Abs and Blunt

My stomach and quads are still sore from push starting Professor’s new Landcruiser on Sunday and Monday. I am in Bali, where heavy metal rockers listen to James Blunt on replay.

The rains have yet to reach Bali, which is a really bad sign for the region. My own relief from the heat will be European winter.

I have pre-dated my last entries on Timor, so please go back a couple of days to read of my last, fulfilling adventure into the mountains. I have posted my last Timor photos as well, so follow the links to Flickr for the full album.

I will arrive on the day of “Restoration” of Portugal’s independence, only three days after Timor’s (still contested) “independence day.”

Até logu deit.

Anticlimax

As I left Dili a couple of dozen veterans did a color guard outside the ASDT residence on the beach front, to commemorate the unilateral declaration of independence by Fretilin, and then President Xavier do Amaral. Very few people had turned up to commemorate.

At the palace the FDTL was supposed to be parading. I was worried something might happen, but absolutely nothing did. Everybody was at home vegetating in the heat of a rainless late November Tuesday.

Lost Anthropologist, who finally got a gig working in one of the refugee camps, kindly took me to the airport. He confided more in me about his fieldwork, and how his emotional and personal life seemed to strangely and unconciously immitate his research interests.

In the airport I bought three t-shirts from an eccentric Quebequois teacher turned silkscreener who claims to be giving vocational skills to orphans. His next business opportunity is printing on tile, for Timorese tombs.

I had stupidly overstayed my visa, and played dumb at immigration. There was an awkward moment in which I realized that I could either pay the immigration officer the cash he requested (which did seem like the right amount) and walk through, knowing he could easily pocket it, or wait for his supervisor to come and lecture me and write me a receipt for the fine. I opted to leave the cash with him and thank him for his lenience.

My liurai informant’s daughter was at the airport, working security. It was she who checked my ticket as we walked onto the tarmac!

It was too hazy to see any detail of the north coast out of the window.

I told myself I would be back soon to Timor.

I’m currently in a smelly internet cafe in Bali where it costs about 1/10 of the money for a broadband connection. Caipirinhas for fifty cents down the street. Yummy cheap food everywhere. Happy, prosperous people. Burned, fat board-shorts wearing tourists.

I am numb.

Fila ona

I made it back to Dili after another great adventure. Professor and J, a PhD student based in a farflung mountain town, came and picked me up from Baguia. We crossed to the south coast and drove up an amazing, rocky and remote road to Buibela, the spiritual and formerly political center of the area that rebelled in 1959.

I was invited to see lulik items, as well as the namesake rock of the kingdom, but there was no time. I was anguished. We had to haul it back to Dili. And lucky we had a day to spare, as we had three flat tires on the way back. Slept next to a ruined school in the mountain pass of Ossu. Watching shooting stars through the mosquito dome roof. Epic journey.

I will post photos and observations about the past week when I get to Bali. Leaving in two hours.

Once again, the reaction is “koitadu” (you are leaving, you poor thing.) I am sad to go, but I am also happy to have a break from the political instability, the flat tires and breakdowns, and the squat toilets.

Be back to “the outside” soon.

Incursion on Buibela

I usually don’t have many regrets. But as soon as Professor and J and I headed up the mountain pass towards Buibela, the former center of the area I have been studying, I knew I should have been up there before. Ten weeks and I had not made it there.

Professor’s car had been spitting out a lot of black smoke up the last rocky stretch of road, so we abandonned the car to let it cool off, at a high pass looking down over what we assumed had to be Buibela. There were these amazing rock crofts, partly natural, but it seemed as though people had piled rocks up discretely, creating magical forms. It reminded me of Iceland. I commented that people must believe that is a special place. J went around the side to pee.

We took three apples, water bottles and headed down the road. There were horses grazing on the open mountain slopes. Ahead was a rocky peak that seemingly blocked the view of Matebian behind. Soon we were surrounded by beautiful tall pines and eucalypts. It’s rare to see such large trees in Timor.

It’s also rare to have the sensation that we had, to be walking unobserved, in a state of peace. It felt like we were hiking somewhere. After about a kilometer we started seeing fencing along the side of the road.

I wondered how people might react to three foreigners showing up on foot. I joked that it was going to be the “incursion on Buibela” (a joke that in all of Timor, probably only the present company would understand, as there is an article by a famous anthropologist on the ritual center of Timor called “Incursion on Wehale”).

We soon reached a lovely spring, with a pool of cool water where three kids were washing and playing. The oldest girl, probably 12, came up to Professor and kissed his hand, like some Timorese do for priests. So this is how they receive malais!

We continued on, hoping to find somebody to show us the sacred houses and possibly the kingdom’s namesake, a rock.

We came upon a very friendly group of young men who were standing not far from the sacred houses, which made an extremely breathtaking profile from the road. There were six of them, built on the pyramid-like rise of rock terraces. They had wooden decorations on the roof, which give the impression of horns.

They took us towards them when we explained we were friends with people from the village, and we had simply come to passear. They introduced me to the alin (younger brother or cousin) of my friend from Buibela. I was relieved to meet him, and that he was extremely friendly, knowledgable and articulate. He took us up the site, I was trying to be as respectful as possible, waiting and asking permission at every step. This was a very sacred place. He asked us to take our hats off as we approached the two main sacred houses. These were the houses from which Portuguese anthropologist Antonio de Almeida was able to see and photograph their sacred items in 1957.

I was playing it safe, playing it rather dumb about how much I knew. I took heaps of photos, rather ecstatic. It was more magical than I could have ever imagined. Professor and J were clearly impressed too. There was an old man who seemed to be in charge of the houses and the restoration of two of them, which was ongoing.

They confirmed to me much of what I had been told below by other liurais, but it was really great to see with my own two eyes, and be able to visualize the spatial relations between villages, mountains and political borders.

My friend’s alin pointed out everything of note, including ruins of a military post. He pointed out the hamlet where the namesake rock was and offered to take us there. But it was past midday and we were unsure about the car. We decided to take up his offer for coffee. We sat in his quite well kept house, which was cool with the strong mountain winds. They served us popcorn and roasted soybeans. We were tickled, and grateful for such a healthy and delicious snack. They said they knew what malais liked because some very good Australian volunteers had visited a couple of times. (They had no malai trauma, unlike J’s community, but that’s a whole other story!)

I asked Professor and J in English if they thought I should pull out the article on Buibela’s sacred objects. I wanted to, and they both nodded. So Alin was fascinated, had a very serious face for a couple minutes of silence as he inspected the article and photos. The tias in the house were called in to see, as they were the oldest.

They confirmed the identity of the “priest” but could not confirm how many of the objects might have been saved. They told me I could see some whistles (like ones in the photos) in the village above, which was finishing its sacred house, hence had the objects “out” and ready for viewing.

Unfortunately we had to leave. It was really difficult for me to explain to him that we had come all this way only to turn around and leave. But I had to allow a day’s margin of error for my flight, and Professor had an important phone call to take on Monday.

