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August 28, 2005
Laos is doing ... something
Because I'm not doing anything else right now (yay rainy days in the DRY SEASON -- WTF, MATE!), I was checking out people's blogs. Laos is doing ... something ... with their blog, and it involves bananas and Sam. I have no idea, but feel free to check it out. Side note: Their house is SO much nicer than mine is. You have no idea. Maybe I should take some photos of my house.
Posted by storbert at 3:17 AM | Comments (1)
August 27, 2005
How Old am I?
Here is the story of the week. Standing in a room our organization uses for training. It's day 4 â€" the last day of a Business Development Workshop that has gone quite well and done an excellent job of letting me know that my growth in comprehension of a language does not meant that I am at all gaining the ability to speak it. Nonetheless, the only two malae in the room for the whole week have been me and the program manager, both fair-skinned women. It creates an interesting power structure, in a society that often has more tinges of sexism than I have ever seen before, but I need not go into much detail on that. The story is simple, about three seconds long, to be precise, but it really struck me.
One of the participants who has been very friendly to me, and not at all shy like many of the others (asking questions and generally being inquisitive even about material that is not even on the training schedule) came up to me mid-day with one of the women in the program, and shyly asked if he could ask me a question. The question was one we would never get in the states: How old are you? I was taken aback for a second, and then I answered the truth: I'm 23. The young woman started laughing, covering her mouth and looking away as if she didn't want to offend me but still found something about my youth hysterical. I looked at them both, taken aback a bit (I mean, I know I'm young, but still …) when the man explained that she had been too shy to ask, but she just assumed I was much older, and he laughed too and said, "You are so tall, I thought you were older. But I'm 29, so I can call you my younger sister." And suddenly it all made sense â€" they were trying to figure out how to treat me. And the woman smiled even broader (if it was possible) and said happily, "I'm 23 too."
In a town where normally my age is quite an anomaly (few people here are as young as I am), I was suddenly grateful for being young. In a way, I think I can use it, perhaps to let people be more relaxed around me and less formal. Respect is wonderful, but it also creates a lot of distance, and I just want to be able to talk to people. Anyways, not much of a story, but I found it so enlightening that for a moment, it was the last thing in the world that I would think would let people talk to me that gave me my way in. Now all I have to do is make sure I don't grow up.
Posted by storbert at 1:44 AM | Comments (1)
August 26, 2005
Boats
Ok -- long awaited photo from Baucau.
Another photo from Dili -- again another boat. And a homeless man that I see every day on my way to work.
Posted by storbert at 12:52 AM | Comments (1)
August 19, 2005
The Drums of Timor
Nightlife here in Timor can get a bit ... repetitive. Not that I'm complaining, for I am quite grateful that there is such a thing as a nightlife at all. But last night, that all changed with one of the craziest displays of absolute fun I have ever seen, ever, anywhere. Ever seen Stomp? Yeah, this was better. Set out in a back lot of a construction site overshadowed by metal scaffolding and surrounded by trailers, fifty people managed to create music out of just about any material possible that could emit a sound: tires, empty petrol jugs, metal wiring, large overturned vats â€" you name it they had made an instrument out of it. There (before the place turned into a quasi-rave house), out in the open air the group just played drum with the most complex and interchanging rhythms you could imagine. This continued for over an hour, I'm sure, and I wish it hadn't ended. What an experience. I shall never complain about mundane-ness ever again.
Posted by storbert at 10:56 PM | Comments (0)
August 14, 2005
Back from Baucau
I'm back from a weekend in Baucau, and I'm afraid to report I only took one decent photo - and it's of a boat. Seems like I need to be making better use of that camera for sure. But it was a much-needed break. Sometimes the capital can become wearing - as beatiful as it can be - and a little peace and quiet is the best gift in the world. Now I'm going to go and sleep it off ;).
