Beaches, Bugs and Baucau!

We have been in Timor for 4 months today. It feels like we just got here but if I think about how much has happened it feels like a lot longer. It has been a very long time since we updated the blog. Therefore we have a lot to cover, this task has fallen to me.

So I believe last update we were going to Dili to watch 4 games of footy in the first round of finals. Tom, another volunteer in Timor who is Bens East Timor BFF by default of the fact that he is as big a Bombers fan as Ben is flew in from Oecussi. I skipped out on one of the games to get some “me time”, which involved an $8 dollar, unsymmetrical haircut. Then I went to the Hash House Harriers, which is an expat group of “drinkers with a running problem.” We went to the pub after to meet the boys, who after 6 hours at the pub were a bit merry, but not as merry as me to watch the Dockers beat the Cats!

So after getting our football and food fixes in Dili our journey back to Same was an epic journey. We were told to get to the bus station, well not so much a station just a spot near the markets on the side of the road at 5am. There were lots of other people and an array of animals also waiting to get back to Same so we knew we were in the right place. At 8am a bus came going to Same, we did a lap around the block then the bus driver decided he didn’t have enough passengers so he kicked us out and said he would come back in a few hours. So at 11am, after 6 hours of being half asleep on the side of a road, the bus came and took us home to Same. Another 7 hours in the bus and we were finally home. Pretty long day for an 81km journey!!

So life in Same is well, pardon the pun but pretty same old same old. It’s a sleepy little place, where not too much changes. It’s very, very relaxing though, we have whole weekends up our sleeves. So funny talking to people back home who are so busy and complaining they have no time for themselves when we don’t have much to do even if we wanted to. Good reminder to enjoy this opportunity while it lasts as I’m sure it wont take much time of being home to forget this fine art of chilling- out which we are becoming experts at. One of the most exciting things is all the strange creatures that visit us in our lovely little house- some less wanted than others! We like the big lizards but the huge bugs and the scorpion that was actually inside our mosquito net were really not welcome!

Tyler and the Tokay- Tokay geckos are the 2^nd largest species of gecko in the world and grow up to 50cms. We have a few living in the house, this one is only small, the biggest is about 40cms long and loves nothing more than do make his distinctive call (for which they are named after TOE-KAY) in the middle of the night, in our roof.

Strange, large, noisy and unwanted bug.

Life here can be difficult in other aspects as well. Such as getting all our food. We have to go to about 10 different shops or market stalls, paying separately each time and no-one ever has change to give you. Then we cart everything up the big hill to our house. The other day we had to refill the gas bottle so I was sitting side on the motorbike and we were a little of balance. When we took a corner going up the hill there was suddenly a herd of cows in front of us and we very nearly bumped into a big mamma cow!

So other than routine evenings of bug watching many hours have been spent cooking, eating, hanging out on the balcony, skyping, playing the guitar, the odd bit of exercise and hours upon hours of watching series of DVD’s. It may come as a shock to some but I am becoming a bit of a SciFi fan, it actually feels kinda strange admitting it, but StarGate and BattleStar are both pretty dam entertaining. We somehow managed to watch an entire season of BattleStar in a week! I am not proud to admit just how many hours of television that is…

We have not just spent all our time here doing nothing however and have made a few good road trips away. We went to Baucau, for a full moon party on the beach. Well it was only a half moon at the time so more of a “fool” moon party but still pretty fun. Well, bit of Eurotrash dance music but we did have a good time star gazing/drinking on the beach. Needless to say I had a few good insights to make considering all the recent watching of shows with “star” in the title…

Baucau town was probably the highlight. We watched the Hawks v Adelaide at the Pausada, which was like a resort- I wasn’t sure what country I was is for a little while! The Baucau local pool is also amazing, an old swimming pool made during the Portuguese era, filled by fresh water springs, surrounded by greenery. The whole town is built on a down slop heading towards the coast, and there are waterfalls everywhere. Just beautiful. I’m just a little envious of our friend Daniele, another volunteer who’s posting is out there. The drive to and from Baucau was pretty good too, along the coast, bit of a Timor style safari with water buffaloes all along the roads, not to mention the usual menagerie of all the usual Timor creatures.

