My ten favourite things about living in Dili, at the end of my fourth month here:

1. Climbing a mountain with some good new friends
2. Eating kilos of cheese after descending a mountain with said good new friends
3. Diving Adara
4. Walking in Timor-Leste’s first-ever Pride march
5. Two Manatuto trips (coffee festival, lazy beach day)
6. Mail from Mum
7. Eating Aileu’s best chocolate-chip cookies with a new long-distance friend
8. Adding Atsabe to the to-visit list
9. Tangerinas, and other small tastes of home
10. Depending, again, on the kindness of strangers

My ten least favourite things about living in Dili, at the end of my fourth month here:

1. Depending, again, on the kindness of strangers
2. Missing another friend’s baby’s birth
3. Remembering, again, that I don’t actually know everything
4. Not knowing Tetun
5. Looming anxiety
6. Things going slowly
7. The start of the dry season and six weeks without rain
8. Forgotten watercress going mouldy in my fridge
9. Ass-grabbing labariks
10. Feeling left behind