Top of the bell curve

I have been on a lot of field trips since coming to Dili (turns out wherever you are, the ‘field’ is somewhere else). I’ve been stranded in Manatuto on my own with nothing but two words of Tetun to rub together. I’ve drunk raisin wine in a nunnery. I’ve learned that the road isn’t truly bad until the driver starts white-knuckle-grasping the handle above the steering wheel.

But last week, I officially reached the apex of field trips when I found myself splashing around on a white beach, knee deep in crystal clear water of the tropical variety. Laughing somewhat hysterically at the ridiculously paradisiacal turn my ‘work’ had taken, I tried to keep it together for the sake of the locals – a few fishermen looking at me curiously.

I was on Atauro island, which is a bit like a drug. More specifically, an antidote to too many dusty weekends in Dili. On the axis of Hammock Time to Endless Horizons, Atauro is at the top of the bell curve. It is truly some kind of kapaas (lovely).

Despite this being my fifth visit to Atauro, it was the first time I’d made it outside of Vila, the port town (I find a comatose-like form of relaxation normally sets in within the first hour of any visit to the island). We set out along a coastal road on borrowed motorbikes. I was glad I don’t understand the physics of how steep a hill has to be before the motorbike will actually flip backwards. But by the time we made it to the village where we were staying, it was kind of hard to remember why we had come in the first place. By the time I’d been skimming above the coral in a fishing boat for half an hour on our way to the next, smaller village, my mind was not exactly in work mode.

On the road

On the boat

Somehow, between the fish, squid and coconuts (they are more plentiful in Atauro’s villages than bottled water) with every meal, we did squeeze some work in. I may have also made tentative plans to build a hut in a village with no electricity, running water or mobile phone reception. 

Waiting for motorbikes - island time

Manu (chickens) on the move

This is what a good morning looks like