After the Baucau trip we stayed in Dili for a few more days as my friend Suzie was coming over to visit us after a year living in Melbourne taking the long way home back to Ireland. So Suzie flew in on a Wednesday, and I had to go back to work. But when I finished work I was a little shocked to find Suzie and Ben watching the “manufuto” or the cock fighting, which is down the road from our friend Karen’s house where we were staying. Great intro to Timor Leste!

This shot is the men tying the blade onto the rooster’s foot. Not for the faint hearted! It’s actually serious gambling, people in Timor are really poor, but 100’s of dollars are spent gambling at the cock fights.

No surprise that Ben and Suzie kinda stood out a little, being the only white people and Suzie the only female in the cock fighting venue.

The next day Suzie and I headed off to Ateruro island. Ben was too scared to join us in case there was a problem with the weather or the boat and he would miss the grand final! So Suzie and I headed off on the boat to Ateruro, and had the most amazing welcome ever- a pod of over 100 dolphins. They started showing off for us, leaping out of the water and swimming along side the boat. It really was one of the most magical things I have ever seen.

When we arrived on the island we walked into town, which was a bit silly as it was nearly 2 hours away in the middle of the day, and Suzie and I got token sunburns to last us the rest of the week! That afternoon we went for a snorkel which was absolutely brilliant, endless corals and endless visibility. Absolutely perfect.  The next day on the island we went for a few scuba dives. Which was absolutely hilarious as we had the craziest scuba diving instructor ever. The man was so highly strung and all over the place, I was thinking at least when we are under water he wont be able to talk for at least 40 mins, but the man was even able to convey the fact that he was completely manic while under water. Pretty funny really. The diving was good though which made up for it. On our second dive we saw a turtle and I saw a little ray sleeping under a rock, a huge spotted ray out in the distance and nearly swam straight into a cuttle fish.

 

Early morning life on the coast

Women collecting wood

Suzie and I hanging out with local kids out the front of our tent

Transport, Ateruro style

The next day we headed back to the mainland, we were hoping for whales to top it off but no luck. Got home to a very excited Benjamin, as it was Grand final day- in his top 5 days of the year! So Ben marches off to the pub, Bombers singlet on, bouncing the footy down the streets of Dili. People here still get a bit confused by the strangely shaped ball. Suzie and I met him there in time for kick off as we needed a little down time after roughing it in paradise. It was a good day down at the pub. The game was bloody tight as I’m sure I don’t even have to mention. For once it wasn’t just Ben and Tom standing up screaming at the umpires in a quiet sleepy pub.  All the expat Aussies in Dili were there carrying on and it had a somewhat Darwin pub kinda feel to it. After the footy we went to the beach to kick the footy. We stayed there for a few Bintangs and a bit of a swim. It was a full moon and started raining which was pretty nice after being such a ridiculously hot and muggy day.

Grand final down at the pub with our new friend Laura and Ben W from London- was Ben W.’s first game of footy- what a game to start with. Needless to say he is hooked on AFL!

The next day with slight hangovers it was necessary to complete Suzie’s Timor experience and we made the treck up to the Jesus statue, then finished it all off with a lazy breaky down by the beach. (Really, we are roughing it here). Then Suzie had to go, and off in a taxi to the airport she went. Sniff! Was soo good to have a friend from home visit (well not that Suzie is from home but it seems like it).  Miss ya Suz!! 

The view from CristoRei

After all the adventure it was nice to get back to Same. We are currently 14 days into a Sober- October and going strong! We are on a mission that we like to call “Operation Fitness Model.” (#OFM). We are working out most days but it’s hard to counteract all the carbs and packet noodles we are eating here... We bought an oven that goes on the gas stove which has not helped because now we can bake and make pizza.

I’ve started working in the hospitals and clinic which is really cool. I helped out with the birth of a little Timorese baby girl the other day. The midwives are all really lovely and welcoming, so my average working day is now a fair bit more interesting.

