Betty Loves Blogging

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Ashlee

Tia iha Lautem

April 27, 2012

An elderly woman wearing traditional clothing with betel-nut stained teeth in a village in Lautem district, Timor-Leste. I was in the field with another photographer, who was carrying two cameras. He took a photo of this woman, who had come out of her house, very interested in the malae (foreigners) visiting the village playgroup. While [...]

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Lospalos at night

April 24, 2012

The single muezzin echoes through the pitch-black darkness of a Lospalos night, reminding me of an unamplified version of Central Java. In Java, the crackle of cheap sound systems cuts in and the harmonic voices from the mosques collide, crash and run over each each other in the morning or evening air, competing for time [...]

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How to drive in Dili

April 18, 2012

You know that saying – dance like nobody’s watching, love like you’ve never been hurt, drive like you’ve never heard of road rules? That’s the Timor way. Here’s some helpful tips I’ve picked up in my first two weeks as a car owner. 1. Veer all over the road. The dotted line markings are not [...]

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Now that I have wheels….

April 18, 2012

… when I’ve had a tough day, I can drive out to Cristo Rei or Areia Branca and let the views soothe my soul. … or when I’ve had a tough day, I can go to some yuppie malae restaurant like Food-L-Do where I can pay lots of money to have something resembling Sara Lee [...]

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Dinner with a view

April 18, 2012

After a taxing day in the office and at the motor vehicle inspection centre (yes, I have wheels now… more on that later), I decided to go for a quiet early dinner at Little Pataya. Just me, my Kindle, a bowl of hummus and some falaffel and the stunning Dili sunset. Well, that was the [...]

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Playing in the sunshine

April 14, 2012

Children in Don-Fonamo, Aileu, playing a traditional game in the sunshine. Plan/Ashlee Betteridge Tweet Delicious Digg Facebook Ping Stumble

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Yet another beautiful Timorese child

April 11, 2012

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Dili late afternoon

April 7, 2012

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Five years of betty loves blogging!

April 6, 2012

It’s basically almost nearly been five years since I started this blog.  Crazy! I’ve had other blogs in the past, but this one has been the one I’ve kept for the longest and it has probably also been the most interesting, probably more by the virtue of my having the opportunity to go to interesting [...]

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Pub oral histories about automatic weaponry

April 6, 2012

One of the interesting things about living in Dili is hearing about the ‘old days’ from other expats. The ‘old days’ typically refers to the period 2006-2009, after which nearly all people agree things have markedly improved… there’s only a handful of expat people who were here earlier than that, and they are usually even [...]

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Family portraits

March 27, 2012

Maria (28) with her son at their home in Louro, Lautem, Timor Leste. After receiving vocational training from Plan Timor-Leste, Maria started a small baking business with four other women and is enjoying earning income for her family (Copyright Plan/Ashlee Betteridge) I really enjoyed taking shots of Maria and her son in their home in [...]

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Water woes

March 26, 2012

We’ve had no water at our place for more than 36 hours after the pump blew up, and all the stores were closed on Sunday so our landlord has been unable to procure a new pump. As a result, we have to lug buckets of water up three flights of stairs to be able to [...]

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Dili’s artistic wonderland

March 26, 2012

A couple of weekends back, I went to the 9th anniversary celebrations at Arte Moris (official website here). A Dili gem, this free art school inhabits the grounds of a ramshackle old museum complex (which used to be the provincial museum of Timor Timur, when Timor-Leste was occupied and a province of Indonesia). Unfortunately there [...]

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It’s adventure, what else do you want?

March 21, 2012

The irony of big adventures like moving overseas is that sometimes they involve sacrificing everyday adventures. Dili is a pretty easy posting, there clearly aren’t the restrictive security measures faced in places like PNG or South Sudan or something, but day-to-day it sometimes starts to feel like a ritualistic suburban existence, even though it is supposed [...]

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The family wall at the guesthouse

March 20, 2012

When I was out in the field for work, we stayed at this homely little guesthouse in Lospalos, where the owners were lovely. Photos of their family were all over the walls, there were stuffed toys all over the TV stand… and right underneath a portrait of the owner’s son and his wife was a [...]

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