Ironically, however, I didn't see any nasty bugs at all while living in the little grass huts by the beach -- but the minute I get back home, what do I find in my room but a huge flying cockroach. So, I pull out my handy extra-large bottle of RID and chase the thing around the room. Finally spray it with enough toxin that I'm SURE it's going to die, but it manages to scuttle under my bureau. So, just as I'm about to muscle my bureau out of the way so I can make sure it's dead . . . (it's about 11 at night) . . . our power dies. So I'm sitting in the dark with a probably-dead massive bug. I just went to sleep. I think this is the truest sign that I'm becoming used to this place.
Posted by storbert at 7:51 PM | Comments (0)
August 9, 2005
Klutz Central
Fell on my face running. That's about all the updates I have lately. And really, it was just on my hands and knees. Oh, and if anyone reads this who is planning to come to Timor, bring band-aids. Here they are about a dollar apiece (not kidding). I've using a makeshift bandage of gauze pads and athletic tape to try and keep a large-ish cut on my hand relatively clean. And antibiotic ointment is the best thing ever invented.
It was definitely one of the lowest moment I've had here, however, when after I'd fallen (bloody and obviously in pain), the first person to come up to me was a kid who couldn't have been older than 12 carrying tangerines, and all he said to me was, 'Tangerines, Mises?' I have to say that I was close to crying â€" not because I was in that much pain, because it wasn't that bad really, but because it was suddenly very clear to me just how much of a foreigner I really am to some people. Ah well, no great experience is without it's moments of sheer and utter disappointment. We all just have to get up (in my case literally), clean up, and move on.
Posted by storbert at 12:38 AM | Comments (0)
August 5, 2005
Sira hasai hau-nia photo
My newest update is actually an old story â€" as it happened over a few weeks ago â€" but I never got around to writing it down. It has to do with photos, and finally understanding what it's like to be on the other end of the viewfinder. See, I love taking photos, but I hate being in them. There are so many things in Timor that are either shocking or beautiful, and usually these images are found right next to each other. Hence, a camera can be a valuable asset. I also thought that it would be okay to take pictures of people â€" I always ask, and people love seeing the digital image of themselves on the back of the camera. But one day, little unsuspecting me found that I too, could be an object worthy of photographing.
My favorite restaurant here is called FM41 â€" it stands for 4 feto, 1 mane, as the owner has five children: four girls and one boy. It's a hole in the wall, almost literally, with red-checkered plastic tables and food that stands out in the open, accompanied by iced tea with an overdose of sugar on the bottom of your cup. On the other hand, you get excellent Indonesian fried food with rich curries and lots of vegetables (essential eating for a woman who still hasn't figured out how to cook at home), for a little over a buck. I love the place.
I sometimes go there my coworkers, but sometimes I just dart over to shovel food in my mouth and then run back to work. They've gotten used to the big, white foreigner who prances around in white linen and still, for the life of me, can't understand the price of my meal in Indonesian numbers. But a couple weeks ago, the strangest thing happened: I got photographed. Sitting alone, shoveling food, I noticed one of the kitchen staff standing across the room pointing a camera in my direction. 'Strange,' I thought, 'But whatever,' and continued shoveling. He left, I ate, all was good. Then, my mysterious photographer returned this time with a friend who held the camera, and proceeded to stand next to me, smiling hugely at the camera. I suddenly had great sympathy for movie stars and the annoyances of the paparazzi. I'm no movie star â€" I'm a girl who wants to eat friend egg and jackfruit. But, considering I was, after all, in my favorite restaurant and I try to be as friendly as possible to my quirky waiters, I smiled hugely at the camera too and thought, 'Oh hell, I just hope I never see this.'
Paying for my meal (what did it cost? Satu dollar something cents? Huh?) I asked the nice lady who always jokes around with me and compliments my Tetun why the guy had taken my photo. She smiled, shyly and said in the most distinct Tetun phrase, 'Nia gosta ita boot.' [He likes you]
. . . we have a word for this in American. It's called, 'Messed.' Trying to pretend like that didn't faze me; I asked what he was going to do with it. She smiled again and pointed at the wall next to me. 'We're going to put it there,' she said. At this point, daunted with the prospect of facing my own idiotic grin on the walls of my favorite restaurant for the next year, I drew the line. The conversation there on out was not exactly coherent, but I did manage to negotiate that the photo be kept in the back room until I leave the country. I guess I should be grateful for small victories.
