Getting around.

This is the sunrise from our morning run. Every day is almost like this. Best sunrises ever

We eat out about 5 days a week. Eating out isn't too expensive. This is the road home. We are buddies with all the kids. They're all very friendly.

I had another meeting with the u.s. ambassador to Timor-Leste. This time it was with me and only 5 other people. The Ambassador wanted our impression of security and problems in the nation. I was really out of place. The other three Worden all were associated with larger companies and had been in the country for 3 or 4 years. I guess the important thing is that now I have a relationship with the Ambassador in case there are future needs.

This is the water tank at church. Because the water pressure is so poor all buildings have to have their own gravity fed tank so that water will consistently flow. Whenever we have any activity at the building we first have to plug in the pump so it starts to refill the tank. The country hasn't installed water meters yet so there was no charge.

This is how church starts off most weeks. It's often only us. Sometimes no one else comes. Most the time we have someone show up late. We asked the members if they want us to start church later so they can be on time. They said they tried that in the past and all they did was just show up even later. Actually there is one member who's always on time but he's been on vacation and for the past few weeks he has to work on Sunday. Luckily we sing with recorded music and voices so we don't sound so bad singing on our own

This is our go-to taxi driver. His name is Mario. He picks us up for church and for all of our English classes. He speaks very little English but enough to get us places. He's always on time. Mario has eight children and five grandchildren. They all live at his house. He drives a taxi 7 days a week. Taxis cost about $1 a mile. They don't have meters. You have to negotiate the price. We always have to pay more because we are foreigners. Whenever we are traveling with natives we always have them negotiate because the price is better. It cost us $3 one way to the church and $2 one way to the grocery store.

This is a close-up of the steering column. Almost all of the vehicles used for taxis are used vehicles imported from Singapore. They are almost all Nissan sentras and were built in the mid-2000s. Maintenance is very basic. These vehicles are just kept running and never improved. Rarely does a car have all the windows or all the doors that will work. They never have air conditioning. We have never seen a working seatbelt. Luckily everyone drives pretty slow so we we have a chance of surviving an accident.