I HATE ROOSTERS!

Well we have been in Dili for nearly three weeks now, but I must say, it feels like alot longer! Our house is not set up in that we have no wardrobes yet, so we are still living out of suitcases - it seems like we have been doing that forever! But it is starting to feel more like home!

To explain the blog title... every morning I am woken up at the crack of dawn by obnoxious roosters who decide they want to crow. Everyone in the neighbourhood seems to have a rooster, and since my room is at the front of the house and closest to the road I can hear it loud and clear! But they dont just crow once and get it out of their system... they continue all morning, ruining all chances of going back to sleep! ARRRGH!!

In other animal news... out the back of our house live two hogs, who love squealing in the morning and the evening. It is quite a gross sound. Hogs are a pretty common sight here...they are in just about any field we pass, or by the side of the road, scrounging for food. We get a kick out of seeing who can spot the biggest one! There are lots of other animals on the sides of the road here as well, like goats, cows, chickens, ferel dogs, cats, and on occasion, a horse. And we have seen a couple of people who have monkeys as pets!

We are trying to learn the language - we know words like "thankyou", "cheap", "expensive", "no buy" and a few others that we regularly use. Tetum is relatively simple compared to English - there is no grammar - but there are different ways to pronounce some words for males and females. Before we knew this, Mum, Lou and I were telling people "thankyou" by saying "obrigado", which is the male version, instead of "obrigada"! We got a few funny looks!

We have done lots of exploring around the city, and have found some really beautiful places. The coast along the main part of Dili is sort of shaped like a cresent, and at each point on the top of big hills are statues, one of the Pope, and one of Jesus, facing each other. We drove up to the Pope statue the other day, and from the top are some breathtaking views of the coast and the city, nestled at the bottom of mountains. Then Sunday we walked up to the Jesus statue (no road this time!) and from the top had a really nice view of the fiery red sunset. We also found a hidden beach that we want to check out sometime!

We have found some good places to shop (YAY!) There is a Jape here that sells clothes, shoes, sports equipment, cooking utensils, just about anything (not furniture!), and there are some really cool shops that sell hand-carved antique looking furniture - I love it! It looks like something straight out of a Jane Austen novel - the carvings are so intricate and detailed!

We have had seven blackouts (I think - I lost count!) since we moved into the house. Some lasted ten mins... and some lasted three hours. The other day we had a three hour blackout, then the power came on again for twenty mins, then went off again for two more hours! When the power goes off we have no water (its pumped electrically), no lights (obviously - but its only happened at night once so far) and NO FANS! Which is the worst because it gets very stuffy, very quickly! But its all good fun!

Driving through the city, the signs of war and destruction are everywhere. This country has seen so much turmoil. We visited the Santa Cruz Cemetery the other day, the site of the Santa Cruz massacre in 1991, where three hundred were killed and many more wounded when Indonesian troups opened fire on a demonstration taking place there. The cemetery is evidence of the poverty so rampant during the Portuguese rule, when infant mortality was 50%. There are so many tiny graves of babies that lived for one or two days - it just breaks your heart.

When the Indonesian soldiers left Timor after it voted for independance, they took revenge by destroying the city, and most of the buildings are in disrepair or abandoned. This is making it difficult for us to find a church building that doesn't need too much work done. Dad found a hall at the University that he applied for, but we were knocked back because the Uni is catholic and we are a protestant church. Pray that we find one - Dad wants to open soon!

Well that is about all the news at the moment! The internet is very temperamental, so I have starting pre-writing blog posts in word! That way I have time to copy and paste in the 10 minutes the internet decides it wants to work!

Bye for now! :)