Raj and Lois in Timor

R got the phone call that our swabs were confirmed negative for COVID19 halfway through a meeting about education. I muted the zoom call and struggled to focus on the discussion with one ear while straining to filter Tetun with the other.  After the zoom call, we gulped down dinner, put on walking clothes and scampered out for a 4km walk along the beach. It has been an almost idyllic couple of weeks in quarantine. We would wake, have breakfast, study, do some remote work for MT, eat, and repeat. We'd watch Tetun TV. Raj would do pull ups on the balcony door frame. The scrawny calico we've named Jael (she likes milk) would appear at the balcony with polite (but assertive) miaows. I took 5 classes in Tetun this week. Too early to say if I'm ready for conversation with people who are not language teachers. But I would end the lessons with my heart pounding and generally dance around the house for 5 minutes hooting with joy. (Language classes have this effect on me, which is ex...

On Thursday, my Timorese phone rang for the first time ever. Here's what I think was said, in Tetun. - Hello? Good morning. - Good morning. Good morning! I am from Bobonaro Municipality. - Ah. My name is Lois. What is your name please? My name is M* (name changed for reasons that will soon be evident). You contacted me. (L: a possible ? not . from the intonation) - (L spends agonising seconds thinking of what the word contact  might have meant and why did he use this word contact and not telephone?) Er.  (falls back onto conversational drills) My name is Lois and I come from Singapore. Oh when did you come? - I came on Tuesday last, er, ago Tuesday...  Ah last Tuesday you came to Timor - Yes.   So I am still in quarantine Ah... where are you are in quarantine? - I am in quarantine in Hotel ____. I came to work with an NGO? Oh which NGO? - Maluk Timor. But I haven't yet, er...... , work... (Raj, grinning, helpfully supplies  Begun) I haven't yet begun work. ( Minor confusio...

 It's Day 5 of 14 in our quarantine. We are extraordinarily comfortable in a suite with AC, internet, a cooking hob, bedroom and toilet (It is non-serviced, of course, to protect people from us). Having not left the flat, I am a bit disoriented - spatial orientation never having been my strong suit. (I'm that person revolving at the T junction in Orchard Road with phone GPS in hand). From the balcony we can just glimpse the azure tasi,  ocean, and out of another window the outline of mountains (so that way is  sul , south- the mountains are always south of Dili).   Are you wondering how the compass points are named? Norte, sul, lorosae (the place where the matan-loron eye of the day sae  rises), and loromonu (where it monu  falls). But if you wanted to say from north to south, you wouldn't say "hosi norte too sul"... you'd say "hosi tasi feto too tasi mane"-- from the female tasi (the sea north of Timor) to the male tasi  (the Timor Sea south of...