Category: Work
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The Australian Volunteers application process
I came to Timor-Leste in March last year as a volunteer with the Australian government’s AVID program. I’ve been asked a couple of times since then what the application process was like, and I thought it could be useful to prospective applicants to spell it out here. A quick note that the program’s name and…
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Three things foreigners are good for
I’ve written here before about how I think good foreigners in Timor-Leste are the ones who cause little harm and make things about people other than themselves. While I concede that there are actually foreigners here working hard and doing great things, for the very most part, I think we’re generally awkward outsiders who don’t really…
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Pancakes, panic, and perfectionism
Last week, Felix and I invited friends over for dinner. We cooked thin Korean egg pancakes and stuffed them with vegetables, tofu, avocado; we sat on cushions around the lounge table and laughed and told stories over cups of silky soju; we realised at eleven o’clock it was a weeknight and we should all probably sleep…
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Who tells Timor-Leste’s stories?
Felix and I were at Nari’s, the Korean restaurant, for dinner last night. We were eating dumplings on the balcony and catching up on our days, and I mentioned to him with not a small amount of pride that I’d had some good feedback on the freelance piece I’d written for the Interpreter about last…
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A new Plan.
In my April summary I shared an exciting piece of work news: I’ve just accepted a new role at Plan International here in Dili, and I’ve summarily scaled-down my freelance writing work to incorporate a new full-time communications workload. I struggled with full-time freelancing. I found managing my time, energy and money exhausting and anxiety-inducing,…
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March, an update
Read about what I got up to in January and February. I felt busy this month, but the scatty, rough kind of busy where you’re trying to do five things and once and not doing any of them particularly well. But on Thursday, the third-last day of this month, as I was finishing up a…
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A field trip packing list
Over the last twelve months, I’ve taken quite a few field trips around Timor-Leste for work, and I’d like to think I’m usually well-prepared. But after packing four skirts, a pair of sandals and a novel for a week in chilly Ainaro late last year, I turned to a friend, an engineer and seasoned field-tripper,…
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February, an update
My January update is here, if you missed it. A big month! The tailend of the wet season and my first full month of freelancing. I’ve felt scatty and zipping with live electricity; the feeling before the clouds crack open and the late-afternoon rains come. In February, I consolidated. To-do lists. Budget spreadsheets. Goal trackers.…
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I forgot that it would be fun.
A confession: just over a year ago, when I was preparing to depart Australia for Timor-Leste, I let myself get very nervous, anxious, scared and worked up about my trip. I think that’s understandable: then, I was a solo 24-year-old who’d never lived overseas before preparing to uproot her life to work in a low-income…
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I’m leaving early.
I’m writing today with some news: tomorrow, January 29, will be my last official day at RAEBIA, and the last day of my AVID assignment. You might have seen my post last week, where I acknowledged the halfway mark of my assignment and reflected on what I wish I’d known before I began. And you…
Sophie Rai Liur 