sleeping gear for a weekend away with the hash house harriers. The group of about 30 went to Gleno which is a village about 50 kms from Dili. The roads are not that great so it took about an hour and a half to get there.
Despite the “hash’s” dubious reputation, we stayed at an orphanage in Gleno run by an Australian in his spare time. You have to be in awe of these people who set out to do this. There are tons of kids here parentless, courtesy of the turmoil over the last 25 years, famine or just plain old poor health.
So the hash goes there, sleeps rough, brings tons of food and other stuff, consumes what they need and leaves the rest. This feeds these kids for weeks. The guy who runs the place is extremely grateful. We have a great time and feel good about the whole thing.
On the Saturday afternoon, we did a ~10km run in the mountains which was absolutely magnificent. To be honest, only about 10 people did the run with the rest opting for a more casual walk.
At dusk I decided to have a wash in the mandi (Indonesian style bathroom – lots of tiles and lots of water splashed around the place). I slipped big time and landed flat on my back on the tiles. I curled up into a fetal position for 5 minutes while I got my shite together. I have massive bruising of the lower back and arms, but I survived without critical damage. No, I was not drunk, but who will believe me ?
For a reason that escapes me, Fretilin had a big party in Gleno on the Saturday and graciously allowed the electricity to run all night instead of stopping at midnight. The locals took advantage of this and partied until dawn. After a 10 km run and a number of beers, and wishing to remain compus for the following day’s bike ride, being kept awake all night with (to my tastes anyway) music to die by playing all night, and dogs fighting, and the early morning roosters crowing and the door creaking every time some one went to the toilet. Well, I was knackered when I got up.
On the Sunday, I was part of a group of 7 who rode bicycles back to Dili. It took us around 3 hours with plenty of ups and some cheek-flapping downhill runs of awesome proportions. It was a blast. And absolutely magnificent for 50 kms.
The perfect introduction to a week of full-time box unpacking, swearing and house problems.
After 165 days, we have finally seen the contents of the stuff we shipped here. It has been sitting in a container here in Dili since October, waiting for somewhere to put it. Just smouldering away. By accident, I left a high/low thermometer in a bag (with batteries in it) and it recorded a high of 40 degrees buried deep within.
So it arrived at our newly renovated house. It will be great when everything is in place but boy, it has been a saga riddled with balls-ups from start to finish. I have steadfastly tried to avoid hurling mud online – you never know who might be reading. But I would certainly like to give a few people a good spray.
I am in a spare bedroom looking at the mango tree, sitting at an old wooden table and chair wondering what I do next so I can send this bloody thing. But we do have 2 more days in the hotel, while the furniture is cleaned and everything is washed (that’s us, no paid slaves here). The boys (house builders ?) left the house in a bit of a mess. I think I must have been speaking Egyptian when I said the house needed a clean. Cleaning crew ? What cleaning crew !
So I have done a bit of hands and knees cleaning, 10 rounds with the washing machine, nabbed a few cockroaches, got Handy Andy hands. I have noted down the bubbling paintwork, holes in the grouting between the tiles, fans that don’t work, bath that doesn’t drain properly, etc. etc. And I really wished they hadn’t used the white plastic basin plugs to stub out their cigarettes.
I guess I’ll get used to it. But what I haven’t said is that I have been living this renovation ever since arrival. Up front in my face every day : “don’t do that ! … why are you putting that there ? … you don’t do it like that ! … who told you to do that … that doesn’t even fit ! … that won’t last 6 months … could you clean up that paint ! … but yesterday you told me … you mean we have to pay more for that … …”
Dili can get mighty expensive for the typical expat. Unlike many other major cities in Asia, Dili does not really have a thriving local economy that drives provision of goods and services at competitive prices.
Virtually all packaged goods are imported. A lot comes from Indonesia and China but for the usual expat needs, it mostly comes from Australia. And the expat market is pretty small, just like the number of well-heeled Timorese who could regularly afford this stuff.
The astute expat shopper can find plenty of substitute goods from Chinese and Indonesian sources if you try hard, and it can take a lot of time so most expats stick to a couple of reasonably reliable expat oriented supermarkets.