Alin was very understanding, and walked us back. He encouraged us to fill our water bottles at the spring. The water was so cool. He walked back up to the car with us. When he saw where we had left it, he was visibly uncomfortable. He said, “Next time, do not leave your car here. This is a sacred place. The last people who got out here were attacked by a swarm of bees.” He also doubted that our car would be okay after being so close to the prohibited place.

We had to push start the car (as seemed normal), and he probably thought the lulik, the sacred place, had ruined the starter.

An hour later, a tire blew out. We just imagined word reaching Buibela that we were being cursed. Then two hours later, another tire. We had not patched the spare. So Professor left J and I sitting on the road with a papaya. He would make it back at dark. We had a serendipitous dinner with two other anthropologists in Viqueque. Four social scientists at one table is a remarkable event in Timor.

We decided to push on up the mountain towards Pedro’s hotel at Loe Huno. Then the headlights went. So J was holding my halogen headlamp out of the front of the car and Professor was going at like 20 km/hr. We found the turnoff. Then it turned BlairWitch Project.

We couldn’t find the entrance to the hotel. We instead found an open UMM (Portuguese 4WD) and a white Landcruiser. Not a soul around. I was totally disoriented. We opted to turn back head further up the mountain towards Ossu where we knew of a place to camp.

J and I spent a rather sleepless night in a mosquito dome and Professor crammed his tall frame into the front seat of his Landcruiser. I watched the shooting stars through the mess roof. Around 4am J and I just gave up trying to sleep and began talking about fieldwork and anthropology. It was very cathartic.

We were to experience one more flat before our adventure would end! At 7am, at the top of the mountain pass, a violent explosion. Another tire.

We called Lost Anthropologist, who we had dined with the night before. He was coming up the mountain, returning to Dili. We were, in the end, despite being cursed by the lulik, quite lucky. J and I ditched Professor with the two rims in Baucau. He assured us he could take care of everything.

We left J on the side of the road in Manatuto.

It was over. A memorable end to 10 weeks.

Killing time (and roosters)

I became a professional waitress briefly last year. But I had long been an accomplished “waiter” — that is, person who kills time without getting overly anxious.

In Baguia, my skills were put to the test. I had to wait from Wednesday through Friday, with some interesting conversations and opportunities to ask questions about language and culture to Tio Martinho, his older brother and his children.

Tio Martinho invests quite a lot of time and energy in his roosters. Cock fighting can be quite a lucrative endeavor. But for most, it is a way to, well, kill time and hang out with peers.

I took a couple of photos of him at dusk having his roosters joust in front of the house. He has 10 all up, mostly tied up in the back right next to the kitchen. They eat corn. They probably eat better than many Timorese during the hungry season.

They are like gladiators. Trained and fed, and tied up to increase their anger, and then thrown into a ring with razors tied to their feet. Not pretty.

On Saturday morning, as I had no word from Professor and was hoping he would come pick me up, I decided to climb 40 minutes above Baguia to get cel phone reception. Martinho’s son guided me up there. For most of the rather strenuous climb, I had assumed we would be going over a really high-up rocky ridge to get the network from Baucau. But luckily for me, about 300m below this ridge, one gets the network all the way from Lospalos.

Tourist and I had passed this mobile tower on our epic bike ride which seemed a lifetime ago.

Turned out Professor was coming with J, probably one of the toughest people I know, a German anthropologist up in central mountain community two hours uphill walk from the nearest administrative post. She had come down to the coast to come along east. It was going to be an exciting Sunday and Monday.

Thanksgiving

Halfway through lunch, I remembered it is Thanksgiving, my favorite American holiday. Largely because it draws the whole family together – which is, in my case five people – but also because it is so unabashedly about food. Even being a vegetarian (pescatarian) I get excited about it. Last time I had a Thanksgiving was 2004.

Today’s Thanksgiving meal, I really was thankful for. The owners of the guesthouse, one of whom is an old lady currently suffering from a bout of malaria, explained to me that there were no vegetables, no eggs and no fruit for sale in town. (I bought two pineapples, one ripe and one unripe, I gave the ripe one to one of my most fascinating informants.) So for lunch: rice, one sardine (in a rather unappetizing tomato sauce) and supermie instant noodles with MSG-flavor packets cooked in. Believe me, those flavor packets are good. They can make you want to eat, well, rice and noodles.

I decided I would drink Nescafe – milky coffee mixture – along with the food partly for the calcium in the powder and partly, well, to keep my stomach working with the absence of vegetable matter.

I sat there sweating under the tin roof in the midday run, with a feeble breeze coming through the windows. Sweat rolling down my legs and mosquitoes biting away – skirts are cool but leave you vulnerable!

I’m not being sarcastic when I say I’m ‘thankful’ for the meal. I’ve had much less appetizing. And it’s just a fact of life that there is no market or transport up here to bring produce to market. The kiosks used to sell eggs. They no longer do. Beans, greens, fruit used to be more plentiful because there were more cars, there were more civil servants to buy them in Indonesian times. The lack of rain is not helping the situation!

The Nescafe was an especially nice addition. I could pretend I was drinking Thai iced coffee. The sardine didn’t even taste as bad as I thought it would!

The big holidays are coming up here: November 28 – the day of the unilateral declaration of independence in 1975 by Fretilin (which not everybody is so eager to celebrate) and the day of the Immaculate Conception, a holiday which I only learned about moving to Portugal and then reading online about it. This day celebrates Mary’s immaculate conception, not that of Jesus !! (Which makes sense cause Jesus couldn’t be conceived on the 1st and born on the 25th.)

P.S. The following day I had a veritable feast after having gone to the market in Baguia, which I was intrigued to see, has cashew fruits for sale. My feast: salad, bean stew, fried eggs, and rice. Mmmmm.

Tempting the crocs

After too long a time in Dili (a week is enough to drive anybody mad), I headed to Baucau on Monday. One last stay at the Faulty Towers, dashing all over town to try to figure out what documents survived in the church archives.

No luck with the Parish or the Diocese. Nor did I find the teacher named Antonio Vicente, who has published various books on Timor at the Diocese press, and seems to be the unofficial archivist of the Diocese.

Pedro’s son-in-law came to pick me up the next day, and we headed towards Loe Huno, where his hotel is, just above Viqueque town. Loe Huno is a fascinating place, that seems to have been center of a very important kingdom to the Portuguese. Later I would learn that people believe it was the king of this kingdom who helped the Portuguese carve up the lands to the East, the area of my research.

After a quick lunch, we headed down the hot south coast, cutting east past Matahoe and the Bebui River.

After Aliambata, closer to Uatocarbau, we stopped at a fresh water lagoon along the beach. People were boldly fishing in the muddy water. This is a favorite crocodile habitat. A Brazilian doctor working in Viqueque three years prior had told me amazing stories about crocodile bites coming from this area. People seemed totally unfased!

