kape timor

roasted coffee in traditional weaved basket
Originally uploaded by tumbleweeed.

we needed a shot of coffee desperately for our magazine - which actually has nothing to do with coffee - go figure! anyways, so i had a brainwave and poured some of my own coffee into a nice weaved basket i have at home and worked on the shots last night. i kinda like the shots man! especially the purple and pink accents of the basket!

speaking of coffee, some of my friends needed a big dose of caffeine today after the extraordinary disturbances last night when they hardly got a wink of sleep. Their neighbourhood has been a gang battlefield in past months but last night, the gangs turned onto their house - attacking them three times; presumably because they were the ones who called the police and caused a guy to be arrested for his antics. This chap had apparently been arrested 3 times and of course will be released yet again.

frustrations are abound with the apparent impotence of the international forces to get the troublemakers away from the rest of the people. the forces themselves are frustrated too - it must be beyond ordinary folks like us to understand what constraints they are under - but fingers have increasingly been pointing to the judicial system or the lack of it as the reason behind this inaction on the offenders.

so getting attacked three times in a night isn't something to be proud of. what rubbed salt in their wounds was that the third time they called for police intervention, they didn't show up! i guess there were too many 'fires' to fight the entire night. also, for doing what the UNPOL asked people to do - to call and inform them of such disturbances. So for being civic minded - they are now the gangster's latest targets.

And as i write this, there is an sms going round saying that bodies were recovered near the Beach Road market and that has led to another row in that area near the Malaysian Embassy. It must be God's grace that the heightened tensions in the Pantai Kelapa and Fatuahad areas coincided wtih the week i decided to move from there back to Becora - which is really safe and undisturbed now, except that we get regular power cuts.

Oh, by the way, i must regularly remind folks reading this blog that this is not NEWS, i.e. i don't have the most accurate stuff here all the time cos i'm no reporter out on the street getting the latest - just an ordinary person sharing my thoughts and what i perceive to be fact.

;-)