Initial Learnings from Mountain Biking in Timor-Leste

It would seem that my life and volunteering has settled back into the same rhythm before my holiday back in Oz.  It has taken a little while to know if I will be heading on a road trip with only several hours’ notice but I have now managed to go back to Maliana and a new place known as Ulmera, which is less than one hour away from Dili.

Next week I will heading down Saui/Cova Lima which I have not been to for several months, I hope the countryside is still green to distract me from bruising and battering that the road south from Dili seems to inflict.

Speaking of being knocked around, as indicated in the last post, I brought my mountain bike with me back from Oz.  I have taken it out for a few spins, namely to acclimatise to pedalling in high humidity.  I have adjusted to the weather here when walking the street or cruising on the motorbike, but hard pedalling in this climate is another story.  This is a brief run-down of the rides and lessons learnt so far.

The hills are long and steep:

I have only been riding in groups and the first ride was up the Becora hill, I do not think that I have ridden such a long and steep hill with a sealed road under the tyres.  The closest I have experienced are the Adelaide Hills in Oz and maybe Mt Buninyong near home.  Sure enough everybody else was rested by the time I reached the top, my recovery was achieved by zooming down the hill; which is the good thing about such climbs, the descent is very fast (60-70 km/h).  “Careful Rob, I hear you say”, especially my In Country Coordinator.

James, a fellow rider coming down the mountain, it is hard to see but it is really steep (about 45 degrees)

Drink plenty of water:

The second ride certainly made me feel a little dejected, it turned out to be a 55km ride, the first (and only) hill climb was about an hour long.  I still had not adjusted to the climate; I turned around with about one km from the top – I just had nothing left in the tank.  I rode home alone from there.  Lucky I did turn around, I soon discovered that I was severely dehydrated, it took a concerted effort to rehydrate for next day or so.  It is important to know when to turn around before feeling too sick as there is no one home to look after me when I get into this state.  I have had some people ask me about whether I actually see this as fun.  This experience taught me to always cook a large batch of food, so after guzzling 1-2 litres of water, I have some food to scoff down straight after….  

Eat like a Hobbit:

Last week’s ride certainly brought eating like Hobbits into practice, so after scoffing lunch at about 11:00 am (elevenses or first lunch, I am undecided), I found myself absolutely starving about 1.5 hours later.  So I hopped on the motorbike to find the biggest greasiest hamburger that can found in this town, so second lunch was thoroughly enjoyed.  I was so satisfied that I did not each dinner that day…

The heat:

The less talked about phenomenon is pins and needles – I was getting pins and needles in my hands as well as my feet.  The heat makes me puff up so the clothing feels a little tighter than back in Oz.  So extra effort is required to slip on the trusty lycra so there are no constricted limbs and to get out of the saddle more frequently to let the blood return to the feet.  I have successfully stopped the pins and needles by taking this approach.  If I knew about how much more feet puff up, I would bought a new pair of cycling shoes to accommodate this.

Bathroom scales:

I am not obsessed about my weight, I know I am built like a brick sh!thouse, but it will be interesting measure how much fluid I lose from a ride.  This way I do not over-hydrate which something else I need to be careful of…

Ride Safely:

To some people, tearing down a hill at up to 70 km/h is not considered safe, I take the view that it isn’t if you hit the ground.  I certainly am not complacent when I am ripping down but there could be a stray dog (they are all strays) and it is about managing the brake pad temperature too.  I am more likely to hit an animal on the motorbike considering I spend more time travelling on that than I do on the MTB

So really what I am talking about is largely common sense but being in a hot climate coupled with being in developing country makes basic training rides all the more harder and riskier.  So much so that I am now wondering if the Tour de Timor I plan to do this year is a little beyond me, I will see how I feel by the end of May and when they finally release the proposed route.

(Near) Half Time Reflections on TL

17-28 February 2014

I thought that it might be useful reflect on some of the highs and lows of my time in Timor-Leste.  I have surprised myself that I have found myself back in the groove since returning from holidays in Australia.

