HAPPY NU YEAR 2010

H ere's to health and happiness!
A toast to the Nu Year!
P eace and joy to all of us!
P rosperity and cheer!
Y ears come and go, some bad, some good.
N ew years provide the space,
E ach to fill with what one would,
Windows onto grace.
Y ears come and go, yet still we toast
E ach one, for each one seems
A s though it were a new-found coast,
R ich with hope and dreams.

-unanimous-

MEMORABLE BIRTHDAY

These dates (3&4 May) a year ago I was still in East Timor...
My friends, Yovita & Batista and I travelled from Dili to Viqueque for my bday escape...
It's 183km south-east from Dili and would normally take around 8-10 hours since we have to revolve more than half of Eastern part of Timor...
We decided to stay over night in Baucau...
The next day we continued the trip to Venilale and Ossu where we saw a quite refreshing waterfall...
The interesting part started when we reached Betano where we had to cross a river of 6 meter wide without a bridge, luckily it wasn't deep...
But we weren't lucky enough with the 2nd river we crossed and got trapped in it...
It took us more than 2 hours to pick the car up from the sandy river with the help of people surroundings!!
We were extremely lucky to meet those people considering it was completely out of nowhere and there wasn't any signal in our hand phone...
It was almost 7pm when we finally can continue the journey back to Dili after trying to dig out all the water in the car...
Just to complete the excitement, we had to reach Dili before midnight because Batista had to come back to his camp before than...
It means that the 7-8 hours journey should be reached by less than 5 hours where the roads were hilly and in snake forms...
The adventure didn't stopped there, as we were approaching Viqueque, a few people put a big tree in the middle of the road to block our way...
They were literally carrying the tree laughing as they saw us approaching!
Yovita said that they did this to every car passing their village to ask for money...
Batista who had been in tension since our car trapped in the river, went furious and pulled out a grenade he carried around than threw it off to the people and BOOM!!!
Though nobody hurt (in fact the people were laughing while they're running!), I was in total shocked!! OMG!!!
The only bomb blast that I heard was the one in the marine's show when I escorted the Brunei's chief of army visit in 2004...
All of our cloths were wet from the river, surroundings by 2 meters wild grass, no lights everywhere (because there were no electricity in most of eastern districts of Timor), bad roads plus the tense you felt from Batista..
For the first time in my life I really thought that I was gonna died back there...
But Batista managed to go around the tree so we could continue our journey...
I was really exhausted but couldn't sleep because I was too scared and tensed, we drove through jungle practically...
We had no food and drinks cause we gave them to the people that helped us in the river...
It was completely beyond anything I've ever experienced...
We finally reached Dili exactly on midnight as Batista showed his off-road skills and drove like mad...
My head was totally dizzy, felt like throwing up and my stomach was puffed up out of my wet pants but I had to get some sleep cause the next morning I had an 8 o'clock meeting with the government of Timor Leste's official...
The next afternoon I found out the background story of the "extreme" journey...
I know than why Batista was so tensed along the way and didn't wanna stop even for a minute...
In Feb, before the Ramos Horta shooting, there was a UN' car that burned down in Viqueque by the rebels and most south-east part of Timor was still off limit for UN...
There was a negative reaction to UN's presence in some of the south-east part of Timor where we passed through...
Of course Batista as a Portugal police served under UN knew the situation but he didn't tell us cause he must sensed our fear...
There was a mixed feeling of fear, joy, sad and great relieve knowing that we might not survive...
But it was definitely a near-to-death birthday experience that I will never forget for my entire life...

HPY NEW YEAR

My wish to myself for 2009...

I've met the darkness

Been held by the night
lonely was there in my arms
I've been with broken
I've stared in her eyes
Emptiness left me this scar

But I heard your voice,
Calling me out of the cold

** And now I can live again
I have been chosen to
run with the wind
I can go higher
I know I will soar
I'm taller, I'm stronger,
I'm better than before

I've walked through fire
So I could become
All that you said I could be
And now my breath has a reason
My sky has a sun
Cos in you I've found
all that I need

Your touched revived me,
It was your love that
opened my eyes

Repeat **

I broke through the rain
Stood through the storm
Now I know I'll remain
I can do the impossible
I can reach the unreachable
it's my time
I will rise
And live...

(Taller, Stronger, Better - Guy Sebastian)

HAPPY NEW YEAR everyone!

NEXT ONE IN LINE??

"Oh no, did I really get this bouquet??"

Than panic started to attack me when I really realised that it's not a dream..
Yup, it's real everybody..
I got the wedding' bouquet in Wowik + Tony's wedding on 16 Aug 2008...
The real "nightmare" happened after that very moment actually...
When everyone started to hustle me with "the question" (when will my D-day be? - red)...
Oughh.. For a while thought I was save... Guess I was wrong...
Fasten your sit belt, here we go again...

