ShoppingForDinner

Doug has become a bargaining wizard with all the fruit peddlers that we meet. From them we buy fresh pineapples, mangos,bananas, avocados, apples, oranges, and watermelon. There are also a huge array of fruits that we can't identify and we are trying to work up the courage to try them. Most of the vendors speak only Tetun and our Tetun isn't good enough to understand their explanations. We have to be careful to eat only fruit and vegetables that we peel ourselves, or are well cooked. The water situation is tricky. The only water we drink comes from sealed bottles and we even need it to brush teeth. Beer however is perfectly safe, so we feel compelled to play it safe and drink lots of beer.

TheBoatingGoatsOfEastTimor

These are our neighbors

ImagesOfEastTimor

The shack next door to our hotel. The pigs continue to get loose and the goats are always in the road. The fisherman/farmers who live here supplement there income with a tiny store operated out of a side window of their shack.

ExploringEastTimor

While looking for volunteer opportunities we also had time to get to know this amazing country. There continues to be evidence of the wars that raged here, but the majority of buildings are new and you can find construction going on everywhere. There is a contrast between the attempts to rebuild and the many people living in grass topped huts throughout the area (although they now have huge TV dishes). They continue to fish and raise pigs, chickens and goats, while the government actively makes changes to turn East Timor into a modern tourist mecca. To date, we have met no other tourists, but the potential is here to be a major tourist destination.

TheBestOfContactsInEastTimor

The stars aligned when we met Daryl aka Daisy of the Dili Hash Harriers. The Hashers are a world wide running club started in the 1930s. They call themselves a "drinking club with a running problem," and in Dili, the 50+ members just happen to be composed of the leaders in the expatriot community charged with the task of getting East Timor back on its feet. We were actively looking for volunteer opportunities and we struck gold when Daisy invited us to join the Hashers for one of their Saturday races. A side benefit was meeting this extraordinary group of fascinating people. Their jobs are essentially traveling all over the world, living in the most exotic and tough conditions, helping countries in need. It takes a special person to do this and they tend to play just as hard as they work, as we found out first hand.