In Uatocarbau, there was some intense house building and Pedro stopped for family business, and I began to chat up the guys building, and charm the kids with views of themselves on my digital camera. It takes them only two days to finish the roofing of the house, as long as they have enough hands. I told them it takes malais years to figure this kind of thing out (thinking of Tom Hanks stranded on a desert island).

I was able to talk with one of my most important liurai informants on the coast. When we came up, it was hot, middle of the afternoon, and he was shirtless. Luckily he was not too embarrassed. At night, we slept in the house of Pedro’s nephew-in-law (does this exist in English?). He was an extremely diligent farmer (badinas, pa according to Pedro), who was finally receiving help from German Cooperation, GTZ. He had three functioning tractors.

The rice paddies in Uatocarbau are gigantic, and have major potential.

I learned that they can compete with imported rice, which is indeed taxed. Imported rice is now selling for about $15/20kg bag. In Uatolari and Uatocarbau, if the surpluses existed, they can sell rice in the husk for $12, and it costs about $1 to de-husk in the machines. The real problem is both scale, ability to farm large fields, which requires more tractors, and roads – the sheer cost of getting surplus to market.

They also told us there is a spot on the coast not far away where crocodiles can always be sighted. Pedro’s ears perked up, because this could eventually be a major selling point for tourists. That and the spectacular sacred springs above.

The next day we made a brief stop at the old post of Uatocarbau, up on the mountain. People up there had finished the rice harvest, and were waiting for the rain to cultivate corn.

We heard there was a gigantic funeral for a nobleman in Afaloicai Baguia that would either make it easier or more difficult to find katuas. It turned out the funeral had ended the day before, and it was unclear how many people would still be gathered there.

I realized that I honestly did not have the stamina to crisscross the valley on foot looking for these guys. Nor were there people to “cook for me” – to look after me and make sure I had rice. I was tired of being a burden on Pedro’s random family and contacts. So I decided to go straight to Baguia with them on the far side of the valley. I would spend some “quality time” with Tio Martinho and his older brother, the old liurai of Afaloicai Baguia.

The D-word

Drought. I’m talking about the fact it hasn’t rained yet. The riverbeds are dry. Lots of deer being killed in the hunt because they are being driven to small stagnant pools of water to drink. People look tired and hot from Dili to Baucau.

It’s time to get the corn growing, and other crops but people are not going to start until the rain clouds start gathering.

There are no big rain clouds in the sky. Even the really muggy humid pre-rain air has kind of dissipated. Now it’s rather dry and hot.

This is quite worrying, given that rice is in short supply in Timor. Rice growers basically only grow for their families’ consumption here, because the market price is too low. So the government has started buying up huge quantities of rice for the refugees and relief, creating temporary rice shortages in Dili.

I was just starting to think that Timorese farmers could benefit from this crisis, with the haywire prices of food. But not if it doesn’t start raining. Nobody will be trying to market surpluses if the clouds don’t start piling up in the mountains and watering the land.

Headed to the Mountain, one last time. The long way, through Viqueque and along the south coast. More in about a week!

Jalan-jalan or “sightseeing”

Before 7am in Dili (6am in the district) a lot is possible. I set out basically straight out of bed this morning. Curiously City Café was already open at 6:30. A Red Cross Landcruiser with green plates – diplomatic immunity – drives up the wrong direction on Malai Road, which is one-way. I guess traffic laws don’t apply before 7am either.

There was virtually nobody in the street until I got closer to the Bishop’s compound.

I noticed a father pushing around a little toddler in a tricycle-car in the park with Nossa Senhora in white plaster. He was going around and around the statue. As I passed, the baby pointed and said “Ma-lai!” “Ma-lai!” The first “comment” of the day directed at me, but actually it was more a salutation than a comment.

I crossed the street and was halted by a sleek sedan leaving the Bishop’s compound. In the back was the goateed Bishop himself, with a rather smug expression and the white robes and skull cap.

I decided to walk along the beach, noticing the difference between the trash here and in Caparica south of Lisbon. Here there are so many plastic water bottles. Not many shoes.

The sun was still quite low on the horizon, and the stones made shadows on the dark sand. The tide was way out, I could see it hitting the coral reef.

I noticed the buses to the East lined up in front of the US Ambassador’s residence.

Some Timorese men were out exercising and training. I walked past the Santana river which is basically a pond of sewage blocked before it reaches the ocean, as it has yet to begin raining.

I had just passed the Gruta de Sant’ana which is (another) shrine to Nossa Senhora at around 7am.

The hour of peace had passed. Two six year old boys broke the tranquility asking me for sex.

I turned around.

I walked along the bridge over the Sant’ana river, to avoid the sewage smell. There were pigs snorting their way through the stagnant water. Bidau Sant’ana was one of the big trouble spots in 1999, known as a militia stronghold. Now they still seem to be keeping it together. The buses all gather at the foot of the bridge.

The green “Sozinho” was there, a bus remember not too fondly. Rather dreading taking the bus to Baucau tomorrow.

Lecidere would be cooler at this hour than returning on the beach. So I cut in on the first street. Poppa C and Professor had both lived in this neighborhood at different times. I had collected various stories about the neighborhood.

The neighborhood carpentry is essentially a coffin maker, probably due to its proximity to the Diocese. There were about 6 baby coffins, and 6 adult coffins finished and for sale, not a very good ratio. I remembered the first week I was here I watched the whole first season of Six Feet Under on DVD.

I kept walking. An effeminate man sweeping up the leaves with a stick-broom in front on a house with a large veranda. We exchanged greetings.

Back at the Bishop’s residence I remembered what the 80-something Portuguese Jesuit priest had told me about the Diocese’s library. It went up in smoke on September 6, 1999. Maybe Bishop Belo was able to rescue books out of there, but most likely he was trying to save lives of the refugees hiding there.

The same day they attacked the Red Cross Compound, adjacent to the Bishop’s. Poppa C was next door when the attack began. He heard the terror. Docogirl was able to film a little from Hotel Turismo before all the malais were evacuated by the Indonesian military. The Timorese were being lined up on the beach, and men marched away from the port, towards the Cristo Rei. Many were never seen again. Flip flops were founded floating out on the beach by peacekeepers two weeks later.

I passed about six Maubere Security guards seated chatting in front of the ANZ ATM. We traded muted Bom Dias. As I approached the house, the angry black dog was waiting for me. Teeth barred. I had to ask Gonçalo to come escort me to the front door!

As a consolation, he handed me the fluffy puppy and held back the mum while I petted him. “Boi” he is called, or male cow. “Rita” is the smaller black one. Big Boi and Lovely Rita.

Eighty-something

I have roughly a week left here. I have spent probably more time in the past week with 80 something year old men than people closer to my age.

On “malai road” I am starting to feel a sense of deep alienation to the other malais here. I honestly just do not want to be a part of the UN/NGO scene. I’m not saying I’m any “better” I’m just a leach like the rest. But a solitary leach. Perhaps because I’m visiting and not living here, I have adopted a combative attitude to the expat-dom I once actually liked.

