Unfacebooked, or a telcoms monopoly as seen from space

I’ve written before about Timorese interest in Facebook.

But with the continuing telcoms monopoly, Timorese people simply remain offline.

Below is a section of MIT grad student’s rendering of the “unFacebooked” world. Indonesia, including West Papua, is super connected. And Timor… increasingly has electricity (yellow dots) but no Facebook (dark green).

(The Facebook friendship map is dated December 2010. Let’s hope with the introduction of 3G the situation is no longer so bleak.)

Fatin Histórico

More history developments!

A friend on Facebook drew my attention to this exciting site/project to help Timorese people document the history in and around them. “Fatin Historico” (Or “Historical Place”) is a blog in English and Indonesian (with Tetum language videos) where editors hope people will contribute photos, video and text. I can’t endorse the idea enough.

They write

This project is a labor of love of several youths who want to document the sites that made Timor Leste. We are interested in buildings from the ancient, Portugese, Chinese, Japanese and Indonesian era, urban (and village) planning, hideouts, old conversations and the soil and sea of Timor Leste.

Take a look at the post about the Japanese caves in Venilale, a place that you may have noticed from the car and been curious about.

The editors are Kamil Muhammad of the University of Melbourne’s Architecture program, and Pedro Ximenes, a Baucau based journalist. They will be partnering with Architects for Peace.

I hope to contribute material when I get a chance. I think it would also be great for them to include an interactive map of the posts they publish.

The little prince

Here I hope to bring to a wider audience the tragic and compelling story of a Topass “prince” from the island of Timor who was essentially kidnapped by a Dominican priest and abandoned in France in 1750.

Pascale Balthazar, the 12 year old son Topasse ruler Gaspar da Costa was taken with a couple of dozen slaves to Macau. There his charlatan “protector” Dominican Father Ignácio sold most of his slaves in Macau and his nice clothes in Canton, after which time they continued on to France, in a journey which took about nine months. During the journey, the priest convinced the boy not to reveal his status or walk around freely on the ship, as the French sailors were monsters and would eat him.

Collapse three years into one

South Sudan gains its independence today – with many more dark clouds than East Timor had at the time. Troubling reports of fighting and of mass displacements in the border regions.

East Timor’s struggle against an invading force was quite different that South Sudan’s. In 1998, a referendum (and a half-hearted ceasefire) was brokered. 1999 was the year the referendum, the build-up and the bloody aftermath and mass displacement of the East Timorese population.

After a horrendous scorched earth campaign which cost many lives, transferred much wealth to Indonesia, and seriously disrupted the territory, East Timorese had over 2 years of UN administration before they formally declared independence (for a second time).

I cannot help but see events in South Sudan as a sort of “pile-up” of Timor’s 1999 and 2002.

Search terms

I have been watching over the years what search terms draw people to this blog. Most visits are from search engines, which makes sense because I am infrequent blogger and the “blogging community” if it exists in English is very weak. Also because I mention obscure places and historical events that people are curious about, but as there is so little material available to Timorese they end up here. (Which somewhat saddens me.)

I think these are of interest because they give us some (limited) insight about what information people are seeking on the internet on Timor.

(That said, a look at the statistics reveals that US Marines are my most frequent visitors, thanks to a post I wrote comparing Alfredo to a rooster. Which leads me to think all military men are actually peacocks. But we’ll leave that for another post.)

Timor related top search terms in the past year are (in descending order of number of hits)

Crowdfunding for Timor

I still work in the “development” business. I confess my sins elsewhere, i.e. Twitter.

But I will say, I have been searching for alternatives to help people support people in other places that does not involve big international organizations with operations and ‘footprints’. So I have been reading a lot about crowdfunding.

The idea of creating an online, global “kitty” is nothing new. Kiva has been around for years, but has recently undergone much scrutiny. It is hard to get these systems right, so that they are fair to recipients and donors.

That said, I wanted to draw attention to two crowdfunding experiments in relation to Timor. This is not a full moralistic endorsement of either, this is more like a plea to “give it a shot because everything else is annoying me right now”.

