Tag: East Timor
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My post-Timor planu
Most people I know here in Timor-Leste know three key geographical facts about my life: 1) that I’m from Perth; 2) that I lived in Melbourne before I came here; and 3) that Felix, my boyfriend, is currently studying in Melbourne. So it’s understandable that in most conversations about my departure, people are asking whether…
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What’s Dili weather like?
I grew up in temperate Perth, where we have four strict seasons and a near-total lack of humidity. For that reason, Timor-Leste’s muggy humidity has repeatedly surprised and totally confused me. As I head into my last week of living here, I’m thinking more than ever about the girl I was this time two years…
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New, new Dili favourites
At the beginning of this year I made a list of my new favourite places to eat and drink in Dili, a year on from my first round-up list. A hilarious and frank friend told me of that later list, “I thought you were going to say some new places, but they were they same…
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March thoughts
Inside a tumble dryer this month turned me inside out upside down flip flop round and round. Big long stretches of deliberate, generous quiet; mad long days and giddy shrill nights; endless working days and the few first how are you feeling about leavings building slowly slowly quivering piccolo notes and louder now, crescendo crush, heading…
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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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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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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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Homegoing
Last night, on beach road outside Esplanada, as two carfuls of middle-aged Australian men hauled their suitcases out from the tray of the Hilux and shook strong handshakes, the bespectacled professor turned to me. We’d spent two days bumping through the hills and holes of Manatuto together on a project review field trip, and I’d…
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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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My cheesy Timor soundtrack
“I’m trying to hold… my breeeeath…” Has anyone seen The Greatest Showman? I have not. But this song from the film, called ‘Never Enough’. I think I’ve heard about forty times and its lyrics, which start with this one dramatic line, I could probably recite by heart. Because one day a couple of months ago,…
Sophie Rai Liur 