I’m getting darker by the day..........Sorry Mum, just can’t help it here!

Coming to the end of my second week here which has been fun, frustrating, challenging, exciting and....oh yes....damn hot!

Becoming quite the expert at cooking on my little hotplate by the way! Can even buy my veges at the market using very stilted tetun now. Haven’t quite plucked up the courage to buy one of the fresh fish from the morning fish market though....mainly because I haven’t a clue how to gut a fish and I don’t know the tetun for “will you gut and clean that strange looking fish for me?”. Haven’t had to gut a fish since i was 17 and caught a fish while on a youth camp. They made us gut what we caught. Haven’t gone fishing since!

Had my first week of Tetun classes and really enjoyed the challenge. Got those “leetle grey zells” working in a very different way. Never been that good at languages so am a little proud that I’ve managed to learn how to string a sentence together in Tetun! My memory is a bit lacking so I do struggle to remember the words I want to use sometimes but hey not bad after only one week!

Work is moving along okay. Can be a bit frustrating sometimes but overall getting things done – “uitoan – uitoan” (“little by little”)! Most of the critical care training team arrived yesterday morning from Sydney. I got up bright and early to pick them up from the airport and practised my Tetun on route with the hospital driver. It’s exciting to have the team together again - not only do we work well together, we have lots of fun as well – which is always important when you have to work so hard doing the training! Just like last June, we are running basic emergency care training sessions at the National Hospital. We are also running an educators’ workshop to train potential educators here. A couple of the others arrive on Monday which happens to be a big public holiday here connected to All Souls Day (which is today). We are planning to head to the Jesu Statue this afternoon since a few of the team haven’t been there. There are about 500 steps up to it so probably best we do that LATER in the afternoon when it is a bit “cooler”!

Did I happen to mention how hot it is here?! I have gone about 50 shades darker and that is with sunscreen on!! Lucky that I don’t burn really! I did learn very quickly how to say “I FEEL hot” in tetum (“Hau senti manas”) as opposed to “I AM hot” ("Hau manas”) which has an ENTIRELY different connotation and should not be used at all!!!!!!

Right, I’m off to meet the others who are waiting for me at their hotel round the corner.

Adeus!
D xx