I arrived yesterday afternoon in Dili with 19 other UNVs...and the President of the Republic, Ramos Horta.
Stepping off the plane onto the tarmac, the humidity greats us with a punch. There are palm trees and we can see the ocean to our right and the mountains in front. We walk on to the terminal towards a woman holding a 'UN Volunteers' plaque telling us to go get our passport stamped. The bureaucracy isn't much, they were expecting us anyways so we're quickly on our way to collect our bags and happily surprised that they actually made it through all the connections, except for Patricia, who came all the way from Brasil.
We are given our briefing packs and our sim cards and asked what hotel we want to stay at, apparently, the really nice one has already been occupied by the other batch of UNVs that arrived last week so we have to be divided into 3 different hotels.
On the road, on the way to the hotels, we traveled along the main road (there aren't many). The level of infrastructure and development is very low, lower than Vientiane... many buildings were destroyed, probably still remnants from the war.
The hotel I'm staying at is basic, certainly doesn't deserve the 35 dollars I'm paying per night, at least in comparison to all the other hotels I've visited in South East Asia (this one reminds me of the backpacker hostels that I stayed in with Isa in Vietnam and Cambodia where we payed max 15 and we shared). Apparently there are cockroaches in the rooms, I haven't seen them yet, only spiders...I also think I brought far too many clothes, typical!
I went for a walk around the hotel, the surroundings remind of Angola, and like all developing countries there is rubbish everywhere. Along the coast we see a few boats, people were lazing along, enjoying their Saturday afternoon, we walk around the block, we see the Government's Palace, the Portuguese Embassy, the European Union House, the University...we walked this block in less than 10 minutes...and that's Dili, the capital...to think that we are all going to the districts where the level of development is far lower really makes you want to enjoy the 3 weeks that we have in Dili! I'm not even sure I'll be able to continue blogging from the districts, let's hope!
At night we went for dinner on the beach with the other UNVs (well, not all of them, only the ones that arrived last week...we are 200 in total including those that arrived 6 months ago). The crowd is tired but excited, lots of new faces, new stories and experiences, this promises to be good. After dinner some of us decide to go dancing, others are too tired...I decided to go discover the nightlife of Dili (there are A LOT of bars here all catering to the expats of Timor). Like in Portugal, the party doesn't really start until midnight and by that time I'm exhausted but unfortunately here you can't get night taxis (well you can but you're gonna be paying more than you bargained), there aren't tuk tuks either and it isn't safe to walk at night unless you're in a big group so all you can do is wait until a few are ready to go, in the vehicles provided by the UNV (they seem to dominate the traffic here).
Sleep was blissful, until about 6am when a massive tropical storm woke me up, luckily I was so tired I still managed to sleep through it. It's the wet season at the moment here so grey skies and rain will dominate most of our days!
Tomorrow we start with the training, apparently they're really boring, according to the other UNVs and then we get to take a driving test...one of the requisites for the job was the ability to drive a 4x4...we also need to drive on the other side of the road....luckily, my Laos experience gives me confidence with 4x4s and my experience in England and Macau also help with driving on the other side, I don't think the driving will be a problem, the fastest you can drive here is 35km anyways!
I promise not to make the posts too long so I'll sign off for now...more to come from Dili soon
Stepping off the plane onto the tarmac, the humidity greats us with a punch. There are palm trees and we can see the ocean to our right and the mountains in front. We walk on to the terminal towards a woman holding a 'UN Volunteers' plaque telling us to go get our passport stamped. The bureaucracy isn't much, they were expecting us anyways so we're quickly on our way to collect our bags and happily surprised that they actually made it through all the connections, except for Patricia, who came all the way from Brasil.
We are given our briefing packs and our sim cards and asked what hotel we want to stay at, apparently, the really nice one has already been occupied by the other batch of UNVs that arrived last week so we have to be divided into 3 different hotels.
On the road, on the way to the hotels, we traveled along the main road (there aren't many). The level of infrastructure and development is very low, lower than Vientiane... many buildings were destroyed, probably still remnants from the war.
The hotel I'm staying at is basic, certainly doesn't deserve the 35 dollars I'm paying per night, at least in comparison to all the other hotels I've visited in South East Asia (this one reminds me of the backpacker hostels that I stayed in with Isa in Vietnam and Cambodia where we payed max 15 and we shared). Apparently there are cockroaches in the rooms, I haven't seen them yet, only spiders...I also think I brought far too many clothes, typical!
I went for a walk around the hotel, the surroundings remind of Angola, and like all developing countries there is rubbish everywhere. Along the coast we see a few boats, people were lazing along, enjoying their Saturday afternoon, we walk around the block, we see the Government's Palace, the Portuguese Embassy, the European Union House, the University...we walked this block in less than 10 minutes...and that's Dili, the capital...to think that we are all going to the districts where the level of development is far lower really makes you want to enjoy the 3 weeks that we have in Dili! I'm not even sure I'll be able to continue blogging from the districts, let's hope!
At night we went for dinner on the beach with the other UNVs (well, not all of them, only the ones that arrived last week...we are 200 in total including those that arrived 6 months ago). The crowd is tired but excited, lots of new faces, new stories and experiences, this promises to be good. After dinner some of us decide to go dancing, others are too tired...I decided to go discover the nightlife of Dili (there are A LOT of bars here all catering to the expats of Timor). Like in Portugal, the party doesn't really start until midnight and by that time I'm exhausted but unfortunately here you can't get night taxis (well you can but you're gonna be paying more than you bargained), there aren't tuk tuks either and it isn't safe to walk at night unless you're in a big group so all you can do is wait until a few are ready to go, in the vehicles provided by the UNV (they seem to dominate the traffic here).
Sleep was blissful, until about 6am when a massive tropical storm woke me up, luckily I was so tired I still managed to sleep through it. It's the wet season at the moment here so grey skies and rain will dominate most of our days!
Tomorrow we start with the training, apparently they're really boring, according to the other UNVs and then we get to take a driving test...one of the requisites for the job was the ability to drive a 4x4...we also need to drive on the other side of the road....luckily, my Laos experience gives me confidence with 4x4s and my experience in England and Macau also help with driving on the other side, I don't think the driving will be a problem, the fastest you can drive here is 35km anyways!
I promise not to make the posts too long so I'll sign off for now...more to come from Dili soon
Wow... Hope you enjoy the volunteer work. Stay safe!
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