Let there be light!

The days seem to be getting shorter.  They might not be.  My diurnal clock is probably linked to my inner compass and quite frankly both are in dire need of a tune-up.

My late afternoon class at ANZ finishes at 6:45pm.  Usually, I can walk at least halfway home before a higher being flicks the light switch and darkness falls.  Now that I have my scooter, night comes quicker.  No problem.  I have lights.

I left the freezer that ANZ becomes after hours.  (As bizarre as it seems in Dili, this is the one time a jumper would be really, really useful.  My students wear jackets.  The air-conditioning gets really, really, really cold.  Not pleasantly fresh, but just damned cold!)  So I stepped, thankfully, into the warmth of the street.  I donned my helmet, started my bike and did what I thought was turning on the lights.

Or not . . .apparently.  I turned onto Beach Road.  Where were my lights?  I forced my left hand up and down the left side of my 'dash', searching, searching for lights.  All the while some damned motorist was honking, honking, honking.  What the hell?  I thought.  I'm almost riding on the footpath, there's plenty of space for you to go around.

My left hand kept searching and the honking continued.  I stopped my bike and peered at the dash, trying, once and for all to locate the lights.  And there they were . . . ahem . . .er . . . well  . . . .just above the horn, which was what, um, er, I had apparently been hitting . . . Thankfully it was dark so one could see just how red I blushed when I realised that the irritating honker was . . . erm . . . me.

And so onwards to home . . . .

. . . Next morning I set off on my scooter.  People waved.  I smiled and waved back.  But these weren't their usual waves, they were more approximations of the hand actions to "Twinkle twinkle little star".  Whatever.  People in Dili are extra friendly.

It was only later that I realised that having struggled to find the lights and turn them on, I had not, as yet, turned them off.  People were being, extra, extra friendly.  Their "twinkle twinkle" actions were meant to alert me to the fact that my lights were still on.

Sigh.  Notes to self:  'Master 'break'; master 'lights'; get inner compass re-tuned.