How to succeed in Dili without really trying

Getting around Dili is not about knowing street names or even taxi drivers (FYI, Eduardo’s the best). To succeed in Dili you have to surrender yourself to navigating much more difficult terrain. You not only have to know the difference between Comoro and Colmera; Beach Road and Banana Road; Jesuit and Carmelite priests. You also have to have a philosophical stance on Australian-Portuguese relations. You have to choose between being vegetarian and flexitarian. You have to select your preferred method of catharsis: swearing at bad drivers or Timor Telecom (there are many, many opportunities to do both).

Since arriving in Dili, I’ve learned a lot. I know that digging up and resurfacing Beach Road is a Herculean task that apparently needs to be done once a fortnight from now until the end of time. I know that finding a bar with good music and fast service is akin to the Holy Grail. I know that visitors to our house who ask ‘are you planning on staying here for the whole year?’ are used to neighbourhoods with more malaes and less livestock (I’d like to take this opportunity to welcome our newest arrival, Billy the goat - photo on the way).

With each month spent in Dili, you lose roughly 5% of your English language skills, which means that conversations between tired friends is a bit like a beginners ESL class – ‘I go to beach’, ‘My book… where?’ Some people surrender and start speaking Tetunglish instead – some of my favourites being ‘I am totally diak liu than that’, ‘Hau happy loos’ and ‘Tiredness iha’ (Anna and Tim, you inspire me).

Whether it’s the humidity, corrosive insect repellent or long-life milk, Dili does send malae a little loopy. Dress-up parties, something of a social niche in Sydney for fashion students and 21-year-olds, become an outlet for creative expression, market shopping prowess and commitment to wearing synthetic fabrics despite all reasons to the contrary. Crazes come and go like we’re primary school kids with limited pocket money and attention spans. Watching Game of Thrones and playing 500 are pursued with serious devotion. Hobbies take on new significance as you find you can suddenly afford to commit a whole lot more time to writing haikus or making up puns.

There is plenty of conversation to be had, although the high-rotation topics are not family, friends and current affairs but the current state of supermarket yoghurt stocks, where to buy cheap Magnums and which blonde was last seen in Ramos-Hortas’ Mini Moke. Time is not measured by days and months, but Bintang beers and GNR rotations.

While fostering enthusiasm for dairy products and making a fool of yourself, Dili also brings out the paranoid gossip mongerer. In the fishbowl that is malae social life, I have been told so many times lately ‘you can’t tell anyone this’ that I’m losing track of who said what and what was no-go and why the who said the what was no-go. It’s exhausting. Which is why it’s good that the ratio of malae to massage places in this town is roughly 3:1.