Folks, i have a job. I have through the UNDP been appointed technical advisor for the foreign ministry in (hold on tight now) Timor Leste.

I shit you not. This is really happening.

My assignment on the other part of the world should begin as soon as possible but in practice i will report at the Dili UN office in mid December. The assignment is for six months with an option for an extension if both parts are satisfied with it. If you want to send me a christmas present, the address is here

Here’s the story. In late 2002, i saw a job ad in the paper. The Finnish Foreign Ministry were looking for UN Volunteers to go to Bhutan to help installing what basically is a fax network but based on Internet technologies. The sheer enabling power of such a project, where villages are distant and hard to reach, and nobody has yet created a keyboard with Bhutanese script, is simply enormous.

Well, i didn’t get it. And i was buggered.

My application however, was sent to the UNV/UNDP database (roster) so that it could be picked up if needed. I was, i admit, rather skeptical. I’ve been in CV-databases before (heck, i’ve written one), so i didn’t expect much. Still, it was fun to receive the timely notices from the UN offices in Cyprus asking me whether i still want to be in.

Last Friday was a shocker. I was just about to go and fetch my daughter from daycare. I synchronized the mail to my PDA and almost deleted a mail titled “network administrator” as apparent spam. Just to be sure, i decided to open the mail, in case it was something interesting.

My heart jumped. Then stopped. Then jumped again, and kept on going out of synch for quite some time. My eyebrows was raised so high that they almost left my forehead. I just couldn’t believe my eyes that UNV/UNDP wants to interview me for a technical job. On Monday. Nine in the morning. Timor-Leste time.

Timor-Leste. Now where the hell is Timor-Leste. Is that the same as East Timor, which was in the news only a couple of years ago? They became independent, joined UN. Suff like that. It was on the news.

It was. Thank you Wikipedia (and thank you CIA World Factbook).

The weekend went in fog. I wasn’t sure how to react but i damn sure couldn’t keep still about it. I spoke to some friends and relatives about it, but really i just wanted to step up and yell about it at the top of my lungs. But hey, it’s only an interview. It’s not like i have the job or something. Yet, i was just too darn excited about it.

On Saturday i went to the library to see if they had anything on Timor in store. I went to the bookstore to see if they’d have the East Timor Lonely Planet Guide. The new edition will be out in November, so i reserved a copy. What they did have was the Lonely Planet East Timor Phrasebook (incidentially, the language spoken in Timor isn’t Timorese or even Timór, but Tetum). 11 € was a good deal to chill my senses.

Come monday. Nine Timor time is three Finnish. Three in the morning. Those close to me know that i am not a morning person, but here the adrenaline helped. The telephone did not ring. I was anxious. Had my mail been delivered in time? Had it been read? After all, it was sent on Wednesday and i only saw it on Friday, after “closing time” in Timor. Wait. Worry.

A quarter past three, the phone made the distinctive GSM da-da-datt da-da-datt buzzing with my desktop speakers. The first attempt was a fluke — just the phone talking with the base station i suppose — but a minute or so later, the phone rang.

Silence. Long distance silence. Clicks, echos of my own voice and more of that long distance silence. It was Them. I just couldn’t hear them. And could they even hear me? Hellooo? Bon-dia…? *Click*. The call ended.

Soon They dialed again. And again, and again. And then, after the fifth or sixth call, i could hear the crackling, broken voices of another world. East Timor, on the line. Strange what some telecommunication can do. Or cannot, in this case.

Robin? Täällä on Seppo, a voice said on the phone.

What. The. Fsck.

Somebody talking to me, in Finnish, from Timor. Again, my brain took a few extra loops trying to decide whether or not i was being pulled a hoax of majestic proportions. I decided to believe in what i heard, that there was another Finlander on the other side of the line. At three-twenty in the morning, i am ready to beleive even stranger things, though i, at this moment, can’t think of any.

Seppo called me back on another phone and we decided to push the interview by an hour while we try to fix our respective phone lines. Luckily, our home is wired with UTP and it’s not a big deal getting the landline into “my engine room” and at the same time disconnect the parallel phone line to the sleeping room where my wife did Z’s. I just had to do it without waking her, or my daughter. But i managed.

While i waited for the four-o-clock, i did a quick Google on Timor + Seppo. Yup. There. ’twas no hoax.

The phone rang again at a quarter past four and the interviewing committee on Their side did their thing. Asked everything between why i had applied for this job (i hadn’t, the job had applied for me, but i was ready anyway) and what open source tools i had used for network monitoring.

I managed to greet them with the aproprate amount of Tetun and fill in that i had done some reading on the Timorese history and recent news issues, so i had a bit of an idea of what i was heading for.

The interview ended, and They sounded happy and content (the zulu word for this i believe is Déla). I breathed and hoped that it had gone as well as i thought.

I exchanged a few mails with Seppo about this and that and how he’d ended up in a place like this. It’s obvious that i am the idealist blue-eyed novice and he’s the cynical realist veteran who has Seen Things that i just cannot begreep, but it’s nothing that a little time on the front line won’t fix. Still he seemed like a good guy and i hoped that i would be allowed to meet with him.

Fast forward to this moment. Or one hour back. The phone rings.

I recognize the sound of long distance immediately. It is the UN calling.

The person on the far side (i am sorry, i didn’t catch your name — i will publish it when i have it) wanted to share me heads-up on some good news that would be arriving really soon. I had been chosen. I would be advisor for the foreign ministry of Timor Leste. They were especially impressed that i had learned some Tetun. It showed that i had an authentic interest in the country, he said. Cool with me, i suppose :).

So, good friends, dear freaks, and anybody who just stumbled over by some freak accident: meet UNDP Advisor for the Timor Leste Foreign Ministry, Robin Laurén. Prazér konhese Ita. Pleased to meet you!