Nearly packed

Today was Corpus Christi, apparently – another religious holiday that wasn’t declared as a holiday from work until approximately 4.32pm the day before. I’m not complaining, a holiday is a holiday. Just another one of those delightful Timorese ways of getting things done.

I’ve used it gainfully, packing most of my stuff up. Moving house is much less of a pain in Timor: took me two hours to pack everything except the kitchen items (I’ll do that Saturday), with plenty of time taken up by sort of mooching about the house. Plus, you know, there’s no admin stuff to take care of: no need to change your address for electricity, phone, gas, internet or water bills; no need to advise friends that your address will change unless they’re going to come around for dinner, because I don’t even have a street address, so I have to use the post office box of my organisation.

I maintain: when I get back to Australia, I’m unpacking next to a rubbish skip. I wrote a list from memory at one stage of some of the things I put in the 85 boxes* that I left in my friend’s basement, but after months of living around people who have very little and living with much less stuff myself, I think it will be easier to identify the stuff I want to hold on to, and the stuff I didn’t miss and won’t ever, ever use.

Packing to move always makes me sad, but it is good that I’ll be getting away from the noise.

• I wrote that and then realised that some people would think this is comical exaggeration. It’s not. I really did leave 85 boxes of stuff in my friend’s basement. Plus a couple in her cupboard. And another couple at my parents’ place. Some of them are small! Honest!