The One With All The Walking

Alrighty then, after lots of tries and almost throwing my computer out of the window, here I am, writing about my travels once more. It’s been a really interesting week. For those who now know where Dili, Timor is, congratulations! I’m not there anymore. As of last Saturday, I’m on Atauro, one of Timor’s islands.

Let’s start at the very beginning, it’s a very good place to start (yes, that’s a Sound of Music reference). My time in Timor started out GREAT, juuuuuust GREAT. I met up with one of the other vols (slang for volunteer, it’s very cool)and decided to explore Dili. On the first night, we went out to look for a festival the lady at the reception recommended to us. It was a 20 minute walk away and there would be music and lots of locals. Sounds good, right? When after 40 minutes of walking, we still hadn’t found the festival, we decided to head back and call it a night. So the next day, we were gonna go “for a walk”. We wanted to visit one of the museums, and go to Christu Rei, which is a smaller version of the well-known statue in Rio de Janeiro, Brasil. The day turned into a 6-hour walk in the sun. We almost died. I’m not even joking, there was a moment I sat down and decided not to walk any further. Luckily, we were already at our destination so all we had to do was climb 555 stairs, and we would have an amazing view. So said, so done (#makethatthecatwise) and about 30 minutes and 4 breaks later, we reached the top of the hill and stood at the food of a 32 meter statue. Luckily, the view really was amazing.

So, after this little adventure, we took a “microlet” back to the hotel and had dinner there. Of course the walk gave me a HUGE sunburn, which completely escalated in the following days. Let me elaborate: my face got so swollen I looked like a fish. It started with my forehead, after which gravity started to do it’s work and the swelling went down. Literally down, into my eyes and nose, creating the fish-effect. Amazing experience. All the other vols thought my face actually looked like that because they’d never seen me in my human form. See a nice timeline below.

On Friday, all the vols met each other and we spent a day visiting Dili together. We went back to Christu Rei (not walking this time) and spent the entire day doing cultural things. On Saturday we traveled to Atauro, our home for the next six weeks. When I left home, I thought I was going to spend six weeks of my life living like a caveman: no electricity, rice and beans every day three times a day and sleeping in a crappy bed. Turns out my expectations were WAAAY too low. Barry’s Place is AMAZING! I share a room with Dara and Simone, the two other girls out here. The food is amazing every time and I’m laying in a hammock right now. Not too shabby for Fiona.

On Sunday, four other vols and I decided to go for a walk. I know, more walking, hence the title of this post. It was supposed to be a four-hour hike to the top of the mountain (again, with amazing view), and back. Yes, you read it right, supposed to be. It took us about 5.5 hours and we ran out of water, so they had to drive towards us with extra bottles of water because we were just that dehydrated. It was as bad as it sounds. This time my shoulders took the hit. Luckily they didn’t swell up, that would’ve looked even weirder than my fishface. Can you imagine?

Wow, I’m only now realizing how much has happened in just one week. On Monday we did our first dive. The diving is amazing! There’s so much life EVERYWHERE. Up ’till now we’ve only had fundives and a couple of point-outs because there were some people still taking a divecourse. A point-out is exactly what it sounds like: you point stuff out and one of the instructors writes down what it is. I don’t have any underwater pictures just yet (give me a break, okay), so you’ll have to do with these pictures of the vols and myself.

Next do diving and science lectures, we’re also learning the local language here: Tetun. Dont’t worry, I had never heard of it either. In a week we’re going to live with a local family for two weeks and people don’t speak English, so we learn their language. We help out with a local English class every week too. So many helpful things, it’s amazing.

Next to all the learning, it was an emotional week for all the people here. Sean and Jen started up this project a year ago and left on Friday. We were lucky enough to meet them, go diving with them and have lots of fun. Because they were leaving, a local band came to play at Barry’s and there was lots of cake. On Friday, we all learned a local song and sang it as we were waving them goodbye. It was emotional but beautiful. Amaze-balls.

On Friday, Dara thought it would be a good idea to start a puzzle. A puzzle with about 1000 pieces and we had no idea what the image of the puzzle actually looked like. It was a huge challenge but we finished it within two days. Turns out it was a puzzle of a bunch of toys in a traffic jam, very special.

Finally, on Saturday we had two party dives. One these dives we’re aloud to go deeper than during the week and we got to dive to tunes of The Little Mermaid. It was fantastic!

I could go on, but it’s Sunday and I just want to read my book and do nothing. Everybody is going to a Zumba-class but I might pass. Dancing, not one of my skills.

Don’t forget to check out my new theme song: The Coral Song. I’m a conservationist now. The song of the week: yesterday by The Beatles. We’ve had quite a few intense sing-along in our short time here.

Write you soon!

xo Fi