Same Same!

So, I have been asked by Ben to make some input to our blog. The task is daunting as I am not quite as 

articulate as Ben but I’ll give it a go. So… since Atauro whats been happening for us? Well we have had a

 few weeks at work head offices in Dili. I have had a few attacks of nausea and vomiting (Naomi 4 vs Ben 0). 

No, not pregnant, and yes I’m sure. Been frequenting the local cinemas most Thursdays - watched a really 

nice film called Barefoot Dreams which gives a positive insight to life in East Timor for anyone who is 

interested…. Continuing on with our Indian Takeaway and red wine nights, beers on the beach at the fish market

and spending entire Sundays on the beach reading our books…  sadly these luxuries were a 

part of our old life in Dili….

A few beers on the beach at sunset

 

It took us a while to make the move out to Same because of security precautions with the 

parliamentary elections taking place. But the day after the travel restrictions were lifted we 

headed out to Same. The day after that there was security problems in Dili and a few of the 

district areas… Supporters of the party which was not elected were throwing stones at cars 

and causing trouble. There were more than 50 cars set on fire, a few gun shots fired into the air, 

roads closed by the police and one student died. He was hit by a rock accidently. It is apparently 

calm again in Dili today but with potential for more events to occur during the week. So we are 

pretty glad to be in Same where its peaceful but we are still being cautious by not walking around 

at night and getting reports from local staff about any potential threats- so far all good in Same.

 
I was pretty anxious about the drive to Same as we have heard that the roads are shocking. Fortunately 

I was pleasantly surprised. I mean the driving is slow (81km= 5 hours) as its soo mountainous and the 

roads are continuously winding around, over and between mountains but I had imagined that the road

 would be falling off the cliff a lot more than it  actually was. Worst bit is the blind corners, the driver

 honks his horn to alert any potential oncoming traffic such as a truck or full to the brim bus.... So 

despite occasionally fearing for your life the drive was beautiful, and it was really nice and cold up

 in the mountains too! It was a pleasant change from the humidity in Dili.  Being such a Catholic 

nation a lot of the big hills or mountains have a cross located at the peak which makes for interesting 

scenery. The drive from Maubisse to Same was beautiful with rice farms, waterfalls, coffee plantations 

and kids playing on the side of the road (to which our driver yelled “Baa eskola!!”  (Go to school!)) Not 

to mention the seemingly endless number of pigs, cows, goats, chickens, goats, cats, dogs and horses! 

We nearly took a pig out on the drive- never realised how fast they can run when they want to! 

 The markets in Maubisse

 The Church claiming the hill as theirs

 Ben and two of the guys from his work having a smoko on the way out to Same

 Mount Kabalaki, which we have yet to see the top of

 

My work put us up in a room attached to the office over our first weekend here. On our first day here 

we walked into town to check out our new home for the next year. It’s beautiful! We are surrounded by
mountains which we havn’t yet seen the top of as it has been a bit foggy since we got here and the peaks 

are up in the clouds. People are really friendly! Everyone we walk past says hello, some more shy than 

others… A couple people knew a bit of English so were keen to chat with us which was nice- as on arriving

 here we realised how much we need to know Tetun and how much we don’t know yet. Well we are 

managing but it’s continuous confusions as we only know half the words required to make the desired 

sentence and are no doubt saying it all in the wrong order.  Like when we ask “folin hira” (whats the price?) 

and then they reply in Tetun or Bahasa Indonesian and we spend about 2 minutes trying to work out 

how much that is… Ben and I had a laugh today, talking about how we have come into our new offices 

to work with people and lend our skills… they must be thinking “really?? These people??” as we walk 

around smiling like knobs saying thank you and hello a million times asking simple repetitive questions 

and doing strange malae things... but they don’t seem to mind.
 

We have found decent food eateries in Same. I have started eating chicken again as of today. This is 

partially related to my new found dislike of the chicken race- specifically roosters. There are 5 roosters 

next door and they are crowing away all day long- but at about 4am they really get started- non-stop 

and loud! I always thought it is like a 1 time cock-a-doodle-doo as the sun rises at 6.00am. Nope. It’s 

unrelenting. Less chickens in this village the better!

