First Day

Well, here I am in Dili, Timor-Leste.  It is warm, though perhaps I personally wouldn't be so hot if I hadn't spent most of the day exploring on foot.

I landed at 6:35am and Mark, from the school where I'll be teaching picked me up from the airport and we went for coffee.  It may scare some of you to know that he seems to think like I do . . . particularly with regard to the capture and sharing of information.  I am hopeful that my role will not include reinventing already invented wheels. 

After coffee Mark took me to my accommodation.  I am sharing with three cats!  Oh and some lovely people.  But cats!!!  Who could ask for more?

My list of things to do today included getting a mobile phone and number, finding a post office and getting a postal address and opening a bank account.  I have so far managed to accomplish all three which is actually an achievement.  I set off without a map and using only my memory of the maps of Dili I'd seen on the internet.  Those of you who know me well are probably rolling around laughing right now.  Scoff if you choose, I have accomplished my goals . . .

I set off in the direction of the ANZ bank.  Dili, it seems doesn't operate on actual addresses the way other places might.  Pfft, who needs addresses - probably the same person that actually really needed a map.  Nonetheless I attacked the streets with gusto.  Interestingly there are lots of cars and motorcycles on the road.  I'm grateful I'm coming from a big city because I have practice dodging traffic.  This is a necessary skill which involves little legs speeding across the road and approaching drives beeping horns.  There are lots and lots and lots of taxis, all of whom are keen to take you wherever you'd like to go.  I thought this might have proven problematic because I wasn't actually sure of where I wanted to go. 

After half an hour or so I saw Timor Telecom.  I crossed the road, entered the blissful air conditioning and asked a polite young man if I could buy a sim card.  He said what I thought was, "We don't have any.  They are finished for today.  Come back tomorrow."  After several attempts to clarify I had heard correctly I absorbed the sad reality - I had heard correctly.  Resolving to return on the morrow, I stepped outside and turned left, right into the path of a hand that was waving a wad of what looked suspiciously like sim cards.  We were part-way through the transaction for a sim card, phone and credit when I looked down the street and saw it was "sim-card alley".  It dawned on me that the reason Timor Telecom had no sim cards left was that the street vendors buy them all up and sell them from their little stalls.  I assume they add a mark-up but since I got the sim card, a phone and $10 credit for $50, I was a happy camper.

Locating ANZ proved rather more problematic.  I thought it must be in the vicinity because surely I had walked the length of Dili.  I must have missed it, because surely it wouldn't have a big neon sign.  So I retraced my steps and then some.  I was about to give up, assuming I'd retraced too far when I spotted the Australian Embassy.  Those sweet people gave me a map and clear directions on where to go.  It seems that while I thought I had already walked the length of Dili, I had actually only reached halfway.  Despite assurances that walking to ANZ would "take you quite a while", I set off once again with gusto.  It did take a while.  I was way, way, past the Timor Telecom shop.  But I had a map now and the map very conveniently had the post office marked.  Yippeee!!!  A small diversion on my way to a new bank account.

And now, I am ensconced in an air-conditioned internet cafe, posting my first update.  That's it for me.  I will try to post regularly, if only to update you on my progress in winning over the felines :-)