Many people asked before I was going to TL in August 2013 what I was going to miss most, I said the usual, family friends, etc.  Being a water engineer, I also listed being able to drink the tap water and have a shower rather than bathing using a bucket.

In the first few weeks of moving into the first house, I certainly missed having a shower and was rarely lucky to get enough water to last a whole day for the basics.  I would estimate that I (uncomfortably to comfortably) use about 20-60 litres per day for all sorts of needs.  Who could forget me complaining about not having a shower for several days!  Or having a deep and meaningful discussing with the shower (I must have been going mad).  It had certainly put a crimp on my experience here for the first few months, but they are the challenges that need surmounting.  Besides I reckon that a shower is more water efficient than a bucket and ladel.

When I returned to Oz a fortnight ago, I realised that I had adapted to drinking water from big and small plastic bottles and that my yearning to drink water from the tap (and shower) has gone.  I did drink in the shower but I was certainly not like Tiddledink the bullfrog who drank all of billabong water.  It is about habit and not getting to worked up about what is different.  I banned myself drinking water from a plastic bottle while in Australia – it was about the taste not generating plastic waste (which is a big concern).  It is funny to note that a friend in TL here commented that we typically operate at about 80-90% in comparison to working in Oz.  I believe the main cause of this is that we have to deal with life’s basics, so having safe reticulated water keeps us working like Olympics athletes in Australia, although our bosses think they can squeeze a little more out of us.

The same could be said about traffic, there is a system here, it involves tooting the horn, first in best dressed, pushing in, overtaking on blind corners and giving the Kareta Estado (government cars) wide berth as they are a law unto themselves.  Australia it is very orderly – driving instructors and road safety campaigners should be proud of what they have achieved in this space.

You do have to leave your animal liberation beliefs at Darwin Airport, you do see a lot of animals that are in a sad state or are tied down on cars, trucks etc being transported to other parts of the country.  I have lost count of how many dogs I have seen hobbling along with dislocated hips from being hit by a car at some point in their lives.  Devil the Brain Damaged Dog, rest his soul, was a special case and was someone’s dinner just before I left.

There have been several, “I wish I had the camera moments” mainly involving the transportation of live chickens (best form of refrigeration here).  Only last night I saw a man on his motorbike and I thought that it was odd to have chicken feet as a key ring decoration and then I realised this chicken was trussed up and stuffed underneath his T-Shirt.  I think it must be his prized cock(eral) going off to a cockfight somewhere – I think he was keeping it warm so as to have an edge!  You typically see the chook hanging from the handlebar.  I certainly am not advocating for ill-treatment of animals, it is just stuff that you see every day that you need to make a conscious decision to not get worked up over.

On the work side of things, my focus is changing to the operations and maintenance (O&M) sphere as well as continuing the surveying training.  It actual fact, O&M is a largely hidden exercise in Australia but it is what keeps water, sewerage etc moving along.  In Oz for example, most people take their car in for servicing according to the prescribed schedule so as to minimise of breaking down in the middle of nowhere.  We all groan when the mechanic says that something will need replacing by the next service, but most of us pay for that replacement.  Here there is no such thing as maintenance until it is broken, this is largely due to cost, most people live a hand to mouth existence.

The O&M project I am involved in greatest challenge is to change the mindset to act before it breaks down permanently.  The main positive to this approach is that it anticipates when spares are needed in a country that is difficult to get spares and (hopefully) gives time to order and deliver the replacement parts as required (well that is the plan).  It is early days for the O&M project and it will take time to implement well beyond my contract period here.

It will keep you posted on any progress.

An invasion of my own making

19 - 26 January 2014

This week saw me starting the training of new water supply systems design process with my counterparts here at BESIK.  I have set the lessons so that it is only about 2 hours a day to enable them to practice afterwards (known as reflective practice).  It is an interesting experience to be teaching the Timorese counterparts, especially considering their underlying learning experience is by rote learning.  It is a challenge for me to teach in such a way that they understand the content as well knowing how to find the solution off their own bat after I finish my placement.

