reminiscing about Timor Leste

Am I jinxing myself by writing this? By writing this post, am I locking myself into a return? I don't know, but I'm going to share anyway.

Things I miss about Timor Leste:

1. going to the beach
2. going to the beach in my big white SUV and parking it in any empty spot
3. going to the beach and walking from my car, 20 metres to the pristine white sand and sitting down on a beach chair
4. going to the beach and having a Mana come up to me to take my drinks or food order
5. going to the beach and running into friends while digging my toes into the soft white sand (Areia Branca)
6. watching the sunset at the beach
7. the sunset from outside Lita store
8. going to the gym
   
9. swapping crazy stories about crocodiles and plotting my escape route while sitting at the beach
10. jogging from Caz Bar to Cristo Rei, running up the stairs to the top, then back down and repeat. Preferably right at sunset.
11. wearing cute sun dresses
12. my yellow room with the chocolate accent wall that drove my landlord nuts
13. the bathroom that was built just for me, with my very own septic tank and hot water tank
14. speaking Portuguese
15. hopping over the wall into the litter-strewn dried-out river and crossing over into downtown Dili
16. listening to capoeira music and watching the MAC kids puttin' on the moves
17. Little Pataya
18. Caz Bar
19. Aroma Café
20. sharing an international living experience with friends FOB from Brasil
21. Yoga class!
22. GNR jokes
23. Mana Māe's smile
24. Donuts from Tiger Fuel, picked up mid-afternoon when I'm desperate for a snack
25. The Sri Lanki hole-in-the-wall restaurant with awesome juice and coconut salad
26. The bed I got special ordered from the coffin-maker, but that only enjoyed for two weeks before leaving
27. Piling all the kids in my landlords' family into my big white SUV and teaching them all how to buckle seatbelts!
28. The pigs outside my window (I debated which list to put this on, but I think I miss them)
29. MY VERANDA FURNITURE. Two days after I moved into my house I drove half an hour to another town until I found a guy selling bamboo furniture. We bargained, he fit the full set into my vehicle, and that was that.
    

Things I don't miss about Timor Leste

1. UNPOL
2. UNPOL vehicles
3. Driving the white SUV when everyone else was driving the motorbikes
   
4. Getting violently sick on the drive to Baucau
5. The inability to avoid people I know when I'm at the beach
6. The ethical dilemma of daily living
7. Not being able to trust people
8. Working in a dark gray-coloured warehouse
9. The inability to avoid people I know when jogging to Cristo Rei
10. The [lack of] quality of the Internet connection!
11. The failings of the Brasilian embassy
12. Being lied to all the time

What can I say. There's a lot that I miss. It's a great place to live. If only the items on the don't-miss list weren't so important.