Arbiru

Arbiru. It’s an adjective and adverb in Tetum. Quite useful and on a list of words that are important and tough to translate. Interesting that I grasp for other Asian words in the English language to translate its meaning. Somewhere between kamikaze bravery, running amok, randomness. As a memory aid, I would think “arbitrary” in English.

Arbiru can go right and it can go wrong. It is somewhere on the edge of chaos, and something essential to the war machine.

Looking through Luis Costa’s Tetum-Portuguese dictionary, I notice that there are few words in Tetum that have ar- as a prefix. The only other words from Tetum (Terik) are aruma (meaning whichever, whatever) and aran (meaning to hate, synonym with hirus).

But the word’s second and third syllables are more potent. A biru is a totem, or an amulet, possessing power to turn its holder invincible in war. Falintil guerrillas used these.

Dear Juba

Independence was a vision shared by hundreds of millions of people culminating in decolonization and independence for most after the Second World War. Being involved in the Timorese cause for self-determination I got a taste for what that must have been like. But in the years following, I also got a taste of the “after.”

I remember one of the lines of conversation most repeated in East Timor. I have had this conversation multiple times over the past ten years. To paraphrase

Nativity scene hangover

This post goes out to all those Timorese youth who woke up under flashing lights in a manger this morning.

Those who have spent time in Dili in December, or who go by the name of Bishop Ricardo, will know what I am talking about. Timorese youth have long made nativity scenes into mini discos. Given the lack of nocturnal recreation in most of the country, it’s hardly a wonder people confuse that a hut with flashing lights with a happening night spot.

Unfortunately, either some kids have taken it to excess or a certain Bishop whose name is an anagram for killjoy has finally decided that these nativity nightclubs are the worst thing since Martin Luther.

Cheap. Plastic. Flowers.

These were taken the week before All Souls Day right below the Stadium, which is the classic plastic flower shopping zone.

I asked what the crocodile [photo 3] was doing on the street and he did not appear to have any purpose except to make people laugh. I was half expecting him to grope me, but instead he let me take a couple of fun photos with him.

Dengue in Dili

[Note: This was written a couple of weeks ago. With La Niña wreaking havoc on Timor, and non-stop rains, dengue appears to be more prevalent than normal this year, although I cannot find real data to back this up. This blog entry is dedicated to my bestest friend in Dili and her UNTL-attending sidekick, who nursed me back to health.]

I was about to start and finish this blog entry with “It sucks.” But that was me somewhat feeling sorry for myself, bitter and exhausted on the morning of Day 5.

Now I am at the tail end of Day 6. I am simultaneously irritated by one of the last symptoms, “tingling hands and feet” (read: this HORRIBLE itching that can last for 2-3 days) and bored out of my mind, I thought I would try and offer some tips to those who will not dodge the dengue bullet in Dili.

Fake plastic flowers

I have never seen so many fake plastic flowers for sale in Dili. A week away from Loron Matebian – or All Souls Day, probably East Timor’s most important holiday – the streets near the Stadium, in Bairro Pite and other strategic parts of town are lined with lurid plastic flowers. “Loose” ones, fake bouquets, strings of flowers. They are bright purples, pinks, oranges, explosions of color.

The production of fruits and vegetables has caught up with demand in Dili over the past couple of years to an impressive degree. It seems a shame that the shame work to jumpstart these markets could not be done with cut flowers.

The fake flowers are probably an indication of the unparalleled disposable income of Dili residents – of the money splashed around with various cash transfer schemes and compensation schemes.

Crowdmapping colonialism and occupation

Perusing through the photos on Panoramio, a platform that georeferences photos and places them on the Google Earth map, I came across a number of users – mostly Portuguese – who have put images from their time in Portuguese Timor in the 1960s and 1970s.

This and reading about the efforts of veterans of the Colonial Wars in Africa to “piece together the puzzle of memory” got me thinking about the power of technology in the future to help fully invoke the room of mirrors, or palimpsest, that (is/)was (post)colonialism.

I spent hours, many hours fueled by Tiger during the dark evenings of 2006, sorting through terms of vassalage and kings (and sometimes queens), attempting to plot them on a map with Professor.

