Category: Observations about Dili
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One day it’ll all be funny
Start your story with the words ‘loron ida’, one day. One day, loron ida, about a year ago, I was sweaty and mortified in the secondhand clothes shacks on one one of my first, over-confident OB shopping trips. I’d just tried to barter a $5 price down with what I thought was the Indonesian word for four,…
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Visible, vulnerable, vivacious: do I feel safe in Timor-Leste?
Do I feel safe in Timor-Leste? It’s a question I’ve been asked a few times, and a topic I haven’t addressed directly on this blog. After work at my regular office job today I had to finish some transcribing for an article, and I decided I’d walk up to Kaffe Uut from home to…
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Three quick pieces of advice
I received a lot of advice before I moved to Timor-Leste — advice that covered everything from what medicines to bring over, to where to do my language lessons, to how to deal with creepy bosses, to how keep busy when bored. Over the last two years, I’ve turned over, considered, accepted and disregarded these…
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14 things living overseas has taught me about myself
A few weeks ago, I asked on my Instagram, as I do sometimes, what people would like to know about my life here in Timor-Leste. One reply: What have you learned about yourself moving overseas? I loved this question; I hated this question. It may surprise you to hear that a girl who’s published 192 sodden,…
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One way foreigners can help
Hi! If you’ve come here curious from Dili Expats, I’d love it if you could please read this whole post, including its post-script, before making a comment on that Facebook post. This blog is 1,044 words long, which will take you between four and five minutes to read. The last time I was back…
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A letter to myself, 749 days ago
Dear Sophie, Hello, from 2019 — it’s 4:41pm on a Thursday after Indonesian class, you’re sitting up at Castaway with the sea breeze coming in and the light just starting to fade and blush over the esplanade, and you’re thinking, as you have been lately, about comings and goings. You’ve lived in Timor-Leste for about seven…
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My landmarks in learning Tetun
A couple of weeks ago, my friend Laura and I signed up for Indonesian language classes. This surprised a couple of people, who asked us, fairly, why. We replied that we thought it would be fun; that we thought the language would be useful for us, and it’s got hundreds of thousands of speakers here…
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Practical tips for living in Dili
Over the two-ish years I’ve been writing on this blog, I’ve covered topics from anxiety and anorexia to Dili market shopping, catching microlets, and what to do when work forgets to invite you to the workshop. As I’ve mentioned several times, I started this blog partly to record my new life abroad for friends and…
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9 tips for driving in Dili
When I first moved to Dili I decided I wasn’t going to buy a car. No need, I thought, dismissively — I’d newly mastered my microlet-catching, felt confident enough with my Tetun that I could direct a yellow taxi, and also, sheepishly, felt too scared of Dili’s wayward haphazard traffic to actually contemplate driving in…
Sophie Rai Liur 