101 ways with cassava

I had visions of one of those aesthetically pleasing cooking blogs, complete with plentiful adjectives and softly lit photos of fresh produce. Yet somehow between the papaya leaf/2 minute noodle snack and the 4 tupperwares of cassava this afternoon, I lost my enthusiasm.

Yes, I’m back in Maliana, which is beginning to feel like a second home away from Dili. Sadly, this time I’m not staying at the hotel with the giant pink teddybear that doubles as a family mascot.  

Ted chilling on the couch

I like to call this one 'Ted and Bob'

But nevertheless I continue to become disturbingly familiar with Maliana’s quirks. Like what time the electricity comes on then goes off again, versus what time it really comes on. Which toilets have toilet paper (I’ve only discovered one so far). If you want something other than a bread roll for breakfast, it’s BYO egg. I now know that it’s better to bathe with the bucket of cold water at night rather than in the morning because it drops a couple of degrees overnight. And not to put too fine a point on it, but my muscles are getting better at the squat.

I’m always glad to get out of Dili and its relentless heat, dust and people yelling at you. Maliana also has heat, dust and people yelling at you but at least in this case, it’s a chorus of kindergarten children chiming softly ‘malae malae malae’ a la the seagulls in Finding Nemo.

It’s a relief to slow down and do things like watch the news on TV. And I mean really slow down. The half-hour nightly news starts ten minutes late and finishes only after the daily campaign activities of each and every political party (there are 26) have been covered. While this isn’t my usual idea of fun, it did give me a chance to admire my colleague’s impersonation of Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao and appreciate the finer distinctions of politicians’ headwear (FYI: red beret = communist, leather cap = socialist).

When work means dangling your feet in a stream of fresh mountain water and singing Indonesian pop songs with 8-year-old girls, I guess there’s not much to complain about. If there’s one KPI I’m definitely hitting in Timor, it’s halimar. Halimar means play, but it seems like you can attach it to almost any other word and imbue it with halimar’s laissez-faire, cest-la-vie, life’s-a-breeze attitude. 

I'm pretty sure halimar is exactly what Ted and Bob are doing in the photo. And if it's good enough for a giant pink teddybear and a suave military man, it's good enough for me.