You Like to Walk

Today, at the Dili airport, a cab driver came up to me and said “You want a taxi; no you want to walk.”  He has seen me on the street, shaking my head at the friendly toot known as “Taxi Manna?”


I smiled and said, “That’s right.  I walk everywhere.”


Only today I had accepted a ride.  Janu was on the same plane as me, and his brother was there picking him up, along with nephew Navaro.  I was seated 12 rows in front of Janu, and had no checked baggage, so I got out much earlier than him. I watched Navaro wriggle his way to every possible vantage point without actually entering the restricted area. For an almost five year old, he was quite skilled.


By the way, manna is the universal title for a woman in Tetun. It roughly translates as sister, and it's what Timorese say instead of Ma’am. Kids on the street practicing their English call every foreigner “mister”. I definitely prefer to be called Manna to Mister.  In fact, I find it endearing, since Timorese women are also addressed as Manna.


On the technology front, I had one success and one failure today. I dumped the annual report text into the publishing program (Adobe InDesign). I finally watched a YouTube video, and found it was easy peasy.


On the other hand, I just spent the past hour trying to get the travel laptop to recognize my phone’s hotspot, something it did happily last week.  No joy. No pictures of Singapore or East Timor til I solve this one. Be glad you're not able to mind read right now. My inner voice is swearing a blue streak.


I'm still leery of power since last week’s frazzle -- I plugged in my brand new adapter and watched flames come out. I'm pretty sure I told you about that traumatic event. I got a new adapter at the Bali airport on the way to Singapore, and so far, so good. If I'd been thinking ahead, I would have got a card reader for the iPad. Instead, I basked in the glory of the many many gardens.


Onward and onward. Tomorrow, I need to write an email for this year's Giving Day campaign. Next Tuesday is International Giving Day, and donations to Ba Futuru are matched (by whom, I don't know). Before I left for my long weekend, I read some stuff on word choice and effective storytelling in fundraising campaigns. Time to put those lessons into practice.