Finally into mission

NZ Airforce 757 wing markings

Next morning we enjoyed a continental breakfast and started to worry about our Haka.  We had been told the night before that we 5 Police members were to disembark before the soldiers and we knew that meant we would be given the traditional Maori greeting, which meant we had to reply with our own.

The padre offered to back us up with a few soldiers if we needed the support but we decided we would work on the "Kamate Kamate" Haka (best known because of the NZ All Blacks performing it before every rugby test match, We were confident we'd be able to pull it off without too much embarrassment.

First sight of Timor Leste

The flight from Darwin to Dili was just 1hr 15mins long, we landed at about 10.20am Dili time (3 hours behind NZ).  Outside we could see the large contingent of soldiers waiting to depart and through the swarm of green came our own team in their blue uniforms.  We watched them form up in readiness for the haka, their 25 strong crew was going to outshine the 5 of us without a doubt but we were going to give all we had and the Padre had committed the new soldiers to backing us up with a song after our haka.

So it was we faced the team already here and they gave us a good blood curdling challenge.  We faced them down as required and in my mind I was trying to watch their moves to carry them to my own.

Greetings from those already here

  At the end of their haka the Superintendent was right up in our faces and he reached straight out and shook hands with our haka leader before we could start ours.  It seemed we were not required to answer the challenge after all.


It was great to see everyone that were already over here.  Being the last of the 25 from college to arrive  meant the whole team was together again.  We shook hands and greeted each other then continued with the formalities of arrival before being taken away to the Esplanada Hotel, which is where the NZ contingent in Dili is housed.  Nice place, great lunch!


We didn't have our bags as they were in with the soldiers kit on the plane.  We were to collect them at the end of the day and in the meantime we went to the Obrigado Baraks (the UN HQ) to start the ID and sign in process.


The induction into the UN will take about 10 days.  Lessons on Human Rights, Timorese Law, Use of force, sexual health and HIV, firearms and driving.  Everyone has told us this part is long and drawn out so we shouldn't get too worried about anything for the next week or so. 

There are already more Police uniforms passing me than I have ever seen in one spot and I'm excited to be part of this mission to help this young country get back on it's feet.


By the end of the day we haven't seen much of the place at all but it seems very much like Bali from my experiences of that country.  The temperature is about 26C and I'm hot -the first time I've been hot for a couple of months. 

I'm loving the place already!