Yesterday we went down to the local beach called Betano which is about half an hour away. We went with the Cuban Doctors and a few Portuguese teachers who are living in Same. So it’s a language mix up but although communication is a challenge hanging out with friendly people is fun. Probably the most fun thing was watching Ben’s face as he watched the Cuban men dancing salsa on the beach in there speedos. As Ben said, “Too much wang…” We had a bit of a cautious swim as the south coast is notoriously croc infested and there have been a few recent fatalities.

Our local beach!

Here are a few shots of the newborn monkey down at our local servo. One of the cutest things I have ever seen, only a few days old. Was pretty sad though as they told me that they ate his Mum and the monkeys here are tied up or in cages all the time. I didn’t have high hopes for the monkey’s survival being soo young but every day as we drive past, 2 weeks later he is still alive.

 

So today Ben was off to Dili bright and early with work on a bus full of 35 children. You can imagine his joy on a Sunday morning. They are doing a big event in Dili which I’m sure he can fill you in on during the next Blog. So I’m having a relaxing day, chilling out on the balcony and have finally written the blog that Ben has been nagging me to do. Missing you all back home and in 2 months today we will be heading home for our xmas holiday. Enjoy the weather as it starts to warm up, the tables are starting turn as the seasons here start to change from dry to wet.  Can’t wait to see a few new people in the world, baby Hudson and Lachie and a few round tummies with babies on the way!

Lots of love, Bemo xxx

PS Some photos courtesy of Suzie, as I managed to loose one of my cameras L

Our house, in the middle of our hill

Hey!

So as I said in my last blog we finally got to move into our new house! We have been here just over 2 weeks now and it is fantastic. Last weekend I took a few pics of the house and thought I would just post them here on the blog and show you guys where we are living! Going to be a record number of photos in this blog, so less of me writing! yay for everyone :-)

It’s been called by more than one person the best house in rural Timor and you would be hard pressed to disagree. It does look like a Canadian wood log cabin and for good reason, the lady that owns it is Canadian. She married into a Timorese family and their family owns the land where the house is. When I say their family owns it I mean that our landlords own our house, next door is her brother in laws house, at the bottom of the hill are a few houses which have other sisters and brothers in them and around the corner but still on the hill are a few more houses which have all sorts of cousins and other family members in them.

Here is the house! It was only built about 2 years ago and up until a few months ago they rented it out sporadically as a guest house for people coming to Same for the weekend or for a short stay, a week or so.  But as of the tenants before us, two UNVs who were there for a few months it’s now  a permanent residence for people like us, who will be staying for a year or two at a time. We were just lucky enough to get here at around about the right time, as compared to this place there isn’t anything anywhere near as good in Same. 

Pics from the front of the house

Toilet/Outhouse on the left hand side

There are actually 2 toilets, besides having small pipes in the loos they do their job

Both of them look the same inside, you will notice no shower though, its bucket showers for us!

Here are a few pics of the verandah/porch/balcony area

The hammock

Our breakfast/dinner table

The view from our breakfast table, with your head turned slightly to the left

View directly in front of the table, notice my friend the rooster stalking my yard, more on him later...

Head turned to the right

Nemo studying hard

So glad I never became a nurse....

 

The view off the back of the verandah, when I move that thing behind the bikes

View from the kitchen window

Me in the hammock

Kitchen window view again, just at different times of the day

Now to the inside of the house. Its a kit house type thing, so it has an open ceiling, though there are mesh type things in the ceiling in the awnings so that no bugs can get in. It has 4 rooms, one is our bedroom, one we have made into a living room/tv room, we have a storage room and a spare bedroom. The kitchen is in a big open L shaped area which has the front door and back door at either end of the L

Kitchen, gas stove, sink, fridge, back door is just out of shot on the left

Open ceiling

Kitchen bench

Front door

Living room, where we watch tv on the laptop and Nemo beats me at chess

More open ceiling

Storage room

Spare room, where any of you can come and stay, we have a spare bed and a few more spare mattress'!!!!

We have a lot of wildlife in and around our place. Here are just a few pics of the menagerie that usually is our front yard/house. I posted a pic in an earlier blog of this reindeer, who lives next door with his 2 girlfriends, though sometimes they are tied up right out the front of our place on the soccer goals. 