“I feel like my soul flew away from my body”

Today is both the anniversary of the 1999 Referendum and the International Day of the Disappeared.

Researcher Simon Robins wrote this assessment of the needs of families of the disappeared in East Timor earlier this year (pdfs in English and in Tetum). He quotes a representative of a womens group from Liquiça

I watched very closely the needs of victims‘ families; firstly it is important to have justice, secondly to have reparation for the victim’s family, that way they can live and carry on with their lives. Through reparation, the person can continue her life, look forward to the future and to be back again as she used to be. Looking at the side of education this time the Government has done some part of its duty as well as some payment for mothers to pay children school fees, again not all are getting this, only some of them. Another issue is the economic and especially health: why is that, because during this period, some of the victim’s family, wives are the most affected mentally. For these women, what they saw and what they’ve been through was notorious and they took it badly. A person like that had trauma and what will we do to heal that or to help them out of trouble? If there exists a treatment or counselling that can help her out so that person can continue her life normally.

Pilgrimage

I am not going to lie. I found Pedro Rosa Mendes’ book Peregrinação de Enmanuel Jhesus extremely challenging. Starting of course with the variation and density of language, which some Portuguese critics have compared with Faulkner.

I know what kind of reading experience I had, as a person who has spent a long time in archives, and time crisscrossing the east of Timor talking with people.

The novel is presented as a number of interweaving narratives by different characters – none of them Portuguese! – Rosa Mendes is very much at home playing with identity, perspective and the kind of (post)-colonial house of mirrors. At first I found none of his characters remotely sympathetic. But the book is not sentimental and it is certainly not about sympathy. A kind of self-destructive empathy perhaps. These are the kinds of relations, and the kinds of characters, that come from occupation(s).

Ruben “Aru” Barros Soares

For the past couple of days, I have been noticing a haunting Google search leading a reader to my blog.

“ruben barros soares staf unamet”

Towards the end of August, every Timorese family who lost loved ones before or after the Referendum must start to remember.

Barros Soares, known as “Aru”, was one of 14 UNAMET staff violently killed by Timorese militia and/or Indonesian military for helping to set up the UN-sanctioned vote on the “special autonomy” offer.

The son of the head of his village, he was working as a language assistant in Bobanaro district. For this, he was brutally murdered.

Prison island and boat people

On the issue of a detention center in East Timor for those seeking asylum in Australia: continued insensitivity by both sides, especially in what relates to the eventual location. One Timorese minister has suggested what he deems to be a “win-win” idea to resolve the impasse – put them on the Island of the Island.

What follows is some historical perspective on the island that is the namesake of this blog, prisons and boat people.

Touring troubadours

This week I had the pleasure of seeing Ego Lemos – currently Timor’s most famous singer songwriter – who is in the UK promoting his new album and playing a couple of shows. Unfortunately, many dates were canceled due to the unexpected illness of his touring partner Geoffrey Gurrumul.

Ego dropped into my place of work – a development agency where his ties as a permaculture activist go way back. I hope he does not mind me sharing that he talked at length about what he sees as his dual role as permaculture/community development advocate and songwriter/musician. He strongly believes that they two are not only compatible, but mutually reinforcing.

He told us about as a songwriter, he “hears” things, and is particularly sensitive to what people say and how they live. His work as a permaculture worker takes him to places where he hears about aspects of rural life.

Semo time

Flying over Timor is a thrill. I’ve only had the privilege a handful of times. This past trip we arranged a Saturday morning, paid joy flight with Mission Aviation Fellowship. MAF does essential medivacs and transport services for NGOs, and is extremely cordial and professional – we felt very safe.

The idea was to fly up the Lacló River and over Funar. It was spectacular. Flying only 500 feet over the ocean, we saw a massive sea turtle, dolphins, small whale (?), and a large crocodile near Taci Tolu.

We also noticed a rather amusing pattern in the small fish collection pools created for low tide on the Taci Feto. Amazing how a whole new world is revealed only a couple of hundred feet above.

