I was pretty tired last night. I must have been exhausted because I blew off a chance to get free food and drink at US Embassy July 4 party. It was just one of those weeks that didn’t stop. So I went to bed early and drifted off into the deepest sleep imaginable, complete with some really weird dreams.
At some point during the night I heard a loud noise that felt like I’d been smacked in the skull with a bat. I half woke up but half didn’t — and so I wasn’t sure if I was dreaming or if something was going on outside.
Then I heard it again — bang bang bang bang bang. I really had no idea what was happening and in my altered state, I thought the house was being attacked. I may have only had these thoughts for a couple of seconds, but I was terrified and quickly tried to figure out what to do.
It didn’t take long before I realized that it was one of my housemates banging on my bedroom window because I’d inadvertently locked everyone out of the house. I put on some clothes — or at least, I think I did — and went to open the door before mumbling something like, “What the hell is going on?”
I’d left my keys in the door — or maybe they’d been my housemates keys, I don’t remember. When this happens, the door can’t be unlocked from the outside. I’ve been locked out of the house this way a few times.
I went back to sleep, but I was confused and shaken. When my other housemate woke me up at 7.30 this morning to ask where his keys were — on my bedroom floor for some reason — I could barely string a sentence together.
What I’ve learnt from all of this is that not sleeping much over an extended period can make you insane. I knew this before, of course, from my excessive partying days, but to go this mad from work alone was rather odd.
All in all, I should probably chill out for a few days. It’s times like these when I think being a monk would be fantastic.
Note: If you live in Dili and happen to see a newspaper running a story with a headline that reads something like “Two foreigns face chlid sex charges”, please bear in mind I didn’t write that headline. /Note
I can honestly say that this week has thus far been extremely busy — so busy, in fact, that I worked all through last night, slept in the office for about two hours and then got back to work again. There’s so much going on in Timor-Leste at the moment. I’m in dire need of some sleep and perhaps a holiday, but it is good to be so occupied.
In the absence of really having anything to add to the blog so far this week, here’s a great song that I first heard on the John Peel show about 10 years ago.
This came from a FRETILIN media release yesterday:
FRETILIN’s leader in the Timor-Leste National Parliament, Aniceto Guterres today called on all parties to respect a Constitutional Court ruling against the petition by FRETILIN MPs that the National Petroleum Authority was unconstitutional.
In a written judgment dated 16 June 2009, and delivered to FRETILIN MPs yesterday, the court rejected the arguments of unconstitutionality regarding Government Decree Law 20/2008 of 19 June 2008.
FRETILIN has been on this non-stop for months now. The party has used every opportunity it has had to speak out against heavy-fuel power plants. Guterres added, “We all have to respect the court decision and urge all concerned to comply with it – no more, no less.”
The point of the press release is to state how FRETILIN follows the rules, so to speak. It seems odd to me.
I was riding my motorbike to the Dili Weekly office in Colmera when I saw a familiar face with a trolley bag go into the travel agency on the corner. It was none other than the 80-year-old German man who appeared in court on Tuesday facing charges of the alleged sexual assault of an 11-year-old boy.
I raced around to the office, parked my bike and ran to the travel agency. I hung about outside for a minute and then opened the door and poked my head around. Sure enough, he was sat down and in the process of buying a ticket.
Ever graceful, I tried to leave quietly and ended up slamming the door on my foot and making a lot of noise. I caled UNPOL and found out it had already been called in, most likely by the police guy I saw outside the travel agency when I was loitering.
So what are the conditions of his release? Is he free to leave the country? Nobody seems sure. Suffice to say, he was planning to go somewhere.