There are a herd of cows, maybe 7 of them that sometimes wander up to the top of the hill for a little munch, they came up the other night as Nemo and I were having a tinnie on the porch.

There are a few dogs in the neighbourhood, who they all belong to I have no idea. Nemo has been keen on getting a pet for ages, she doesn’t care if it’s a dog, cat, goat, monkey or chicken, in fact she has wanted each one more than once and made a pitch, but I put the foot down and she hasn’t gotten any of them. Until this little fella came along one afternoon and she decided to feed him all our leftover chicken in the fridge. He still isn’t our dog, but he certainly spends a lot of time out the front of our house these days.

At one point we did have a pet rat, intended or not. Just after we moved into the house we noticed a bit of mouse poo and some things had been eaten or chewed on and we figured out we had mice. The first night it was a box of sultanas, the next night they chewed through a mesh bag and a cardboard box just to chew on and leave teeth marks in Nemo’s spare asthma puffer ….. WTF right. Anyway after that we had all the food in airtight boxes and I used electrical tape to block the gap under the door where he was getting in. That didn’t stop him, apparently he didn’t mind chewing right through that. We had a couple of noisy nights where he was scurrying around looking for things to eat, which was especially disconcerning as our mattress is on the floor atm while we are looking for a half decent bed frame….. Anyway, long story short, one night we went out for dinner and mr mouse, or should I say Mr Huge Rat, thought the house was dark and he would take a look around. So we came in and turned the lights on, giving him, and Nemo the frights of their lives, she screamed, he ran for the hole under the door he has just re-chewed through. He was a good size, way too big for my liking, so I started baiting bread and chicken meat that night, he was a resilient bastard, he always ate it all, but it took about 3 nights of baiting for him to finally die, unless there were more than one of them, anyway we haven't had another one since, so that’s a win for us I reckon.

And then there was the rooster. The most magical, majestic and regal rooster I have seen in Timor. He is a stunning specimen of a cock, royal green tail feathers, a large puffed up breast area, much bigger than your standard Timor rooster, this proud rooster has lead an indulgent and comfortable life. If he didn’t live right next door to me I am sure that I would love this rooster, but he does, so I don’t. In fact to say I don’t love him doesn’t do it justice, I HATE this rooster. He is a cheeky, sneaky, arrogant bastard of a bird that loves nothing more than to piss me off. He skulks around the outside of the house and crows at the windows, goes under the house and crows directly underneath my bed while we are sleeping. When I go outside to yell/stare/throw things at him he flees at full speed back to his side of the yard. His house is about 20 metres from ours, the noise from there is acceptable, the noise from him and his posse of hens under the house while I’m sleeping is not….. He is a crafty bird though, even whilst I am outside on the balcony reading, I’ll be watching him on his side of the yard, but…. If I take my eyes off him even for one minute the next thing I know he is nowhere to be found and before long, there will be an almighty crow from right behind me, no more than a metre away from the porch and then he will scuttle back to his side of the yard, it’s a crow-and-run or a drive-by-crowing. I hate that cock!

Well and truly too close to my house...

There is good news though, we have a house manager, who lives down the road, we call on him if we need things fixed or anything like that. In a conversation we had with him last week Naomi mentioned that the Rooster was very loud and that would it be appropriate if we asked the neighbours to tie it up on the far side of the house. To which he simply replied ‘maybe you don’t need it tied up, maybe it dies, maybe tomorrow it will be dead, it can’t make any noise if it’s dead’……We are pretty sure our house manager is organising a hit on the cock, which got us pretty excited, though it’s been a letdown so far, the cock is still crowing….

Nemo went for a walk the other day and it turns out one of our neighbours has a monkey. Apparently they are native to the Timor jungles, not that we have seen one, we only see them when they are tied up like this....

So what animals have I covered so far, cows, reindeer, dogs, rats, monkeys, chickens, there is a really cute mother goat with 2 little babys around the corner, I will have to try and get a photo of that soon, our next door neighbour has a pretty big pig, I was almost stung by a scorpion that lives on our water tank but the last one I will bore you with is geckos. 

