Not-so-good times in Timor....

Well I was originally planning to write about my wonderful Easter weekend in Singapore (which was wonderful, don't get me wrong...) - but instead I'm going to share one of the not-so-good aspects of living in Timor-Leste...

About ten days ago, I had to sack one of the employees of my organisation and he became violent and smashed in the windows of my cute little car with rocks (it did not look so cute with smashed windows...!) and then he proceeded to make verbal threats so we had to call the police to take him away from our compound (note: in Timor-Leste, most international NGO offices are in gated compounds for security reasons - so it's ironic that the security incident happened within the compound...thankfully I was not in my car at the time!).

Anyway, the police were SLOW in coming so I just called one of my friends who works for the police and happened to be on duty and suddenly/finally they showed up (it's not WHAT you know but rather WHO you know here...) and then it was onto the local police station to lay a formal complaint - which seemed to take FOREVER and had the outcome of NOTHING i.e. apparently the local law states that people cannot be detained for committing a crime unless a policeperson sees them commit the crime. Go figure!

The next morning the un-detained ex-employee showed up at our compound again and the security guards let him in, since apparently they did not realize they should not let him in. Ummmm, DUH! So I had to call the head of the security company to explain clearly WHO was not to be let in and WHY. Another trying day...

Amidst all the chaos, though, I have been very blessed by many very supportive friends and colleagues and neighbours - and was pleasantly surprised by my neighbour's cute little granddaughter who told me yesterday that she was happy that Mana Malae's car is back from being fixed (Mana Malae is like 'big sister foreigner') - she is a little doll but too shy so I have not taken any pics of her yet....but hope to someday soon :-)

Just another 'day-in-the-life' here in Timor-Leste, hope all is well wherever you are!