Wherein I make a crude, uninformed comparison

Arriving for my first time in Banda Aceh, after having only superficially followed developments over the past couple of years, I was rather in for a shock. The place is bigger, more prosperous and seemingly, well, “autonomous” from outside (read: international) influence than is East Timor.

Although Aceh is not independent from Indonesia (or free from its military), there are many potential comparisons to be made.

To start with more obvious contrasts.

In Timor the destruction was 100% work of man. The Timorese voted for independence in 1999 knowing full well what was waiting for them – scorched earth. People even knew who their butchers and torturers would be.

Timor’s population had been reduced over decades of violence, forced displacement, and hunger. Banda Aceh’s population was reduced by a third from one census to the next. (There was never even a proper death toll from the tsunami apparently.)

Bustling

Contemplating one of the best Dili parties ever – which started at about 10am on Areia Branca and involved legions of hyperactive children, who seemed able to appropriate nearly every flotation device on the whole beach – I was reminded of the feeling of seemingly unstructured joy at the night in Funar when we went to the gathering to “look after God”.

People gathered in different groupings around the house, some adults and elders around the spread of food in the middle, some young people seated front of Maromak (God, or the Virgin Mary statue being “looked after”), men outside gambling, a large group of adults and young people dancing tebe-tebe, and little kids running around like loose electrons.

Rai klaran

We went up to Funar this weekend, with the company of two daughters (of sorts) of the household we would stay in. One was an anthropologist, who had stayed with the family for nearly two years a couple of years back. We’ll call her Menina. The other was Menina’s best friend and “sister” in the village during her fieldwork, who now lives in Dili.

I suppose any trip up to the mountains, up to a spot reachable only by 4WD on foot or by pony, for me ends up feeling like an amazing meeting of worlds. (It starts with the climatic shock of leaving the hot coast.)

Funar lies about half an hour’s drive (now that the road has been rehabilitated) above Laclubar, which in turn is now two hours rough ride from Manatuto on the coast. Time was the road to Laclubar was one of the best in Timor, as former Indonesian governor Abilio Osorio is from the region. But not so at the current moment! On the way up, we had to risk squeezing by a cargo truck bogged in a mud patch, about half an hour from Laclubar. We had inches to spare on either side of the car.

Ode to paun

“[...]
eres
acción de hombre,
milagro repetido,
voluntad de la vida”
- Oda al pan, Pablo Neruda

For whatever reason, perhaps the alignment of the planets, the neighborhood I am staying in has been really calm. The pronounced caterwall-ceasefire has continued. Last night, a Friday night, was dead quiet. I was able to sleep until past 7am for the first time in weeks (but was abruptly forced out of bed by a neighbor leaving his diesel engine running with the exhaust pipe pointed at my window).

I took advantage of the fact that I not truly slept in to go and buy some paun.

Placenta up a tree

I did not know it on arrival, but I learned that the tree outside the house I am staying in has a placenta hanging in it. (In Timor, in different regions people save placentas in different ways. They are not something to be simply discarded or ignored.)

The placenta came with a baby delivered in Dili Hospital after nearly a 24 hour labor. During this time those accompanying the young mother had to buy sarongs for her to lie on during childbirth, as apparently the room where women give birth is BYO linens.

On Tuesday, as I was dealing with the consequence of an excessive amount of water and coffee I drank that morning in a subdistrict not far from Dili, I looked over at the fetid water in the tiled mandi tank next to me, which I knew for a fact to be little over a year old.

The Greatset

The first mikrolet to catch my attention in my first full day in Dili was “Greatset” – which at first it appears to be a misspelling, but after a second passes, one hopes there is a “great set”. Maybe a reference to some advanced number theory, or some special group of people, or the spectacular end to a three hour tennis match.

My day started with a walk from Matadouro to the café in Dare and back.

With the strange, continued rains, not only has the water continued to seep up onto the walls of the house I am staying, but it has maintained the hills fairly green. And the grasses in the hills above Dili had yet to dry out like they normally would have by now. We walked with them lightly scratching the skin on our shins, passing only a handful of people, mostly families walking down to Dili, on that road.