Little Miss Moi

Life in Timor-Leste

Category Archives: Life


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International Women’s Day…

Today is International Women’s Day.

My experiences with this day in the past seven years have been varied. In Ukraine, and all of the Former Soviet Union, the day is a public holiday to celebrate the fact that women do everything for their men and children in those countries. It is basically akin to Mother’s Day.

When I came back to Australia, I was surprised to notice how politically charged the day can be (in a good way of course!) with many many feminist undertones. (DUH I hear you say. But after experiencing three years worth of it in the FSU, you’d be surprised as well).

I tell you, most people who get behind IWD in Australia would cringe at the fact that in the FSU it means that women receive flowers, get waited on hand and foot and basically rejoice in their femininity rather than their feminism.

And then, when I was working in the Northern Territory, I was lucky enough to be involved in the 100 years of International Women’s Day celebrations. It provided me with a great insight to really understand how important the event is to both women and men in Australia. It was also wonderful to see more great Territory women being honoured, as they are year after year.

I’m not sure how the day will pan out in Timor-Leste. I’m guessing that most women here have no idea that today is International Women’s Day, and with the withdrawal of the United Nations late last year, there will be even less of an emphasis. I’ll be keeping my eyes peeled, and I’ll report back in the case that I’m completely mistaken.

***

On another note, I have tentatively started a new blog project in collaboration with a couple of other International Women – Corinne and Carly. We’re a little slow off the mark and it will always be a work in progress, but I don’t want to rest on my laurels forever.

Wandering Women is the new blog, and I hope that it will be a collection place for all the stories of many women who I meet from around the world, sharing their experiences of wandering. I can’t promise excitement, but bookmark it and visit occasionally ;)

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How are you celebrating International Women’s Day?


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The Empty Water Bottle (a hate letter in poem form)

I hate changing water.
Every third day
the bottle runs empty
and I’m filled with dismay.

The empty bottle is there
high on the bench
staring at me
like I’m a kitchen wench.

It bubbles, says plolop –
the water is gone.
It taunts me to change it.
I’m a mere sad pawn.

With a groan and a sigh
I give the bottle a wash.
It’s time for a new one
but I’ll lose half in the slosh.

I hoist up the bottle –
all nineteen litres.
From my shoulder I chuck it
to the container; it teeters…

With one final hoist
it goes over the edge,
upside down in the dispenser
perched on the ledge.

And with the now full bottle
I cook with glee
anything with water,
no worries for me.

Because I don’t have to change it
for at least a few days…
But-oh-how I wish for town water
T’would be a novel craze.


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Mixing things up a bit

One thing my recent holiday demonstrated to me was how much a miss walking.

Now, I am not an athlete by any stretch of the imagination. I am a plodder. Which actually suits my preferred style of exercise just fine – walking fairly slowly but for a long long time. For example, in 2007, the Mr and I walked the West Highland Way in Scotland. Seven days of plodding. It was great.

We recently spent 10 days in Vietnam soaking up the sights and sounds of our computers, tablets, kindles and phones Hoi An, a UNESCO heritage listed town near Da Nang in the centre of Vietnam.

Cafeing in Hoi An

The plan was to relax by the beach – 10 days in one spot is THE LONGEST we have spent in one holiday spot EVER (except for when we visit parents) and I booked it for that long because I wanted to force us to relax and just enjoy the beach.

Unfortunately, the weather had other ideas.

Seriously, can someone tell me if there is a cyclone brewing off Vietnam?

It was the monsoon season in Hoi An, and there were some lovely cool, rainy days.

It kinda looks a bit choppy out there...

Great for us, crap for the kids and our plan to tire them out by throwing them in the pool every day. So we spent a lot of time visiting the old town and walking around, exploring each little nook and cranny.

Art store in #hoian #vietnam

Lantern goodness in #hoian #vietnam

This weekend was our second weekend back in Dili, but the first weekend ‘back to normal’ – last weekend we had a whingey, whiney sick little Harrie to deal with.

Being Saturday morning, I thought it would be a nice treat to go out for breakfast. The catch – I wanted to walk there.

There are a few places within walking distance from our house, but the roads here don’t have footpaths and don’t have proper drainage so at the moment, things are very muddy. However, I insisted it would be no trouble – it was early, not too hot, not too busy, and it was only a 10 minute walk.

After walking for five minutes, the Sprog had fallen over and we were sick of climbing over fences in order to walk on grass and avoid the traffic. And we were getting really sick of every. single. taxi. that drove past slowing down, beeping the horn and trailing us to convince us to hop in.

The Sprog wanted to be carried so I picked her up, not really looking where I was stepping. Next thing, my leg flew out from underneath me as I fell down into the mud. If you want to picture what I looked like, I was genuflecting down on my left leg in a puddle of mud.

Props to me though, I didn’t drop either the kid or my handbag. I just stood up, said, “Well that was fun,” (SARCASM) and kept walking.

When I washed my leg off, the damage wasn’t so bad. Just skin grazes that are a bit ouchy but nothing major. Hopefully some Timorese taxi drivers got a slight kick from the sight of the big malae lady going knee surfing in the mud. And Mr is refusing to ever walk to breakfast in Dili again.

