-
Photo essay: Hera tara bandu
Last week I attended a tara bandu ceremony in Hera, a village about 30 minutes out of Dili, with some colleagues from work and our office’s trusty old camera. Tara bandu is a traditional ceremony that regulates how land can be used and imposes punishment for breaking the rules. My NGO, RAEBIA, uses it to enshrine regulations…
-
Things I miss, month #2
Things separate from people I miss about living in Australia: Spinach, blue cheese, pears, almonds Library books Dental floss Things separate from people I don’t miss about living in Australia: $3.90 tram fares Using street names and numbers (“I live on the New Zealand Embassy street…”) Having to play it cool with a new friend…
-
Dear Sophie, six months from now
Six months ago, when I was living in Melbourne, I wrote myself a post called Dear Sophie, six months from now. I’m a sucker for nostalgia and went back to read it as soon as my calendar hit May. As my past self anticipated, I cringed a little reading back through the post – it’s…
-
Keeping your balance
Most Tuesday evenings, I do a yoga class at Dili Wellness run by my friend Emma. Every week, she takes us through a gentle ashtanga-like sequence that generally follows the same pattern of every other yoga class I’ve done – but with one notable exception. Emma puts the balancing poses near the end of the…
-
Everyday life in Dili
Whenever someone I know goes away, this bad habit I have of romanticising whatever it is I think they’re doing kicks in like clockwork. Whether it’s a mate backpacking Sri Lanka or an old colleague holed up in a Singaporean skyscraper, I immediately – and jealously – decide that they’re yammering fluently in an exotic-sounding language…
-
Top and bottom 10, month #2
My ten favourite things about living in Dili, at the end of my second month here: Friendships on fast-forward Pineapple icy poles 400 photos of the same epic Cristo Rei sunset Diving Green Buoy Practising terrible Tetun over the counter at Letefoho A DSLR hanging off my shoulder Papaya juice cut with lime Hanging out…
-
On boredom + quiet courage
When I started telling people I’d be moving to Timor to volunteer for a couple of years, a few of them said it seemed pretty brave. I shrugged them off with (faux) humility – not wanting to sound conceited – but internally, I agreed: I was petrified to leave Australia. This move was by far the…
-
A week la diak
One thing I love about Tetun: how many situations the (entirely underwhelming-sounding) phrase la diak can be deployed in. Supermarket out of soy milk? La diak. Phone missing? La diak. A baby in cardiac arrest in the hospital’s understaffed emergency room? La diak. Not good. Every time I express my surprise at the elasticity of phrases like that one…
-
Lucky people problems
As soon as the clock hit 5:30pm today, I was out of my chair, bag in hand, whipping to the bathroom to change into a T-shirt before waving a hasty goodbye as I hit the footpath. Tuesday is yoga day – if I leave work dead on time, I can make it to the 6:15pm…
-
FOMO for Fitzroy
Scrolling through old phone photos in a never-ending quest to free up my iPhone storage space, I ran into a trove of pictures I’d taken in my last few weeks living in Melbourne. Buried behind rows of Dili sunsets and sweat-streaked selfies sit neat shots of my Victorian terrace house; croissants captured halfway through a…
-
Follow
Following
Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
Sophie Rai Liur 