11.05.08
Posted in Health,Medical at 8:07 am by Squatter
I’ll get to the Cuban doctors but I was visiting the National Hospital during the week and was gobsmacked to find that the huge number of IDPs (internally displaced persons) have disappeared. I know this was causing a major problem. Imagine running a hospital with many of the bits of green space between buildings and pathways filled in with people living in tents. It had been like that for about 2 years.
Dili National Hospital is a sprawling campus of ground level buildings in various states of repair and renovation. New parts have been built in the last year or so and they look quite reasonable and even more so without the mini-tent city to navigate around.
The removal of the IDPs must have happened within the last 2 weeks. There will be fewer chickens wandering the grounds and one suspects a vast improvement in general sanitation around the place.
I understand that the hospital system relies quite heavily on the input of Cuban doctors. There was an interesting documentary on TV a few weeks back which helped fill in a few information gaps for me on the Cuban health education system. Cuban doctors work for very little money and a lot of them are sent around the world.
There are over 250 Cuban doctors here in TL, practicing in hospitals all over the country. Their salaries and flights out here are paid by the Cuban government but accommodation and local transport is provided by the TL government. Some say the whole health system depends on the Cubans to keep it running at all.
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10.05.08
Posted in Media/Technology at 11:44 pm by Squatter
I am not sure how long Dili-gence will be alive on the web as I have a problem with making payments to my web hosting provider. I am a bit out of the loop with regard to just how one gets a new credit card delivered these days.
My credit card expires May 2008 and I am waiting for the new one. About 3 weeks ago, I faxed a confirmation to OZ confirming that I do indeed live out of the country and yes, it is OK to deliver it overseas. Since then, nothing. I am not sure what I am meant to do next but nothing has happened and until I get my credit card with the magical numbers on the back, I can’t make my web hosting provider payment.
I have now received an email saying my web hosting subscription is cancelled but Dili-gence is still there/here. I have emailed a grovelling reply but am stuck until Monday when I guess I will have to call OZ to work it all out.
These are just some of the things that can make life quite frustrating living here. Boy, am I looking forward to the $50 worth of phone calls to sort it out.
On top of all that, I have been having trouble posting most of this week and my theory is that the release of Windows XP Service Pack 3 via Windows Update on Tuesday has meant any PCs connected to the internet with Automatic Updates set to on, will be downloading furiously. Thus grinding some parts of the internet to a halt. Well, its my theory.
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03.05.08
Posted in Food & drink at 8:36 am by Squatter
Apparently, Fat Boys Bar opened for the last time last night. Cheap beers were had and lots of snack foods.
About a week ago, the Thai Jasmine restaurant closed and the sign on the gate says something like : “Closed. Re-opening at the end of May as Tuk Tuk down on the beach”. I believe this is somewhere down near Hotel California.
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29.04.08
Posted in Culture/Society at 7:18 pm by Squatter
You could hardly have missed the commotion today as Gastao Salsinha and 11 of his “rebel” mates were escorted into the “Palacio do Governo” (Parliament House and associated Ministries). It was not the time to be out on the road around midday when the howling vehicles streamed in, the sirens blew and the chopper escort flapped in.
An hour or so later, it appeared to be repeated as the “rebels” were escorted to the Memorial Hall for a de-briefing by the “Joint Command” - the name for the combined F-FDTL (Timorese military) and PNTL (Timorese police).
Hopefully, all states of emergency and curfews can now be lifted and the coffee season can get underway, particularly in the Gleno/Ermera area.
Hopefully, some of the roadblocks (ie near the President’s home and around the Memorial Hall area) will be lifted. While the road out to the Christ Rei statue to the east is in absolutely marvelous condition after its recent re-surfacing, some of the normally quiet roads around the Memorial Hall traffic deviations have copped a pounding.
The road upgrade from Pig Bridge to the Hera turn-off is magnificent compared to what it was 2 months ago. What was becoming a torture track for the cyclist is now a smooth bitumen race-track all the way. Now if the President could just acquire a few more residences around town and share out his occupancy between them, then maybe we can have a few more road improvements.
On another note, I made the mistake (again) of declaring wet season over, only to be savaged again last evening by a proverbial bucketing *. Back to the knitting.
* Bucketing - a quaint term for acquiring extreme wetness in a similar manner to having a bucket of water poured over one’s head. Also used to describe being the victim of a verbal assault as if a full bucket of insults were poured on one’s head. Take your pick.
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27.04.08
Posted in Culture/Society at 6:36 pm by Squatter
Reports suggest Gastao Salsinha is sort-of, almost in custody. Given he has promised to hand himself in about 57 times, I am not giving this “just about, almost, anytime soon” stuff much credence until he is seen in Dili having tea and biscuits with the PM.