But I never felt comfortable with the lifestyle. The big cars, the scuba diving, the trips to Bali, the humanitarianism-snobbism. They say there are three species of expatriated peoples in places like this: the missionaries, the mercenaries and the misfits. I guess I always was hanging out with the Misfits.

Today I spoke for three hours with a man who was a nurse during the Portuguese times. He has lived through it all: the Japanese occupation, colonial discrimination and a violent rebellion, cold war hysteria, civil war, a civilian jungle resistance (during which time he made pills out of jungle plants), prison/torture, exile, return, and the “crisis” in response to which he moved his belongings from Dili to the mountains.

Nurse is an extremely engaged, lucid and thinking individual. His trim white hair frames his bald pate, his facial features indicating he was handsome in earlier days. His lower jaw trembles slightly as he speaks, but I noticed after two hours, it trembled less.

His oldest child was disappeared in 1980. Another went on to become big in leftist politics. Others are in the foreign service now. Only two remain in Timor.

Age feels better to me. I was never comfortable with my youth. As a child I felt oppressed by the limits that my age imposed on me, the arbitrariness of things (Adults telling me “do it because I told you so!”) As an adolescent, I felt condescended to and expected to misbehave. So instead of misbehaving, I opted to simply ignore the rules. Not violate them, or rebel for the sake of it.

I have always felt a vague sadness or regret for things I have not done and will not have done in due time. It’s funny I studied “Development” at university (modernization, progress etc), because in terms of my “development” as an individual, I’ve always felt oppressed by the rites of passage and personal progress that our culture imposes. I’ve savored and grown to like my sense of “missing out” on a lot of these markers.

It’s almost like being prematurely old, regretting preemptively, before aging, and liking that feeling.

Now, for example, I should be biking to the beach, it’s the end of the day. There is a lump in the back of my throat. I feel like I have become mired in this aged, sad, nearly defeated Timor. Not the Timor of the beach, of the spear fisherman, of the dolphins, and kids fishing in the sewers with wide smiles on their faces.

I’ve even come to feel better in this Timor of empty prefab housing with waist high weeds growing inside. The Timor of sending “pulsus” to get paper work done in government. Of the kid who is now too old to beg on Malai Road, cause he is big and scary and his voice has cracked. The Timor of the stalling taxi going too slow at too high a gear.

But people have lived long fulfilling lives with greater deprivation and struggle. This Timor will get easier for my generation. But only with age.

Tough sell

Malai. Mrs. Senhora. Mrs. Ma-lai! Professora. Psssst. kiss. Cartaun. Cartaun. Psst. Senhora. Professora. Kolega. Cartaun.

Cartaun are the pre-paid credits from Timor Telcom. Now available in $5 and $10. They run out in about a week. Call overseas and they run out in about 4 minutes.

They have also become the currency of petty corruption in Timor. If you want something “done” in government, everybody knows that a couple of “pulsus” (phone credits which are bought and sold anonymously) will do the trick, help “facilitate” your papers, and your request.

I walk down Dili “main street” across from the burned-out hulk of Hello Mister.

A “fuk mehan” (Timorese red head) catches my eye. I visibly turn my head. (Most are from Baucau-Viqueque area!)

He realizes his selling potential. “Ola kolega. Cartaun? Jornal?”

I laugh.

Humility, dust

I walked out before dusk to the waterfront. I do not say beach because in this old part of Dili, the waterfront consists of this mouse-colored dirt, or is it fine sand, that is often strewn with small trash. The banyan trees along the waterfront reek of piss and fish drippings of the day’s fish sales.

In spite of the odors, there is a certain peace on the waterfront at the end of the day. A number of boats bobbing up and down. Atauro a faint monolith.

I noticed a number of cars parked towards the government palace.

I let my curiosity get the better of me and walked towards. There was a bus labeled UNTL (from the University) and a number of calm looking people, a woman holding a baby. Kids pedaling around on BMX bikes, including a small girl with a tennis racquet.

From across the street I saw the Police lined up in front of the government palace, for some kind of ceremony or salute. In the foreground I noticed, symbolically, the FDTL was in uniform keeping a lightly-manned perimeter. Bureaucrats were gathered on the Palace’s veranda, craning over to see the procession below. The glowing sun lit perfectly the metal letters “Palacio do Governo.”

The scene was calm. More than anything the word would be calm. Perhaps even serene.

A sharp contrast from the Gangster-danceathon-for-Peace.

I was reminded of Pedro Rosa Mendes’ surrealist portrait of a couple of days in the life of tiny African island country São Tomé – the way in which events just seemed to happen with no real apparent causality. But with a sublime and sometimes frightening beauty.

I walked back into the dust of the waterfront, watching the rusting canons turn a bright orange in the late afternoon sun. Many people were out occupying themselves with other tasks, fishing (although if I were a fish I wouldn’t be coming in this close), lying over heaps of 20kg bags of rice waiting to be loaded on boats to Atauro. A Timorese-malai couple trying to have a couple of moments peace.

I noticed one of the round rock armaments in a thicket of trees near to Xavier’s house looked a lot like Japanese armaments in Lautem. I realized for the first time it is probably Japanese. Yet another calamity Timor survived.

At these moments of quiet contemplation, it is basically a countdown before interruption. But today I kicked around in the dust, watching the scenes around me in perfect tranquility.

Closer to the street I was met with the torrent of large jeeps, NGO, UN and Government vehicles. Some over taking the traffic at alarming speed. It was a stream of inflated egos, I remember thinking to myself. And then I remember thinking to myself, is this very thought the thought of an inflated ego? And then as I looked down at my dusty shoes I thought, no. Being honest with myself, I have all kinds on inferiority complexes that keep my ego at a healthy size, and sometimes really hold me back.

I remember describing the UN/humanitarian missionary scene as a gigantic duster back in 2001. Be careful, humble little motes of dust, lest you be swept up in it, and its self-fulfilling, complacent logic.

With this on my mind I entered Dili Cold Storage, observing Timorese buying malai eggs, apples, candy, beer, etc. I bought two Tiger beers. Headed back across towards home and noticed these tables on the sidewalk. With colored “ethnic” tablecloths. Lots of police seated eating. A new restaurant. I went past, and looked back in.

Falafel.

Turkish flags.

I jumped at the chance to eat my first falafel in Timor. Antoni, the Turkish (?) owner, said he had yet to find a parsley supply. He had been shopping at the “malai” stores. I told him the market on the beach has parsley. He hadn’t even stopped to think of buying local.

As I headed back triumphant with falafel in hand, I heard a loud siren behind me.

A patrulha PNTL truck was passing slowly by, full of (brave) Timorese policeman. They were rather like a moving target, seated on a double-sided bench on the top of the flatbed of a pick-up truck, about eight of them. I assumed these are the first crop to be “vetted” (checked out as no-misconduct).

They were holding plastic flowers, which I thought was intended to be a reference to the Carnation Revolution in Portugal.