ULTIMATE GIFT

It's my last days in Dili after more than 3.5 months in here...
And guest what I got for a gift to remember (and to brag for )...
Yeah people, I finally got into 1 frame with Jose Ramos Horta, the president of Timor Leste, yeay!
This idea was actually only came about a week or two ago when Marco, Herminia, maun Hugo and myself went to Merkado lama to see the bazaar to celebrate the independence...
It turned out that that very hour the president was also visiting it...
So when he passed us and greeted us, I said to Marco that I wanna take pictures with him...
But than again he was surrounded by guards, plus I didn't have the guts to ask him in front of those people...
After that, as I kept nagging Marco to contact her friend, mana Sicha, the president's secretary, to ask whether I can come to his office to take the picture, mana Sicha advised there might be a chance on Monday as he'll be in the Democratic fields to celebrate the world's children day...
So we went there at 5pm and found out there was also Xanana Gusmao...
We had to wait for about an hour until the event finish *plus nervous, lots of sweat and scary looks from his 'Vin Diesel' bodyguards* to finally took the picture...
It's true what the people here say, he's really friendly and nice...
Thanks to Marco, Herminia, maun Hugo, Guna and mana Sicha for all the help to made this come true... I won't forget it...

ADVENTURES IN TIMOR LESTE

It's been 3 months since I stepped my foot in Timor Leste...
And I've been lucky enough to be able to go to the districts...
Out of 13 districts in TL, so far I went (or atleast passed) to 9 of them.. Not bad huh?
Most of them I went with Yovita and Batista, two of my good friends here...
The 1st district that I visited was Baucau district, around 120km from Dili to the east...
The capital is Baucau, the second largest city after Dili...
On the way there, we passed Manatuto as the capital of Manatuto district...
D district where Xanana Gusmao came from...
Before went back to Dili, we went to Laga...
Some of the pictures you can see here...
Next district that I went to is Ainaro district...
To the city of Ainaro to be exact, 78km south of Dili...
It's a business trip as I was attending d launching of JICA water project there...
So unlike other trip where we usually went on Saturday, spent the night and went back to Dili on the next day, this trip was a one day trip...
It's exhausted since it's a mountainous snake roads and some roads were in bad condition due to rainy season...
On the way there, we passed Aileu, the city of fog of Aileu district...
Before we got to Ainaro town, we also passed Maubisse, a nice town with cool weather...
It's lovely...
Some pictures of this trip are here...
Lautem district was my next destination...
We were headed to Lospalos, 248km east of Dili...
Though it's like Baucau journey which was still during the cureview situation, but the trip to Lospalos was so unpleasant...
We departed very late from Dili and we had to reach there before 10pm, so Batista drove like nuts...
As a result of speeding through snake roads, me and Yovita got really sick during the trip...
Luckily after spent the night in Roberto Carlos hotel in Lospalos, we felt better the next day and continued our trip to Com...
It's a beatiful beach with beautiful resorts...
Too bad I didn't have pictures of Com here...
We also dropped by to Tutuala, to see Tutuala cape from a distance..
At the end of April, Yovita, Marco and myself went to Liquica...
It's only 32 km west from Dili, the capital of Liquica district, so it's only 1/2 hour drive...
This trip came from a conversation during lunch time when we talked about ayata, a kinna fruit like soursoup...
Apparently Liquica is where most of fruit were produced especially ayata, so we went there...
Another interresting place to see here...
Last but not least (I hope) was Viqueque district that we visited on my bday early this month...
It surely was the most unforgetable and adventerous journey so far...
Not just coz it's my bday but also d excitement and d tense we (especially me) experienced during d trip back...
We spent the night in Baucau before we went to Viqueque the next day...
We had to pass Ossu before reaching Viqueque...
On the way back we took the road to Betano and that's where the real adventure begin...
From Betano, we went to Same of Manufahi district to than Aileu and finally back to Dili...
I'll try to tell the summary of this adventurous trip in my indonesian blog (sorry for english reader, u can only see the pictures here)...

Now, during my 2 weeks I have in TL, I can only hope that I could go to Oecussi, Bobonaro, Cova Lima and/or Ermera districts...
Who knows?

CAMOUFLAGE

1 time u thought its d tough day u had in d office...
Or maybe u just had enough doing d same d**n thing every single day...
It even misleads u to keep coming back to d so uninteresting life u used to have back than...
Other day u’re blaming d hormone...
Lowest point when u think u’re not loved enough by d Creator...
U know what... those masks were only a camouflage of ur denial...
Tears can’t lie...