Raj and Lois in Timor

Brief updates on the week that has just passed: I spent the mornings at the Centre for National Rehabilitation (CNR) in Becora. It's a beautifully neat and well-run day rehab centre (with dormitory, no inpatient wards) entirely staffed by Timorese physiotherapists, speech therapists, occupational therapists, orthotists and social workers. I met the Rehab lead, a cheerful senior physio who had trained in Indonesia. His love for the work is infectious. I was assigned to supervise Dr O and Dr P from the Family Medicine (FM) training programme- one lean and sinewy, the other burly and squarish, like characters in a 相声 . They have a lot of ground to cover in this four-week posting (the first and fourth weeks are on rehab, the middle two on Nutrition and Interventions in Domestic Abuse). I am proud of them for fighting through a great deal of condensed Adult + Paediatric Neurology this week. My first moment of joy – when Dr P grinned from ear to ear as he successfully performed the mano...

R and I just finished a week of intensive Tetun. 4 hours a day, for 5 days. (I achieved my short-term goal of being placed in the same class as R, hooray!) In the afternoons, we work on various projects- R on a strategic review, me on the manual for village workers. On Tuesday, I delivered my first tutorial to a group of 20 Timorese doctors who are in training for a postgraduate family medicine diploma. On Thursday, I went to a lovely clean rehab centre in Becora, on the east side of town. They deliver physiotherapy, speech therapy, occupational therapy and prosthesis and mobility aid manufacture and training. Kapaas , super. We met J today, who advised us to 1) be patient 2) remember to invest in relationships 3) understand that trust takes time We are house-hunting. The dry season is turning to the rainy season ( tempu udan ), though our tutor explains that this intermittent light rain is not the true tempu udan but a preceding tempu haas funan - mango flowering season.   My ref...

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...