Forget American Pop Idol, forget the Eurovision Song Contest, the biggest extravaganza of the year was Mr Timor! Seven (very brave) luscious men, strutting their stuff in front of 300 screaming women (and men!) at the Atlantic Grill on Saturday night. Apart from a few Dili hitches such as power cuts, the night flowed as easily as the Bintang did. Even the wimpy men that didn’t have the guts to enter got Dutch courage after a couple of beverages and did an impromptu strip and strut. The winner of the evening was a gorgeous Timorese boxer, with an amazing physique much to Lisa’s luck as she was the winner of the raffle, first prize, a date with Mr. Timor. All the money raised goes to promoting HIV prevention and awareness in East Timor, so a great cause as well as a fantastic night.
I love menus in Asia, they are a constant source of amusement for the spelling mistake and Dili is no exception. In the Dili Club you can get unchooies on your pizza, at the Saigon you can order Sweetcorn and Crap meat soup, but still nothing could top the old Filipino restaurant that used to offer Chicken Crispy Skin and Ass (no spelling mistake there!)
I’ve just finished teaching the kids at one of the International Schools about Project AWARE and Reef Conservation. The ages ranged from 8 to 12 and boy do they have imaginations, they ask intelligent questions too like ‘How do they dynamite fish? Because if you lit the fuse and threw it in the water, the fuse would go out’. We played great games like pin the fins on the fish and measuring a blue whale and over 5 weeks we built a mural of the reef in East Timor, I’ve never seen quite as many whales and dolphins in one place, but their artistic talents are amazing.
Talking of artistic talents I actually picked up a pencil and completed a drawing last week for the first time since I left school. I sat in on an art class at Arte Morris, the kids there put me to shame, and they are so talented, picking up shading and perspective so easily (credit to the teacher of course). It’s a great organisation and some of the art they produce is stunning. They have a new exhibition in Hotel Timor for Independence Day, so I’m going to have a look this afternoon.
Unfortunately, I was working on Independence Day, so missed the parade which was reported as fantastic, I also missed the fireworks because they were moved from 8.30 at Jesus to 7.30 at the Palace. Still by the sounds of the vibe it was much more of a celebration than the last two years, may be now as things are settling down here there is more reason to celebrate.
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