Donut Queen

It’s been a while between blogs and I can only say it’s because sometimes every day life actually does take up every day. Which in my case entails things like walking to Jesus (NB: the statue, not the divine being) and trying to edit reports in another language at a desk streaked with the blood of myself and my colleagues (I’m now pretty ace at smashing mosquitoes with proposals, water bottles, my keyboard – whatever is handy).

Most of my leisure time has been taken up with learning new games (despite having a Dili-wide reputation as a game cynic, I am giving it a go) like Mexican dominoes and perfecting my daiquiri-making techniques at dinner parties.

Birthday dinner party, complete with hats

Photographic evidence that I do sometimes play games
(I occasionally even smile while playing too)

This Saturday however, I fronted up at Christo Rei (Jesus again) just after 7 to collect my fourteenth free t-shirt since arriving in Timor. This time, as a volunteer for the Ride for Peace, the community event leading up to the Tour de Timor. I was upfront about my credentials as a volunteer – ‘I have no practical skills’ – but apparently when you have 700 Timorese kids hurtling from Dili to Christo Rei on bicycles, you take what you can get.

Somewhat fittingly, I ended up on donut duty, which involved helping to dole out 1,000 sickly sweet donuts to hordes of enthusiastic kids kitted out in Tour de Timor merch. All I’m going to say is that years of waitressing clearly paid off in my dexterous use of tongs.

Not bad for a Saturday – I rediscovered a practical skill AND my new free t-shirt actually fits, as it was given to me by a fellow malae who doesn’t think that just because I’m a foreigner means I must be given the largest t-shirt available that most resembles a sail for an oceangoing yacht.