Some had an embarrassed look, some had a scared look on their faces. For the moment, anything but inflated egos. But aware of their significance, their responsibility. It brought tears to my eyes to see the PNTL back on the street. To think of how much is at stake here. To think of how close Timor came to self-destruction.

I am glad to see the PNTL’s boots back in the dust.

Plump, not ripe yet

Joey could end up in the Guggenheim

Paparazzi pup pic

“Peace breaking out”

This is the surreal stuff of Prime Ministerial press releases in Timor, which seem to be lapped up by the international media. Anybody around for Sunday and Monday had a much more cautious take on the “youth demonstrations”, see “Dancing for Peace“. I guess this is Timor-style “spin” as we call it in America:

Tears of joy as peace, not war, starts to break out in East Timor
Young people from some of the most troubled areas of Dili and from rival gangs have poured onto the streets to celebrate peace, embracing each other and shedding tears. As Prime Minister Dr José Ramos-Horta says: “It seems that peace, not war, is breaking out in East Timor.” More than a thousand youths gathered on the main road between Dili and the airport last night (Sunday night) – the scene of some of the worst recent violence – embracing each other, singing and chanting “peace”. The spontaneous peace celebration continued as they brought traffic to a stand-still when they marched through Dili today (Monday).

“Chanting,” read: shouting (with fists pumping in the air). Plus the “war paint” on their faces… And the fact that other media sources report them to be self-proclaimed “Loromonu” youth, asking the “Lorosa’e” residents of the IDP camps to come home.

All of this reminds of the all-to-common oxymoronical phrase “Fight for Peace!”

Anthropology as agent

I made an amazing discovery last night.

A volume I had consulted a number of times, by famed colonial anthropologist Antonio de Almeida, contains an article which I must have glanced over in the past, about the kingdom I am studying.

It is a whole article devoted to the “neolithic” sacred objects he convinced the “priests” of the kingdom to show him in late 1957.

He provided photos, and quite precise information about the neolithic objects which are basically rounded stones, and (thankfully) the other sacred objects, which include among other things a stone ball, two whistles, two “bastions” or rota, a sword, two statues, a small wooden totem, and a monarchy-era Portuguese flag.

Almeida naively offered to buy the neolithic stones from the priest, who told him no way, that would ruin their harvests and be their doom.

The significance of this “sharing” of the lulik, which were brought down from Afaloicai 15km to Baguia for his viewing, cannot be understated — especially given the timing. The uprising, which provokes a regicide in this kingdom, happens under two years later.

He also writes that the objects he heard were subsequently burned in a terrible fire. I’m wondering if that terrible fire occured in 1959.

I have made xerox-copies for the katuas who had told me the name of the sacred house, whose namesake is a statue featured in the article. I’m really curious to see what he and others make of these photos as these lulik objects no longer exist. I hope someone can tell about this encounter with Almeida in 1957 and its political and spiritual significance.

Dancing for peace

On Sunday evening, the anniversary of November 12, the infamous massacre at Santa Cruz of 271 Timorese people that brought the place to the world’s attention, I was at home watching an extremely monotone discussion on TVTL. (Which I have started to call TVDili.)

Except for a heart rending plea for unity and forgiveness, but one of the most well-known survivors of the massacre, it was all quite bland. I was distracted by the cheap set, and the plastic sconces with plastic “flames” dancing on either side of the orators.

I learned about Timor from a one of the three malais who were at Santa Cruz that day, about eleven years ago. She told the Amnesty conference I was attending that she was beaten by Indonesian police with the butt of an American-issue rifle, adding insult to injury.

I remember thinking watching the program how much has changed in a little over 15 years.

Youth don’t seem to have a grain of discipline or healthy fear here, both of which prevented the massacre from being worse.

Professor, it turns out, was across town in Kolmera, watching a fascinating scene unfold. A group of youth, who were not drunk he claims, about 200 of them, had assembled in the Comoro road. They marched towards the camp, and were shouting “dame! dame!” (peace! peace!). People in Jardim were visibly nervous, but the youth came up and started shaking their hands and embracing people. Later I heard they also traded t-shirts with youth from the camp like at the end of a soccer match.

Professor said the group, which he affectionately calls “Gangsters for Peace” then proceeded up to Obrigado camp, where they did the exact same thing.

Then they returned to Jardim and started a gigantic tebe-tebe dance, which is a circular stomping dance that orginated to separate the rice from its chaff. It is rhythmic and kind of hypontic, and quite a joyous group experience.

There were New Zealand peacekeepers standing by perplexed smoking cigarettes. Then at about 11pm, they spontenously dispersed.

Today, buying my return ticket to Bali, I ran into a group like this, assembling outside the Hotel Timor. They were again shouting “dame, dame!” I went to buy some donuts around the corner, and one with red and green face paint (Portugal-inspired?), who was dancing to the forró blasting across the street, shook my hand.

The group is led by a one of Dili’s most widely loved and respected youth leaders/tough guys who has received funding from international donors for reconciliation activities. It’s hard to know what to make of them! Today they are apparently marching around Dili, collecting people who would like to paint their faces, dance and shout for peace, and ending up at the parliament.

I decided to head back in a taxi and get back to work in the tranquility of my house on Malai Road.

The two-month road

In looking back over my notes, and comparing my various trips up to the Matebian valley, I realize that only now I have a grasp of the roads – their historical and political significance.

A road is a very precious thing, connecting people to markets, bringing information, “development,” etc. The people of the valley are keenly aware of this. But they have long come to the realization that development is not for them.

I’ll try to create a map for the faraway reader. Baguia sits at the north-eastern base of Matebian, it is the main posto created by the Portuguese in the late monarchy (1890s-1900s). Baguia is the subdistrict seat, and being part of Baucau district, which extends from the north coast, enjoys nighttime electricity.

From Baguia, to the south coast there is one road. (Last year, briefly, there were two, but I get ahead of myself.) This road slopes up sharply for about 4-6 km, with tons of very steep and tight switchbacks, which require the pedal to the medal and some bravado on the part of drivers. At the top of this section is the hamlet called Yarbau, which currently has a quaint school and a church. (It is from Yarbau that most climbers of Matebian begin their journey, up an empty riverbed.) From Yarbau, the road runs due south along the Eastern base of Matebian, through Ossu-ona towards Afaloicai-Baguia. This stretch of road was built with forced labor crews supervised by the Japanese during the three terrible years of 1942-5. Today it is still quite a good, reliable stretch of road.

To get to the south coast from Ossu-ona there are two choices.

map-mural depicting Afaloicai-Baguia

One, to Afaloicai Uatocarbau (the site of much of my research with the scenic old posto house that appears often in my photos), cuts on an old road southeast before reaching Afaloicai-Baguia. This road is also quite good during the dry season, and is “old” – meaning pre-Indonesian, but I have not confirmed whether it is Portuguese or Japanese. The road is flanked to the due south by views of the rounded, tree-covered Bina and Buraboo mountains. From Afaloicai-Uatocarbau, there is an Indonesian road down to the beach and the “new” Uatocarbau, which passes through the legendary springs at Irabere. All of the sucos of the southeastern Matebian valley were basically forcefully relocated along this road.