I never knew until I came to Timor that geckos make noise, it’s a clicky/squaky noise, I was adamant that it wasn’t the geckos making that noise that I heard everywhere at night time, but it seemed as if I was the last person in the world to find out that they make noise. Either that or in Australia the geckos are so small by comparison that you can’t hear the noise, so that’s why I didn’t know. Here in Timor geckos are everywhere, in the supermarket, the toilet, the kitchen, on every wall, in every house, everywhere. But your average gecko isn’t a few centremetres long like it is in Australia. Id say over here the average gecko is about twice the size of an Aussie gecko, but you do get some even bigger ones. The first pic is a small gecko on the window, but the second pic is a gecko trying to hide behind a hand cream lotion bottle, anyway the bottle is about 12-15cm tall, so that’s one big gecko!

Then came this …..thing. I am still not sure what it is, it could be a weirdly coloured lizard of some kind that I am not sure what it is, or it could be the worlds biggest gecko, one which would earn me some recognition in the Guiness World Record Books, or what I really think it might be is a new species of super gecko, undiscovered until now, in which case I would get to name it. Names getting thrown around are the Benjamin’s Gecko, Geckorat, Geckogrumper, Super-Gecko and Gecko-Dragon. We walked out of the living room and turned the lights on in the kitchen and I saw something large move up in the rafters, seeing as we had been having a rat problem I just instantly thought that it was the rat. But then I realised it was a lizard, its about the size of a decent sized beared dragon from back home, about 20cm long. At first I had no idea what it was, but then taking the photos of it I noticed its feet, very gecko like, and its colour, which you cant really see from the photo, but it was a pale greeny colour with bright coloured spots, which is the same as the smaller geckos around our house. Then I realised that I might have stumbled upon the mother of all geckos!

I’m not sure if I had mentioned it at any point yet but we got ourselves some wheels! Here is our hog

It’s a Honda Win 100, 4 speed manual, does 30kph in second gear, I’m not gonna lie, its pretty sick. Anyway its made getting to and from work a bit easier as our place is 3k up a hill from where our offices are, the push bike ride to work was a breeze, you don’t pedal, but the 10minute ride up a hill in first gear on the way home was a little annoying everyday. Anyway we took the hog for a spin on the weekend, past the local airport, through a village and to a river. Here are a few pics of the adventure.

Filling up the hog before we headed out

Same Airport

The suspension bridge

A fantastically timed photo taken by Nemo, no visible nudity!!

The suspension bridge

Nemo sitting in the river thinking about life…..or peeing, one of the two

A man and his horse crossing the river

Whats scarier that a Mohawk, a dude with a machete and a Mohawk!

Still not sure what she is doing....

Nemo and Mr Machete having a chat

 

On the way back we decided to use the landing strip at the airport to give Nemo a motorbike lesson, here are a few pics of her having a ball, she was a natural!

We also thought we should take a few pics from around town and show you what Same is like;

Here is our local butcher

The petrol station

The fish market

The clothes store

Truck delivering fruit to the market, the two open buildings behind the truck are the markets

Markets on the right, local rubbish disposal on the left.......thats it in a good state....

Something for Clitchell and Capon that we found in one of the stores

Every evening the front yard of our house is converted from the big open area into a fierce battle ground, all the boys from all the families on the hill come and play soccer, every night. They range in age from about 8 to 18 and sometimes the older uncles come out as well. These are a few pics of me having a game with them. They were so excited for me to come and play that it didn't matter how bad I was or how out of position I was they all just passing it to me. These kids grow up on soccer, they live and breathe it, so even the 12 year olds were killing me 1 on 1, they were taking the ball off me like it was candy and I was a newborn. That said, when I started playing the team I was on was down 0-2, when the chips had landed, the dust had settled and the game was done, the score was 4-2, and yours truly had kicked all 4 of the goals. I was a local hero and I may or may not have put my shirt over my head and run around like I was an aeroplane after I kicked a penalty goal that got us in front....

Thats about all we have time for this week, I'm sorry I know it was a little long, it was 2 entrys combined into one because we had been busy with a few things I hadn't had the chance to upload the first one earlier. We went back to Dili on the weekend to watch the footy and had an interesting trip back, so I'll try and do another short blog later in the week on that.

Ben and Nemo