Housing runs the same way. If you really want air-conditioning, satellite TV, 24 hour electricity (ie have a generator), it will cost.
ECA International did a survey in August 2005 and produced expat cost-of-living rankings for Asian cities. Their top 10 went like this :
1 Tokyo
2 Yokohama
3 Kobe
4 Seoul
5 Macau
6 HongKong
7 Osaka
8 Dili
9 Singapore
10 Beijing
And for all that, you get no traffic lights (in the whole country), no cinema, no theatre, no library (of any significance), little sporting infrastructure, no fine dining at all, little to buy in the shops and crap Guinness.
But you also get “slow living”, less spending, perhaps more interacting, a 20 minute cycle trip east to west and NO western suburbia.
Of all the Presidential visits to TL, perhaps one of the biggest has to be for the Portuguese. They may not have been here first, and may not have even been the most recent colonial masters, but they still hold big sway.
So the Man is here all week and you know about it. As there is no other alternative, he and his entourage are staked out at my old digs at the Hotel Timor, except the Prez is in the Presidential suite at the other end of the corridor.
The lads decided that it was a good idea to blockade off the streets around the Hotel and also around the government buildings. Now for the car driver, this is a pain in the ring.
However, for the ageing cyclist (with a bomb-shaped backpack on his back), it is not a problem. I tried my luck and bowled past the military guys with their Uzzis or Kalashnikovs or whatever. I tested the water … not a problem.
For several days, this has been great. For once, hoovering down past the Hotel Timor on my own, with not a car in sight and not a security man even winked. I guess white faces are a valuable ticket. I even parked my bicycle at the front door of the hotel (unlocked) had lunch and headed of again 1 hour later. Nope, no bomb squads checking my cogs or my derailleur.
A short sweet moment of cycling victory … even if the blockade only consisted of traffic cones.
My initial impressions of a daily wet season late afternoon rainstorm were a little off the mark. This has happened on about 3 days per week at most, but when the heavens decide to open up, its full on.
A few weeks back, the entire road surface as far as the eye could see (out of the hotel) was under water, perhaps up to 0.4 metres deep. As expected, this causes problems for smaller cars attempting the deeper parts, but it does not seem to deter local drivers at all.
Cyclists, motorcyclists and pedestrians just plough on. I just couldn’t bring myself to walk barefoot through this lot at night but many locals do and seem to enjoy it.
I guess the best part is that the temperatures drop to the low-20s (Celsius) and conditions are actually quite pleasant. However, many parts of Dili will be under water and many people will be living in fairly rudimentary wood and palm leaf roofed structures with water flooded right through their living quarters. Many areas have stationary water which lies around for days. It is fairly clear why the mosquito risk is high around here.
But the usual day is around 30 to 35 degrees, high humidity and often the threat of rain that does not come. I have tested with my trusty hygrometer and humidity is at its highest in the morning (often over 90%) but lowers as the day wears on. Then at the end of the day, up it goes again.
And most of the time, there is not a breath of wind.
But the daily reminder that I am in Dili is the instantaneous fogging up of glasses as you walk out from an air-conditioned building to the outside. Although glasses recover quickly, many is the time that classic photo opportunities have been missed (particularly from a air-conditioned car) as it takes cameras over 5 minutes for lenses to clear.
Well, it seems to be happening all over again. I seem to have acquired a bad throat infection and by the time I decided that this was no normal sore throat, the doctor is on holidays again.
Getting a sore throat is no surprise. In an obviously new environment, there are bound to be whole new strains of germs etc. that the body has never seen before. Maybe I compound respiratory woes by cycling daily. The big surprise is even after 3 days of heavy rain, the city streets are quite dusty.
The dust at street level is not that much different to the stuff I breathed in Beijing at street level, although I am certain nowhere near as noxious.
So I call the OZ doctor and he has just gone on holidays and due back in 2 weeks. Yes, there are some local doctors, some Cuban doctors and probably an American doctor hidden away somewhere but that’s a whole new ball-game for me.
So I go down to the pharmacy and self-prescribe amoxicillin. I get a whole course for US$1 – no prescription necessary. I note the complete arsenal of drugs for all manner of gastric and colonic difficulties. I feel satisfied … I hope.