The second choice is to go to Afaloicai-Baguia and take the road up the mountains towards Uatolari. I have yet to take this road, and will report back when I hopefully do, sometime soon. Recently the government, along with the church, inaugurated a new middle school up along this road. The event was attended by all kinds of big-wigs, and people walked for tens of kilometers to get there.

These roads are rough but quite passable in the dry season. In the wet season, they quickly become mud fields, and the rivers wash out critical small bridges. To keep them passable in the dry season, these roads simply need yearly maintenance. They provide a critical north-south corridor and connect the major sucos to Baguia to the north and Uatocarbau and Uatolari to the south.

However, neither of the routes south passed through the ex-Vice Minister for the Interior’s home village which lies farther southeast of Matebian than the roads mentioned. Ilda da Conceição (or “Ilda”), according to locals, decided in her capacity as second-only-to-Rogerio (now disgraced ex-Minister of the Interior, see Glossary) that a new road was needed to her ancestral home. (The Timorese are quite familiar with this story, as these sorts of self-interested infrastructure projects were common during Indonesian times.)

The “Ilda” road, it turns out, I had already walked along with Tio M, to get back to Baguia from Uatocarbau. I was not aware that I was on this new road.

On a nice stretch of the two-month road

He tried to explain that the road was “recently” built, but he couldn’t cite a year, so I assumed, since it was in such terrible condition, he must have been referring to the Indonesian period.

To give the reader of an idea of what shape the road is in now, as of October 2006, departing from Samalari, a village halfway down the new road, approaching Baguia, there were major wash-outs, cleavages, land slides, all around the road.

At Samalari I thought, well, an intrepid driver could do this road. About 3km later, I was thinking, oh, an intrepid motorcyclist could do this road. Then 2 km later, I was thinking, wow, hikers with a fear of heights should not even walk this road! (I did see people taking horses down the road.)

This road was built (not without some resistance and consternation I have heard) before the rainy season of 2005. It was passable for two months.

Then the rains came and currently no 4WD can pass it, only a four-legged animal. In the steep descent from Baguia, there are parts of the road which are literally less than a meter wide, with scree (loose rock) sliding down from above and below.
The road lasted two months. It required a significant investment of labor, time and money. It lasted two months.

People all over the region just kind of shrugged and tut-tutted when talking about the roads. What is there to do?

On a happier note, one of the communities on the eastern slopes of Matebian did not wait for the state and recently built its own road. Labor and materials were their own. Now they have (slightly) increased access to markets and maybe some day soon can host climbers for the night before they go up to the summit.

Bride price blues

Well, it wasn’t without minor car trouble (fixed with the help of three local mechanics on a beautiful mountain road), but my quick trip through the mountains with a Princess was very fruitful. Princess is the last daughter of the ex-liurai of one of the kingdoms that rebelled in 1959.

My mind feels blank after a long day of travel from Uatocarbau, which is the most remote subdistrict in East Timor. From the seat of the subdistrict on the beach, in the dry season, it is 3 hours to the district seat. Three hours of bone shaking, wrecked pavement. When it starts raining, the Bebui River (the one in which the Portuguese executed seven people in 1959), cuts off the subdistrict. Access is cut to the East by the Irabere River. There is no port, and the mountain road through Afaloicai and to the North to Baguia is unpassable.

I was talking to one of the best nurses of the subdistrict (who is, not coincidentally the Liurai’s older son), and he said that they are utterly cut off from the rest of East Timor for a good three months a year. There is no telephone, no road transport or access by the sea or mountains. The government is (finally) building brides to bring Uatocarbau back to Timor, but these will only be ready in 2007.

Until then, even during the dry season, there is no phone, and infrequently they receive newspapers. There is no radio there, only Radio Australia and Voice of America Indonesian service.

The Princess herself was lamenting her 80-something father’s traditional ways. She is quite light skinned, a Doctor, and pushing 30 years old, and not married. These facts are not unrelated, as her bride price is astronomically high. She has a steady boyfriend, who apparently cannot afford her. She studied for twelve years in Java, where people were freer to love more the way they wanted. Here you can’t even really hold hands in the street. Nor can you marry for love, if you are a pretty daughter of a liurai.

Below are photos from the old posto of Afaloicai Uatocarbau, which the reader will remember from previous entries, is even more isolated than the subdistrict seat on the beach below.

More excellent feline company, helping me interpret some anthropological articles.

And of course, the spectacular eucalyptus trees growing on the fractal mountains west of Manatuto, one of my favorite parts of traveling to the East in Timor.

Getting the neighbor’s goat

Poppa C, my professor/mentor/best friend my last year at university told me that he believed the way people treated animals on a day-to-day basis was revealing of how they would treat humans in times of crisis. (This is a guy who loves rabbits and seemingly all causes of national liberation, including the hopeless ones.) He observed certain malais in 1999 in Timor mistreating the many scrawny cats at his hotel, kicking them, cursing their presence. And these were the first people to bail and ditch the Timorese when things got dicey after the Referendum.

The Timorese, being a protein-starved, Asian people have a fascinating relationship with man’s best friend. Dogs are considered to be friends here, but when push comes to shove, more than anything great security. And after a little too much palm wine, a very manly and tasty meal.

When I arrived at this house in Lecidere there were three dogs here. I was unaware of the fact they had basically just moved in. The dogs were all on a strict diet of Kibbles and Bits, from a big imported bag of malai dog food.

One was a nice healthy looking white dog with black ears. He was the malai dog. But he was very naughty. Always squeezing through the bushes and fencing onto the busy street outside. Second was a smaller white dog, male, who was the most playful from the beginning. I actually was able to play fetch with him a couple of times. Then there was the black bitch with one eye. She was skittish from the very beginning, growling whenever I got close to her.

After one of my trips to the field, I came back and the bitch had given birth to three black puppies. She got MUCH meaner after this. Unfortunately she chose to rear her pups in the outer pathway to my room. So I began passing through the house, avoiding the outside path, as I was really scared of her. Recently she started sleeping under the bench outside of my room (which has an outside door, the only exit.)

So when I opened the door to leave in the morning, she was there growling at me. So I slammed the door and was prisoner in my room until I could get Quim, apparently alpha wolf, to come and save me. Now after a few times being shooed away she has not returned to my door.

I asked if they couldn’t move her puppies to the back of the compound, and they told me they had tried but they were too scared of her. The Bitch is exercising a reign of fear over the house!

Meanwhile, fat malai dog it turns out, has disappeared. It’s been two weeks, which according to the Senhora Dra, in charge at the office here, means he has been “hunted.”

She said, I would know, I live close by, around these parts people hunt dogs. Any other place I’ve ever lived this would sound like an urban legend. But this is true. Taxis driving along the beach road will simply sweep up fat dogs and take them to barbeque. I said, but what if they put a collar on the dog to indicate that he was “esteemed”. She said, all the more appealing, a fat esteemed dog!

