Athens

Nighttime view of the Acropolis and Parthenon from my hotel room.

A temple near the ancient agora in Athens.

The Parthenon, undergoing renovation.

Munich and Oktoberfest

One of the main halls in the Residenz in Munich.

Marienplatz

A fountain in the Residenz made entirely of seashells.

The Spaten beer tent at Oktoberfest. The oompah band is playing in the background.

One of the dining rooms in the Hofbrau Haus beer hall.

Night near Marienplatz.

Taking the bus in Timor

The buses in Timor are usually painted up in decorative colors and feature names in big letters on the front, just like this one. No idea if it's Mr. Bass like the fish, or Mr. Bass like the musical instrument.

In Dili, there are even smaller buses for the city routes. I'll have to get a picture to post. Two things amaze me about them -- it's probably not possible for someone my height to fit inside, and there are usually four or five kids hanging out the door, causing the bus to tilt pretty severely. And those guys tend to take corners way too fast.

Ave Maria Church in Suai

Trip to the south coast of Timor-Leste

A few weeks ago, I went along as one of our other projects held an event to mark its launch in Cova Lima, a district on the south coast of Timor-Leste. My office has no projects there, so it was a good way to see that part of the country. One of the videos I posted earlier is from that trip. I finally got around to putting the photos up.

This is the coastline along the Timor Sea. The water is much rougher there, but at least it has crocodiles.

The other side of driving in rural Timor-Leste

This was taken on the return to Dili. The conditions were even worse on the trip out.

Driving through rural Timor-Leste

I accompanied the consultants we hired to conduct an analysis of the financial services available to farmers and agribusinesses, and we traveled to a few different rural towns and villages in the south of the country.

Dili coastline

This is the view from the parking lot of the USAID office. The water is visible from our conference room.

Travel in Timor-Leste

I took a recent trip to the southern coast of the country, and on the way down, this road crossed a river bed that still had a river in it. Fortunately, it dried up for the return trip, but the video would have been a bit more dramatic if we were fording a river.

Making tais

One of the traditional crafts produced in Timor-Leste are tais (pronounced like "tise"). These are hand-woven fabrics, usually worn during ceremonies and sometimes you see older Timorese wearing them as their normal clothing. It's also traditional for honored guests to receive a tais the size of a scarf as part of the welcome ceremony. The woman in the picture is weaving a tais using a shuttle that she said had been in her family for several generations. We could see how smooth it was from years of use. The house was raised on stilts, and her workspace was beneath the floor.

Villages in TImor-Leste

The same week as the trip to Maubisse, I also traveled with a woman from Peace Corps who was assessing the situation for a possible return of Peace Corps Volunteers to the country. This was my first time to see life in rural villages in Timor.  Some Peace Corps Volunteers are going to have some nice places to live and work -- for Peace Corps Volunteers, that is.

Palm trees are good for more than just coconuts

During an interview with a community group, I noticed a guy climbing a palm tree. I wasn't sure what he was doing, so I went for a closer look. He was tapping the palm tree in order to use the sap for palm wine. He seemed pretty comfortable up in that tree.

Maubisse

A few weeks ago, I tagged along with a team conducting research on the demand for financial services -- savings accounts and small loans -- and we went to several communities in the southern part of Timor-Leste. The city of Maubisse was our base for the two days of interviews. Our hotel was at the top of a small mountain and offered some great views. The views almost made up for the lack of working bathrooms.

Tanah Lot in Bali, Indonesia

Tanah Lot is beautiful temple compound on the island of Bali. You can kind of see from these pictures that the temple is only accessible at low tide. We arrived a little too late to get to the temple, but the grounds were also amazing.

The Princess and the Coffee Bean

One thing I never expected to do during the course of my job was meet a princess. However, Thailand has interest in Timor-Leste, and Maha Chakai Sirindhorn, the senior princess of Thailand, recently made a visit to the country. Among the things on her itinerary was a trip to a coffee plantation rehabilitation project that USAID supports, and I went to represent our office during her visit.

It was a good thing that I did because another guest didn't show, and I was asked to play a larger role than I had intended. (I would have worn a nicer shirt if I had known that I would be invited to sit with her for coffee and snacks.) She was very interested in development work and asked a lot of questions about how the rehabilitation work was organized and how the farmers benefited. This coffee project is a tremendous success for us, and Starbucks buys a lot of beans from Timor-Leste. In fact, the project has been so successful, we are able to focus on other sectors for economic growth.

In this picture, she had just given me a small gift -- some books on development she wrote and a business card holder. As she was presenting them to me, she noticed my Embassy Afghanistan lanyard and mentioned that Afghanistan is the only country in that area of Asia that she has not been to yet. I suggested that she wait a couple of years before going.