et early days - the bare bones

I have been in East Timor two weeks and loving it, even though the heat is hot! It is also beautiful, desolate in parts, and terribly poor. Actually they do have money from the Timor Sea petroleum resources and many international donations, but it is taking a while for things to improve (roads, power, health etc). But work is in progress.

I am working in a local health clinic as a volunteer three days/week, and will start a two day/week consultancy with a health provider soon. R is working for a government ministry and I will leave him to tell his own story if he wishes.

We are currently living in the Hotel Dili which is comfortable, clean, well air conditioned and friendly. Breakfast is a mammoth networking opportunity (someone I met told the manager of the health provider I was a nurse, then I had my second job - one of many examples apparently). When lucky there is muesli or similar cereal but we are occasionally reduced to coco pops and chocolate shredded wheat (don't touch it). a gecko has just taken up residence and I suspect a small black mouse also - it moved more like a mouse than a cockroach in the half light of dawn. The sea is just across the road but we can't swim there because the sewerage outlet is also across the road into the sea. In the early morning the sea and sky merge into a gray sheet and the boats actually look like they are floating on air rather than water. We have arranged to move in to a one bedroom apartment on Dec 1, a mixed blessing in terms of social life perhaps. Most of the other apartment people seem to be Portuguese, so may be just a change rather than decrease of contact. And there is a swimming pool, only small but inviting. R is even more pleased than I, plus he does not have to maintain it. I am even starting to look forward to cooking again, though not every night!