I will spare animal lovers the details, but I have been told how a dog barbeque proceeds and it involves gasoline. Eating dog here, like in many Asian countries, is considered a very macho activity.

In fact the word for “hero” in Tetum is asuain, or dog’s foot. The dog is the most heroic of animals, associated with war and honor. The most powerful myths about Xanana was that he could shape shift into a dog to escape danger.

That said, many Timorese treat dogs like “western” pets, naming them, creating very sentimental emotional ties to them. This is what makes the “dog hunting” such a seemingly horrible crime. Many families have lost more than one pet dog to these cruel poachers.

But the disrespect for “esteemed” animals does not end with dogs.

Senhora Dra told the story of a baby goat that she was given as a present for her anniversary. She said the family decided not to eat the goat, becoming quite attached to him, naming him and taking up out to feed just in front of the house.

(This reminds me of an amazing Clarice Lispector story called “The Chicken.”)

The goat got bigger and bigger. One day it disappeared. She said the whole family sat around in a state of shock and sadness after losing their goat. Maybe, they thought, we should have just eaten him right away.

Later they found out that their next-door neighbors had made an elaborate plan to steal the goat, paying some thieves to take it!

Vote counting and intrigue

Even before things got down to the wire in the Missouri Senate race yesterday, I had been thinking a lot about vote counting.

In the location of the ceremony I missed over the weekend, there has been major political intrigue over the past couple of years. At stake is the political future of the “suco” (a political unit the size of a congressional district or a freguesia). Last year, East Timor conducted, on its own, chefe-de-suco and chefe-de-aldeia elections. They were not without contestation, but international observation was rather minimal and many of the outstanding conflicts were not adequately documented in my opinion.

Case in point, this suco at the foot of Matebian. One which the Japanese dug in their heels in World War II, and later was the birthplace of the current head of the Armed Forces, FALINTIL commander Taur Matan Ruak.

For a long time, basically until 1975, the chefe-de-suco was synonymous with the liurai, or the petty kings or lords empowered by the expansion of Portuguese vassalage in the late 19C. (Pretty late for vassals, huh?)

This particular “traditional” liurai lineage, i.e. the one which ruled over the region basing its legitimacy on its vassal relation to Portugal, was driven from power by Fretilin and Falintil after 1975 for being sympathetic to Portugal and basically being feudal rulers. Fretilin’s appointed Chefe during the resistance period up on the Mountain was a respected Falintil commander, they tell me, the guy who taught Taur how to shoot. Obviously after the civilian surrender from the Mountain in 1978, the Fretilin chefe’s tenure came to an abrupt end, and this opening enabled the “traditional” liurai to take power back.

Look closely, the house is divided

Jump forward to post-1999 East Timor where everything seems a little uncertain. What is certain is Fretilin’s electoral power in 2001. Informal chefe-suco elections took place already in 1999, but the result was not actually sanctioned by government or the international community. The UN and the Timorese put off formal Chefe-de-Suco elections until 2005.

This election was highly contentious in this suco. It seemed half of people saw the Fretilin chefe as the rightful leader of the place, and half saw the opportunity to restore the “traditional” (not too old) order of hereditary liurais.

I stepped right in the middle of this without even knowing it.

The ceremony I was supposed to attend was indeed the foundation of a new political party, sponsored by the sore liurai family, who claims it had been “robbed” the election by a dodgy vote recount. The Fretilin candidate won only after a recount – the supposed margin was a handful of votes.

It also turns out that the Fretilin now chefe-de-suco is one of the katuas who I’ve been chasing after! And that the katuas hosting the flag-raising ceremony distrusts my research and implied on the night of the ceremony that perhaps I was employed by a foreign government?

Snapshots

War profiteers and cigarette thieves

Yesterday, after having a soup at the Pousada in Baucau ($2), I was noticing a crowd of people at the house below the empty dining room. I asked the bored waitress what was going on. She launched into, with no encouragement on my part (I promise), a tirade about the pengunsi.

These people all they do is line up for free food. Many are registered in more than one place and merely commute between places, selling the excess. None are interested in working, she said. 

They want the crisis to continue. For them the crisis is a way of life.

She told me because of the pengunsi the price of rice actually went up. I thought to myself, this makes absolutely no sense. You would think the NGOs dumping free rice would lower the cost of rice. 

But it’s not actually because of the pengunsi, it’s because of the conflict in Dili. Vendors in the East jack the prices up, justifying the increases based on the increased risk they run in going to and from markets in Dili. 

Later in the evening after conversing with a number of people in Baucau, I came to the solid realization that there are many people — not only people in Dili — who will continue to profit from the situation. In the East, even the price of cigarettes fluctuates dramatically whenever kids start beating each other up in Dili. 

The Aid community has institutionalized its distribution to the point that people will resist, possibly even violently, any cut-backs to Aid.

All these things were on my mind as I headed out of Baucau this morning. I left Fawlty Towers at 6am, bought 10c worth of hot paun straight out of the oven, in the old market. Delicious. No butter needed. After a 20 minute sullen microlet ride, with reggae blasting my eardrums apart, I waited 35 minutes for the bus to leave, which is quite possibly a speed record. 

Just past Manatuto, so half way, before the part where the road rises to cut along the “fractal mountains,” the young man next to me, who had been competing for space with me on the miniscule bench, jumped up violently.

“Stop the bus!” He shouted. “Stop the bus NOW.” 

The bus pulled over. He begins to shout about missing cigarettes. I had seen the kid buy three cartons of LA cigarettes in the Market. Now he only had two in his hand.

He began searching around the bench for the missing carton. He hopped down the steps onto the roadside. And began shouting at this pathetic kid inside the bus with a huge scab on his arm. “Get down here now or I will kick your ass!” My bench-mate shaking with anger and the kid was scared. He was also scared because he was a pathetic thief.

The carton was probably worth $10. 

After about 10 seconds of shouting, the kid came down the back steps, or was pushed or pulled I didn’t see. My bench mate slammed him against the bus. He said “Tell me where you put them. Did you give them to somebody?!” The kid said nothing. My bench-mate began to punch him pretty hard in the thorax. His one dream-catcher earring was dangling lamely, his fist up ready to slam the kid’s eye socket, Nobody on the bus was intervening. But there was no laughter either.

After about 10 long seconds of abuse, the old lady in the back found an open carton of cigarettes on the floor. 

The kid scrambled up the embankment with tears in his eyes. Even before this incident, I had noticed he had the furtive eyes of a stray dog. Not to mention the big, 15cm scab on his forearm.

The bus driver shouted to the thief, “Get back on the bus.” 

The kid came back on, and we were off.

I told my bench-mate that in America, the kid quite probably would have been left by the side of the road. The highway system is a little like the ocean, the drivers like ship captains. And there are some real bad folks on American buses, I said.

My bench-mate turned back to the kid, and said, “you stupid idiot. All you had to do was ask me for a cigarette.” He opened the first box of LA, and gave the thief the first one. He handed him the lighter, and waited for him to smoke to light his own.

