Dili, Sunday 25th February 2007
Dear friends all around the world,
First and foremost, a very good morning from Dili, Timor Leste!!!!!
For those of you who didn’t get any news from me during the last months (or years) I am most pleased to inform you that I temporarily left Cambodia so as to join the Integrated Mission of the United Nations in Timor Leste as Electoral District Advisor for the upcoming elections who will take place in April 2007. The length of the mission will be of 6 months by the way.
So here I am. After spending 2.5 years so far in Cambodia I resigned last Friday from my last job as Guest Relations Coordinator with the Tour Operator Asian Trails. That was quite a tough week as I had the final interview on the phone on Thursday evening, and after writing a resignation letter until late at night I handed it in on Friday for the next day. I then packed my bags on Sunday and on Monday I was already on the plane, heading first Kuala Lumpur, then Sidney, and finally Darwin where on Wednesday I catch the U.N. flight to Dili, capital city of Timor Leste.
Concerning the situation in here, apparently it is going up and down and I definitely didn’t’ flew in on a quiet day, as upon arrival at Dili int. airport we were picked up by a U.N Police convoy and had to wear helm and bulletproof jacket (SCARY!!!). Beside of that, the situation has been calm until now, although I have heard that “Entifada” (throwing of stones, especially to army/UN vehicles) is a quite common practice by the inhabitants of this country, considering that the unemployment rate reaches 50 % and most of these people are spending their time sitting at the side of the road and looking at the traffic, which by the way includes also some tanks which are constantly patrolling the roads of Dili. The biggest problem at the moments seems due to a shortage of rice which makes people pretty unhappy with the government and has led so far to some isolated incidents between army/police and gangs of local people (the security advisory is at the moment phase 2 of 5, according to the U.N. terminology).
So far, I and my colleagues are currently in the middle of the training that should ends up next Thursday with the deployment for each of us to one of the districts of the country. Due to most of my colleagues have already done this kind of mission one to up to six times (!), our group coordinator had probably some understanding for my situation and assigned me to a small district which is just about one hour outside Dili, where I am supposed to be based in a medium size city with at least telephone and internet connection. This is certainly not always the case, as yesterday we just started an intensive two day course in order for us to be able to operate properly both a VHF Radio and especially a GPS device. This was in fact my biggest worry, to be deployed in a remote mountain region, being cut off with the rest of the world during the next 6 months. Not of a minor importance for myself, is the fact that in Liquica (the city where I am supposed to go) there is apparently a beautiful beach and that the average temperature is around 25 C. It doesn’t looks so bad, though.
Moreover, I have been told that the big majority of problems faced at the moment by the authorities are related to the capital city, and that the situation in all the provinces is ongoing very stable; nonetheless, security conditions are ensured everywhere by the U.N. Police, and there are stricts procedures to be followed, which makes me feel more confident regarding the fact that this be a very positive experience for myself.
Another very good point is the cost of life in the provinces, which should be very much cheaper then in Dili and within the U.N compound. Basically, an apartment in Dili in a secure part of the city costs roughly 500 US monthly and a bottle of beer is sold here for 2.6 USD, which just makes me figure out that the hang over I got from last night wasn’t exactly cheap, although I could create a pretty good atmosphere with the guitar I brought along from Cambodia, and got so some beers offered by my new adventure fellows ;-). This is the kind of activities (play guitar while having a few numbers of beers) I really missed in Cambodia, especially since I started my experience in the tourism industry over one and a half year ago, being often too busy during weekends with sorting out all kind of problems with the clients. However, I would like to point out once again that this had been a great and very useful experience for me and that I am extremely grateful to those people who gave me the chance to do it even without previous skills in this branch. I can just state that I certainly wouldn’t be here where I am without passing through it. Thanks again!
That’s all folks. I’ll try to provide you with some more information and hopefully some exciting stories during the next weeks…
Have a great week.
Ivan
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
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