Tag: privilege
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The perfect malae
Last night, at a party, I was telling an incredulous friend an anecdote about a foreigner I’d worked with in Dili who, despite two-plus years of living here and the relatively simplicity of the language, couldn’t speak a word of Tetun. “And that’s not even the worst bit,” I said, caught up in my own…
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Activist abroad
It was stinking hot in Dili today. The thick open-oven-door heat of a 40-degree Perth day blasting out into a wet, sticky, muggy tropical afternoon. A Bikram yoga class at my front door. Sweat at the small of my back. My landlady and I, chatting idly on my porch, both agreed that while we’d each…
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Just not normal
Today began like most other days. I rolled out of bed, killed the fan, stumbled to my bathroom, and waited for the spittling shower to start running hot. And waited. Aaand waited. As it dawned on me that the temperature wasn’t changing, I steeled myself for a quick-and-cold hair-washing session. In and out, dressed and…
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Adara dive trip
I was out of Dili again this weekend, on a diving trip to Atauro Island. About an hour’s fast boat ride away from Dili, Atauro is home to some of the world’s most biodiverse coral reefs, which sit beneath pebbly, palm-fringed beach under a sky seeming endlessly blue. It’s hopelessly indulgent to write this, but…
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Why I ate on $1 a day
Most of you would know that this week, I’ve been taking part in Live Below the Line – a fundraising campaign that challenges participants to eat on the Australian equivalent of the extreme poverty line. In Timor-Leste, that’s 88 US cents per day. It’s something I’ve taken part in annually for the last six years…
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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…
Sophie Rai Liur 