You could look at this moment in two ways. Either the cigarette was intended to further humiliate the thief and elevate his victim, or that this was a sincere offering, a gesture that these things can be let go.

It is amazing to see how quickly people can react out of anger, but conversely how quickly they can also come back from the “brink.”

Back in Dili, and after All Souls Day, and Ramos Horta’s return from the Vatican and subsequent meetings with Fretilin and gang leaders, all is quiet on the Western Front. Can Dili also be brought back from the brink?

Industrious Baucau

Baucau was basically invented by the Portuguese at the end of the 19C. Before then, the liurais that lived here were minor. The big kingdoms were slightly to the West, Bercoli and Vemasse.

The Portuguese picked the place for all the right reasons. Gushing fresh water everywhere, palm glades, a cool climate, and I suppose nice beaches. A nice plain to build military bases and later an airport.

Now, a great deal of the lorosa’e population of Dili is here. Many are camped out in the Indonesian part of town, up on the plain above the gushing water. They live in and around the market area.

Down here in the old town, Vila Antiga (the government signs insist, not kota lama, the Indonesian phrase), things are really hopping! In Dili people literally go to work to sleep at their desks these days. Or to take shelter from the madness outside. But here, I went to the Diocese’s press at 8am this morning to find the production at lightning speed, the manager well-spoken, informed and busy! Busy!

Next I went up to the Marist Teacher’s College, which has become a major asset to the eastern regions of Timor. Weeks before, I had seen a building across the street from the college being renovated. Today, I went in to finally meet the librarian, Zelia, and I found out that fabulous new building is to be the library and resource center for the college. There are a lot of gaps in their collection, but they do have a significant amount of material in Portuguese, Indonesian, Tetun and English.

Classes were in full swing there. People were, again, busy! Often in Timor people receive you for hours because they have nothing better to do. Here, it was a quick tour, meet the director, and I’ve got to go to work. I was really favorably impressed with their work. Their first graduating class will be receiving diplomas in two weeks. Fifty new teachers. Which is a great achievement. Now the government has to come through and place them. They are desperately needed, as the Education sector has gone haywire with the new crisis. Double the enrollment in many Eastern schools. Eastern teachers no-shows in Dili. Imagine the confusion.

Well, if Baucau is any indication, let civil society lead the way. Government can follow.

As a footnote, I will add that only not-so-industrious place I have come across here is my Guesthouse, which I call the Timorese “Fawlty Towers.” Ask for toilet paper with a rather distressed look on your face, and the teenagers working there might be back with it in about 14 hours! One malai observed, this is a Do-It-Yourself guesthouse. But hot water and nice ocean views. I can’t complain.

Two days, barely 30km

Timor makes me feel like a control freak.

There is no avoiding the feeling that things slip completely of my control. Or maybe the idea that I controlled anything was a flimsy illusion.

There is the arbitrariness of everything: will the water run today? Will the bus come today or tomorrow? Will the martial arts groups get too drunk tonight? Will it finally rain so I can plant corn? Will my cousin in Ireland send money so I can buy a truck or a bus?

I was supposed to be in Ossu-ona yesterday for a ceremony. I waited all day in the market for a dump truck up there, surrounded by awful, rude people. Only a cat and an ambiguously gay shop boy to keep me company.

Nobody knew about the bus. Nobody gives a straight answer, nor do they understand the concept of a straight answer. Irritated, and unwilling to admit defeat, I took a microlet 20 km to the next town, where I knew I could find a place to stay the night.

This morning, I had everything set up, a ride, everything.

Two breakdowns later, I have to admit that today I reached my breaking-point. The first truck never came. Broken. After waiting hours in front of the church in Laga, with only one friendly person to chat with (thank you anonymous construction worker from Lospalos), I got a ride with a gentleman going to see his family up in Ossu-ona. The truck broke down 15 minutes ride above Laga. Matebian in cloud.

I gave in, to maromak. Fate, but here it’s easier to say God.

The Timorese people in Laga said I should go to the church in Baucau and pray.

Here I am, no church, having taken a bath and rested, and I’m feeling like a total wuss. I was too tired to even play basketball at the high school.

Baguia has to be one of the most lost places to all of Timor. Before, said ride number two, people used to walk it. Five hours from Baguia to Laga, for Timorese people. Now, there is every-other-day transport. So this is an improvement.

Few places are as forgotten as Baguia. Maybe the orphans in Soibada, the school that educated Ramos Horta and others. He remembers the place because he ate rotten corn cobs there for seven years straight. He tried to escape once, was captured and beaten with a palmatorio, a wooden paddle with holes in it, so it hurts more. Not much has changed there either since then, since the malai mutin. I went there with UN Agency for work about 4 years back, and the children were living in what I deemed to be medieval conditions. Harsh Filippina nuns in charge.

Back to my sob story.

Out of two days of travel, I made it roughly 30 km. I would have to wait another day to reach the next 15km. I honestly would be better off walking in the pre-dawn hours and towards sunset. But once again, I am a wuss.

I’m going to stick it out here in Baucau, see if I can make some good contacts. There are apparently unpublished manuscripts, people’s memoirs and such, at the Diocese that were never destroyed.

I’ll try to work on dealing with the arbitrary. It’s really hard to shake a need for good information and a feeling of control of the most basic things in life.

Purgatory

I went to the Mountain of the Souls to find about more about death, about the way Timorese view death. But in the end everything came down to the purgatory on earth that people are living here.

One student on the first night came to me to practice English, saying that he enrolled at UNTIL but shortly after his friend was pulled from a taxi and hacked to bits for being an “Easterner.” He just buried the friend last week in Baucau. He is not returning to go to University.

Then the families I traveled with and stayed with. Their houses were burned in the first wave of violence in May, due to their connection with the PNTL. They lost everything. Including copies of photos I had taken of an amazing ceremony they put on in 2003 for their deceased ancestors.

Some were living in “Obrigado” (across from the UN) some in “Jardim” (across from the five-star hotel), others in Baucau and Metinaro, or commuting between all three. All had in common a very precarious existence and little hope for the immediate future. They would move back to their ancestral homes, but their children must go to high school, and there are no high schools in the mountains.

I also noted the irony of the graves of the “avos” (the grandparents) being tiled with amazing bathroom tile. Extremely clean, and costly. Compared with the latrines and bathing facilities of the living. A stark contrast. Perhaps in this kind of precarious post-independence purgatory, celebrating the dead is simply a better bet than worrying about bathing facilities.

The children quite enjoy burning candles and throwing flowers for their grandparents. Also, the return to the ancestral rock terraced graves is a chance for them to contact their “roots” and understand a little better what life used to be like. Plus there were nice grapefruits growing near the family’s uma kain, bitter but refreshing.

When I return to Dili, I will focus more on the sublime, the less political parts of my trip. I’m currently using internet at the posh Pousada in Baucau. About to hop microlets and dump trucks to get back the Mountain.