Ermera is still in a curfew condition and I guess that will not be lifted until Senor Salsinha is back here in Dili - plus a few of his mates. Ermera is one of the main centres of the coffee industry and the harvest is due to start in a matter of weeks. It will be a good thing to get all of this curfew stuff out of the way before then or people will get mighty cheesed off. I understand that once coffee processing gets underway, its a 24 hour operation - hard to do with a curfew in place.
It has now not rained in Dili for a week and the weather pattern is pretty much dry season stuff now. The air is not so humid and the dust levels are starting to get noticeable again. Take a good long look at the lush green vegetation right now before it slowly slips away for 6 months.
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23.04.08
Posted in Entertainment at 8:25 pm by Squatter
On Thursday 24th at 8pm on AustraliaNetwork (ie tomorrow), there will be a 30 minute piece on policing in Timor-Leste. That is, following around a team of OZ UNPol as they do their normal duties here in TL - maybe even Dili.
Its on IndoVision and I don’t think it is viewable on the internet.
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Posted in Culture/Society at 8:16 pm by Squatter
Unless I am sadly mistaken, the state of emergency and associated curfew has been lifted thus enabling one to officially gather in large groups and stay out late. Around Ermera, the state of emergency remains.
I hope this means the Timorese military cool it a bit and stop this confounded racing at high speed around town with lights flashing just to get back for lunch. I hope it means one sees less of these guys with loaded (and safety off) rifles swaggering around the place.
President Horta gave a speech today in Parliament and I have only got snippets courtesy of a Portuguese to English machine translation. Lots of religious talk and lots of amnesties being tossed around like confetti. The follow-up to all this will be interesting.
I don’t know about anyone else out there, but I am completely bamboozled by the President’s statements of late. I just can’t follow the flow at all.
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19.04.08
Posted in Events at 10:47 pm by Squatter
The media is swamped with articles about the big shake here in Dili. In January 2006, I commented on a big shake at that time. But I have a less inspiring story this time.
I was mooching around the house this morning doing stuff and left my morning shower until I had done a bit of sweating first. There I was showering away, head in a lather doing the shampoo job when the more attractive half of the house rushed in to share earthquake experiences. Apparently the place swayed and shook and all loose items had a bit of a sway/shake/rattle.
Being in the middle of a good shampoo job on my head, I knew nothing about it at all. Nothing broke, no tsunami, I must have been on the Planet Zog. That’s some good shampoo !!
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18.04.08
Posted in Environment at 6:09 pm by Squatter
To whoever it was I said “I think the wet season is over as the early morning and evening humidity has dropped dramatically” … well, that’s why I am not a meteorologist. Over the last hour or so, it could well have been the heaviest bucketing this year or just that if you are caught in it, it just seems worse.
The house is surrounded by a 4 inch deep lake as is everywhere I have been over the last hour. I actually feel drenched and cold. I also looked out to sea and thought “wow, the world biggest low tide stretching out twice as far as I have seen it”. Then it started sinking in, that’s not low tide, that’s garbage floating several hundred metres out. Tons of it.
It is not pretty. If the roads can be repaired in super-fast time just for the President’s return then stuff can obviously be done but this rubbish thing is getting out of hand.
Another reason I thought the wet may be over was the amount of dust in the air yesterday. I’ll take a punt and suggest that there was a massive amount of extra sweeping yesterday just to make the street spotless for the President’s homecoming. Now I know where all the swept away stuff is !
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16.04.08
Posted in Events at 5:29 pm by Squatter
This is the time to be brushing up on the old Ben Hur movie as tomorrow’s welcome back for President Ramos-Horta is looking like it could be bigger than Ben.
Tomorrow has been called a “day of tolerance” and I believe this means tomorrow morning is a public holiday which might mean not much going on in government offices.
The President arrives at 8am which will be followed by a brief Press Conference. The population are being encouraged to line the roads to welcome back the President. I think it was decided it would be a good thing not to encourage people to swamp the airport.
Meanwhile the next move in the rebel stakes is that Gastao Salsinha has promised to hand himself in on 27 April. I am not sure of the significance of this date but it may mean the “state of emergency” will continue past the current 22 April finish date.
The President’s return has been a magnificent thing for the roads from town out to his residence near the Christo Rei statue - except if you actually wanted to use that road during the roadworks of the past week or so. I used that road on the weekend and can only say I am looking forward to the final result which in theory, must be finished by 8am tomorrow.
This is but one way to schedule roadworks. But you need a lot of Presidents if you want the whole country done.
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