I wonder sometimes if this is a too high ideal to be imparting here Timor-Leste.  I say this not as a criticism of the Timorese people, there are really nice people to work with, but it does highlight endemic problems with the education system, the teaching methods used, poor nutrition in relation to brain development and the hand to mouth existence most Timorese live by.  I am only cataloguing the challenges not criticising the people themselves who are products of the system(or lack of) but there are times where their ingenuity is simply priceless as well as a source for chuckle.

I have heard of anecdotes where school children are taught only by repeating what has been written by an unqualified or poorly qualified teacher off a blackboard.  This was my mother’s experience back in the not-so distant past, no wonder she left at 15 to work (I know there are only reasons too).  It hardly helps that a lack of books and considering the national languages are Tetun and Portuguese (English and Bahasa Indonesian is spoken too) this makes it very difficult and costly to source texts for the students.  This is hardly the way to inspire students about learning at large; their parents are also a product of this system too, compounding the problem further, where their education has been disrupted several times too.

It just makes my challenge seem small in comparison and the changes I have seem already have given me hope that it will not be wasted….

Onto more superficial matters, I was invited to Heather’s place in Atabae to celebrate Australia Day (AKA Invasion Day).  Atabae is a hard 2-3 hour motorbike ride west of Dili, towards West (Indonesian) Timor.  It is good fun to be on a bike riding down this road considering the number of work-related trips to Maliana, which is another 2 hours drive past Atabae.  Steve (who was a fellow traveller on the Baucau trip) and I met at Papa John’s (Pope John Paul II statue) mid-afternoon to avoid the hottest part of the day (but we got rained on).  I am envious of Steve’s trail bike as it can take lumps and bumps of the road whereas my bike (now known as the Durango 95) makes funny noises when taking a big hit.

(Atabae is towards the bottom left of map)

But the Durango 95 purred away real horror show to Liquiça and Maubara, making Maubara in just over the hour.  The section of road between Liquiça and Maubara is almost freeway standard making it almost a tourist attraction in its own right to the expats here who labour their way around the country’s other roads, I just wished it kept going.  The road deteriorates rapidly after Maubara where a trail bike/4WD is better suited however I managed to make it as smooth as possible finding the best lines through some pretty crappy sections of road.  It certainly makes for an interesting time when the road has been stripped back to sub-base level leaving massive puddles to drive through, the Timorese just whizz past me through these sections as they are much lighter, there are times when I drive right next to 30 ton excavators as there are that moving the earth around….

(there is a 1.5 m gap and please excuse the picture angle, I did not realise the helmet camera mount was coming loose)

Steve and I got to Atabae by late afternoon and was warmly welcomed by Heather and the rest of the Atabae residents (expats and local alike) for the Australia Day party.  There was even beach cricket – it was nice to get the sand between the toes but the water was not safe enough to swim in (waves/current not crocs).  A lot was said back Heather’s place into the wee hours of the morning before hitting the tiles to get some sleep, no we did not drink that much booze!  I had to smile that I had to spray insect repellent before sleeping, the mosquitos were not bad, but a mosquito net just makes it too damn hot to sleep without a fan/air con.

(Perfect beach cricket pitch conditions, catch Heather!, life’s pretty good here)

Steve and I said our thank you and goodbyes to all at about midday to get back to Dili, I was disappointed to discover that my bike had been dropped several times by the neighbours as they had to for reasons unknown to me move the bike in the front yard.  I now have no mirrors and a bent handlebar that needs to be fixed, I just got other parts of the bike fixed from a similar incident several weeks ago.  A bike’s roadworthiness here is based on whether it still goes forward and is not based on whether the indicators are working or still having round wheels …  It is one of things here where I have to go with the flow, I quite often find my bike has moved during the night at home (it has been dropped there too) or when I have been out to meet friends.

Needless to say that Steve and I got back to Dili safely otherwise I would not be writing this post.  It looks like I need to go to work for a rest.

It will be a little light on for TL news as I will be heading to Oz for two weeks for a well-deserved break next week.