A few of the of stranger animals we share our neighborhood with

 

While on the subject of things that I thought were that are not, I thought it was dry season here, 

well apparently it is but it has poured down with rain all day today and hasn’t stopped.

Ben here now, Naomi got bored, so ill finish. I think she has covered most of it, that’s basically our first 

couple of days here.

I must say I was pleasantly surprised with the markets out here. We found the market without too 

much trouble the afternoon we got into town and it was surprisingly good. Potatoes, small tomatoes, 

onion, lettuce, sweet potato, pumpkin, chili, carrot, banana and a few other root veggies that I didn’t 

recognise. Surrounding the fresh food stalls were heaps and heaps more of the random stores. Most 

had things like candy and coffee but then there were more specialist stores. Some had lots of plastic

 buckets, one had powdered milk, frozen (or defrosting due to the lack of power during the day) sausages, 

a store with heaps of different types of sauces and condiments, hardware, electrical, a few second hand 

clothing stores, generally you could find most things there, you would just have to be willing to look. We 

managed to find ourselves some things for dinner, we got some tomato sauce, some frozen ‘chicken sausages’ 

which are just frankfurts from home (they taste amazing actually) but on the packet it says that it is 100% 

vegetarian fed chicken, which it isn’t, we got an onion, 2 eggs and a few pieces of a couple day old bread

Back at the guesthouse we found a gas stove that we later found out was not ours to use, but we managed to cook up the onion, snags and eggs and had ourselves some very basic dinner. At this point I was more than a little worried about what our food was going to consist of for the next 11 months or so. The next night was a little more difficult, due to the fact that we couldn’t use the gas stove. Luckily on Thursday last week we bought an electric hot plate for situations like this in case we didn’t have any facilities to cook. That’s not true in the kitchen is a perfectly good place to light a fire and cook stuff over the fire, I just wasn’t too keen on lighting a fire inside a kitchen, nor did I have a lighter or anything to light a fire with. So anyway, we had a similar dinner, this time pasta instead of bread, and we had pasta with onion mixed through and some tomato sauce as a dressing, mine had a few of the left over sausages from the last night as well. A good feed once again, if not basic, but due to our very small and not so hot hotplate, that meal took close to 80 minutes to prepare……..

Here are a few pics of Same

The first night we were here we had the worst night sleep ever, I think it would easily be the worst night’s sleep I have ever had. The mattresses were hard, basically like the floor, Nemo and I tried sleeping on a single mattress together, which made it worse, and it was noisy, the water pump outside the window and, if anyone ever told you that roosters only crow in the morning, they lied.  I think Nemo mentioned it earlier, but it’s worth saying again; they crow whenever they are awake. Which starts at about 4am, unless they are woken up earlier, by something else, say another rooster. Outside our window is the neighbors fence, tied to his side of the fence are not 1, not 2, but 5 roosters! Big ones, and every house in the neighborhood has one as well it seems. When one crows, every single one with in ear shot will crow back, and when you have 5 in one yard outside your window they just get stuck in an endless loop crowing at each other, with the other 50 in the neighborhood in the background and the endless dogs barking on top of that. It would be quieter in the middle of the zoo. Worst…..night……..sleep…….ever……..

When we got out of bed that morning, Naomi had had enough, I heard her something I didn’t think I would ever hear her say.

I’ve been saying since I got here that whilst in Timor I would try a few things I otherwise wouldn’t have, not because I condone it or think it’s right, but because I’m here and “when in Rome’…… do as the Romans do, or the Timorese in this case. I’ve said that I will eat dog, drink palm wine (moonshine/rocketfuel) and go watch and bet on a cock fight. She of course thinks all of those things are disgusting. Until Sunday morning, when she rolled over in-between cock-a-doodle-doos and said “I cannot wait to go see a fight and watch those two things kill each other, I think I’ll even eat chicken at lunch today to make sure there is one less of them in the world”. True to her word she has eaten chicken two days in a row now, and she calls me the monster!?!?!

Anyway, that’s it for this week, take care!

Ben and Naomi

 In this pic, there is the strangest nativity ever. A deer, a crocodile, a mermaid and Jesus was just to the right of the croc, I will have to go back and get a better pic, one with the big JC in it.