So there it is. My story of photos. That's all folks, cause I'm going to the beach! Woohooo for Saturday!
Posted by storbert at 11:44 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 4, 2005
Ben's Blog
In blog news, Ben Applegate has a hysterical blog going for his PiA adventure. Admittedly, I haven't been good at reading everyone's blogs, but I recommend reading his post on fresh-of-the-boatness in Korea. He refers to how he relates his Korean experiences to Japan. In Timor, I have a tendency to relate everything here to Mexico. Hmm . . . strange.
Also, the picture he is using on his header is fantastic! I need to find something of equal humor here. Perhaps a photo of a dead chicken . . .
Posted by storbert at 12:47 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
August 3, 2005
Oho Manu
I'm still on the story kick. So here's the story about animals. I wish there were more of a story about animals instead of me just wondering how I was ever a vegetarian. If you are a vegetarian, stop reading here. You will hate me otherwise. Actually, screw that. Read and hate me.
Anyone who thinks that life is anything other than Darwinism is a complete twat. This world is all against all, people, and never forget it. Animals are the perfect example of this fact. The chickens of this country (manu) are trying to slowly kill me through sleep deprivation. They don't realize that DARKNESS = SLEEP. I feel like giving them a thorough lesson about this fact. I friggen show 'em darkness. I feel like being the night-time vigilante that stalks the most obnoxious of obnoxious chickens with a .22 at four in the morning. I'd wear black and a bloody (lit.) chicken feather in my hat and stalk the brainless bastards. I'd then leave the precisely assassinated corpses on the porches of their owners, for them to enjoy in whatever way they see fit, I don't care as long as the thing meets his maker and attempts to give a plausible explanation about why it is necessary to turn every living creature's sleep around it into a living, waking nightmare.
Someone told me that I would get used to the things within a week. L-I-A-R. Let's just say that I am getting remarkably fit because there is nothing to do at 5 in the morning but go running on the beach and try to forget the misery of massive sleep deprivation. I also have rediscovered my carnivore instinct. I will, I promise myself, personally eat through timor's entire chicken population. I will drive prices so high for chicken meat that even the skinniest-necked thing will be slaughtered in greed.
Dogs, I can't strike such vengeance. They too are responsible for my anguished coffee-filled mornings, but they look so pathetic and scrawny in the morning that I can't bring myself to imagine eating them.
Pigs . . . ahh pigs. Pork can be gross, inherently at times. Fat lines dripping off of pink-slug-like strings. I shudder, but I eat it. The animals are mean and territorial. They think my road is theirs. I mean, it's not really mine, in fact I am quite a stranger and eternally an outsider on it â€" but WHY can a pig chase me off my own lane. Well, if it's like the 300-pound gorilla. These things are so massive they can do whatever they want. Include scare the bejinkens out of me when walking home after dark. I don't understand why this wasn't taught in philosophy class â€" it's essential to living: when faced with an angry pig, do not think, run!
Deer. Actually, the deer aren't so bad. They're kind of funny, really. They have to be tied up because unlike every other mentally incapacitated animal inhabiting my neighborhood, if you let them loose they would actually bolt. Come to think of it, so would I, but that's another story. I don't like eating venison anyways, so no biggie. On with the run-down.
Goats. I don't eat goats either, but the things are actually the best entertainment this country has to offer. They also have the most remarkably expressive eyes I have seen in eons. I could almost imagine the kids to be, actual, well, kids. That aside, this big, black billy goat in our front yard eats everything. Shoes, bark, plastic. I wish I had a digestive system as stable as this guy's. If only he'd eat all the insects.
Actually, come to think of it â€" never mind. Animals aren't that bad. CHICKENS ARE EVIL. This is the moral of my story. Eat more chicken.
Posted by storbert at 3:33 AM | Comments (1)