ETA: This post was inspired by Carly at Confessions of a 30 Something Woman and her post “Pushing outside the comfort zone”


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When America came to Timor

Dili is currently a very international city, as a result of its tragic history. There is a UN mission in Timor, UNMIT, which is winding up as we speak. There are people from literally all over the world contributing to the workforce and Police force as part of the mission. Within a few months, though, the ubiquitous white SUVs with massive black letters U N plastered on the side will be a distant memory.

Many countries have independent or integrated missions here too. For example, there is the Australian Defence Cooperation Program (DCP) and the Portuguese GNR (I will very shallowly admit that they are good eye candy), and recently the US Military visited Dili, from where (I think) they then move onto the districts for 6-month stints doing whatever they do (building roads and health checks I think is the most likely).

America arrived in Dili in three warships – one absolutely massive one and two smaller ones. The massive one was an aircraft carrier, and the sound of choppers doing exercises around Dili and the hills surrounding became commonplace. Then, on the final weekend before they left, the noise of choppers became incessant. And extremely loud. And JUST. WOULDN’T. STOP.

Then one of my neighbours happened to mention that the choppers were flying in and out of the US Embassy (definitely the biggest Embassy in Timor), so I decided to go and have a sticky beak.

As we arrived, we got buzzed…

But most impressive was seeing one of these choppers sitting on the lawn of the Embassy.

Going…

Going…

Gone!

Just a bit of random.

 

 


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The birthday whirlwind

Starting with the rising of Virgo in the Zodiac (is that how it’s said? I wouldn’t have a clue because I’m a newspaper Zodiac-er and that’s about it) we have what I shall henceforth refer to as the birthday bash whirlwind.

Within the space of three weeks we have:

  • The Mr’s birthday
  • My Mum’s birthday
  • The Sprog’s birthday
  • Father’s Day (technically not a birthday but a gift giving obligation)
  • Harrie’s birthday.

 

And then six months later in March, we have my birthday. I’m way out there on my own in terms of my little family, BUT I do have company in terms of my family – my big sister’s birthday is a week before me, and my parent’s wedding anniversary is in between.

However, in my day-to-day life, I am an island of Aries-cusp-Pisces in a sea of Virgos. (I don’t know much about Zodiac, but according to everything I’ve read, Aries are incompatible with Virgos. Uh oh!)

So, here’s a little recap of the celebrations of the birthday whirlwind. And poor Harrie, by the time I got to her birthday yesterday, I really was thinking “Oh f**k, another cake”…

First we have the Mr’s birthday. I remember when he turned 30, it was the day after he arrived in Oz from a 36 hour travel period from Kiev, Ukraine. And I dragged him to antenatal classes. The Sprog was born a week and a half later.

Then we have the Sprog’s birthday. I believe in practical gifts for kids. The Sprog got some trainers that she needed for school, as they have PE class and her faux-Crocs (Faucs?) are not allowed.

She loves opening gifts. She was particularly taken with the dodgy Chinese bag that her gift came in.

Here she is in her 4-year-old glory, looking massive and grown up. The change between three years and four is incredible. She’s now definitely a girl, not a toddler!

Enjoying her cake (which I bought – as I’d made her muffins to take to school and I couldn’t be bothered to make another cake!)

What I failed to document in pictures was the Sprog’s first real birthday party. Last year, she crashed her best friend’s birthday party (the mum was happy for us to do this) but only one other kid showed up. This year we invited all the kids in her class (there are only seven of them) and they all came, and they all had fun. And I didn’t take one photo. But the Women’s Weekly cupcakes were a hit!

And here we are on Harrie’s birthday on Sunday. For Harrie’s birthday, we went to the beach where two other little babies were celebrating their first birthdays.

In case you haven’t realised, Dili is like Darwin – lots of babies around. I guess there’s not much else to do ;)

These days I’ve given up bringing the Sprog’s togs to the beach as she HATES the water. That was, until Sunday. When I didn’t have togs. So she spent the morning swimming in her clothes. And she LOVED it.

Oh this is just the view from the beach. Nothing spesh.

Harrie really loved the water too but I’m a paranoid mum and this little one has had two ear infections already in her short life, so I am not taking risks. I am keeping her out of the water for as long as possible… Yes, call me cruel.

Here’s a horrible selfie. I was actually trying to caputre Harrie’s eye colour, which is still quite undefinable – grey/blue/green. Hard to tell. This photo did not confirm anything except that she’s cute.

The Mr did his fatherly duties by repeatedly dunking the baby’s feet in the water as the tide came in.

I really love that this beach has so much shade. There are trees all along the shore line, which is rare in Australia. I am so sun adverse, which is why in general I am not a beach person. The shade also makes the beach a very pleasant place to hang out, not hot and impossible like the Queensland beaches in summer.

To sum up, I think the three of them have all enjoyed their birthdays this year.

Stay tuned for photos of Harrie’s cake, because we haven’t managed to keep her up long enough at night to actually cut it yet.

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