Timor Leste

This blog entry will be my last, unfortunately. My time in Timor Leste has come to a close. Things ended a bit abruptly earlier this month when I was medivaced from Dili to Singapore with hemorrhagic dengue.

It’s been a month since Christmas and New Years but as I reflect back on the holidays, it was a quiet and restful time in Dili for the most part.

Rainy season in Timor Leste is a difficult time for tens of thousands of people who have been displaced from their homes.  Many are now living in refugee camps in Dili and other parts of the country. These people are often referred to in NGO-speak as internally displaced people (IDPs).

Candles burned and blazing tires spewed acrid smoke into the humid night air across Dili. Crowds of people milled around the ramshackle neighborhoods of the Timorese capital and remembered the dead on a recent evening.