Hello, All! UN IT Manager “Mister Robin” here! SSH is hopelesly slow from here, so updating my blog will be a bit slow. Maybe now would finally be the time to implement a web service interface to my blog engine. Or maybe not.

Anyways, i finally made my way to the other side of the globe. The weather in Dili, East Timor, is very hot and very humid. I drink like a camel, but on a daily basis… I can’t tell you about my work here, due to UN reasons, but i can tell you how things are going in other respects. And after all, if you’re here, you probably want to know about me and not what i do.

I started my journey on Friday, mid day. I flew from Helsinki to Stockholm to Bangkok (food was good, films were not … okay, Catwoman was kinda cool to Bali, where i stayed the weekend. From there, i took the flight to Dili (which is the capital of Timor Leste, or East Timor, as it is known to the rest of the world) on Monday morning. Bali was hot. Dili was even more so.

My first instinct of Dili was This is no place for children. No, actually, that was my second instinct, but the term second instinct sounds a bit strange. My first thought was that i will keep an opend mind and everything will work out fine. So far, this has helped.

I’ve walked the streets of Dili –at least some bits between “home” and the UN areas– since, and it feels a whole lot better already. There are a lot of UN people here, and a lot of UN vehicles (cars, really, but the lingo is to call them vehicles anyway), but still when walking from my worklplace, which i finally got to visit today, to home, i felt the wall of countless eyepairs staring. It wasn’t really scary, but i sure did have a little tingling sensation in me when i thought that here i am, the only white person in sight, walking around with what must be a lifetimes worth of salaries for a local living in lesser conditions (meaning a person who would be most likely to mug me), and that this must not be the most intelligent and rational thing to be doing at this time.

But anyway, i got home intact and unmugged, and i do feel a lot better now (and i won’t be taking my passport, my return tickets and my digital camera, hidden though they all may be, out for a walk like this any time soon).

So there you have it! Feel free to send me some greetings using mail or by leaving a comment below (click the “comments” link). If by superiours let me, i shall post more and even put some pictures on Flickr. I do have a phone number here, but i guess it will be a little expensive to use — mail me if you need it! Or send me a Christmas card to Robin Lauren, UNDP Timor-Leste, P.O. Box 2436, Darwin, NT 0801, Australia. I’m sure it will arrive before midsummer!