The day my bubble burst

When I signed up to work in Timor-Leste and all the talk was ‘capacity building’ this and ‘sustainable development’ that, I really had no idea what I was getting myself in for. Training sessions have been outnumbered by the many occasions where I’ve doled out relationship advice and lectured my colleagues about gay rights.

This morning I stretched my capacity building abilities a little further afield with a visit to the police station. Instead of going to file a complaint about an incident on the weekend (more on that later), the purpose of the visit was framed in terms of ‘the police need to practice taking statements from bewildered malae, you are now the guinea pig’. So in we trooped to the police station, an uninspiring building with collapsing ceilings and plants growing through the roof, to make a statement. First we dealt with a university student (still not sure why he was there), before being passed on to the UNPOL then back to the local police.

Finally we got around to the real business of making a statement about violent crime. And in Timor, it boils down to two vital pieces of information – are you married? If not, where are your parents? It went something like this:

Police officer:   Are you single?
Me:                   Yes.
Police officer:   Can you write down your parents’ names?
Me writing.
Police officer:   What village do they live in?
Me:                  They’re in Australia.
Police officer:   What village do they live in?
Me writing the name of the suburb.
Police officer:   What sub-district do they live in?
Pause.
Me:                  Sydney?

After about 3 hours we made it out into the sunshine again, clutching a photocopy of our statement and a case number written on a scrap of paper.

To get you up to speed, I recently became the smitten co-owner of a bubble. Although one of the dirtiest cars in Dili, our bubble has been showered with affection – displayed through frequent use, a snug courtyard home and messages written in its dirty windows such as ‘I love Joey’ and ‘pocong’ (Bahasa for ghost – I can only presume the writer was referring to my white pallor)

On the weekend, the bubble burst – quite literally in fact, with a rock the size of a fist. The rock was the last in a series of escalating incidents – groping, touching, shoving, a knife – which happened outside a bar near Dili which will henceforth be referred to as The Dodgiest Place You Should Never Go To Again.

The shattered bubble

Everyone was thankfully okay. So after a pretty turbulent week let’s reflect on my achievements – window fixed, complaint filed, sanity pretty much intact. Success iha. 

As promised, a photo of Billy the goat, the newest addition to our neighbourhood.
Although I sense his death is nigh, he still bestows a wise glance and a benevolent bleat on passersby.

How to succeed in Dili without really trying

Getting around Dili is not about knowing street names or even taxi drivers (FYI, Eduardo’s the best). To succeed in Dili you have to surrender yourself to navigating much more difficult terrain. You not only have to know the difference between Comoro and Colmera; Beach Road and Banana Road; Jesuit and Carmelite priests. You also have to have a philosophical stance on Australian-Portuguese relations. You have to choose between being vegetarian and flexitarian. You have to select your preferred method of catharsis: swearing at bad drivers or Timor Telecom (there are many, many opportunities to do both).

Since arriving in Dili, I’ve learned a lot. I know that digging up and resurfacing Beach Road is a Herculean task that apparently needs to be done once a fortnight from now until the end of time. I know that finding a bar with good music and fast service is akin to the Holy Grail. I know that visitors to our house who ask ‘are you planning on staying here for the whole year?’ are used to neighbourhoods with more malaes and less livestock (I’d like to take this opportunity to welcome our newest arrival, Billy the goat - photo on the way).

With each month spent in Dili, you lose roughly 5% of your English language skills, which means that conversations between tired friends is a bit like a beginners ESL class – ‘I go to beach’, ‘My book… where?’ Some people surrender and start speaking Tetunglish instead – some of my favourites being ‘I am totally diak liu than that’, ‘Hau happy loos’ and ‘Tiredness iha’ (Anna and Tim, you inspire me).

Whether it’s the humidity, corrosive insect repellent or long-life milk, Dili does send malae a little loopy. Dress-up parties, something of a social niche in Sydney for fashion students and 21-year-olds, become an outlet for creative expression, market shopping prowess and commitment to wearing synthetic fabrics despite all reasons to the contrary. Crazes come and go like we’re primary school kids with limited pocket money and attention spans. Watching Game of Thrones and playing 500 are pursued with serious devotion. Hobbies take on new significance as you find you can suddenly afford to commit a whole lot more time to writing haikus or making up puns.

There is plenty of conversation to be had, although the high-rotation topics are not family, friends and current affairs but the current state of supermarket yoghurt stocks, where to buy cheap Magnums and which blonde was last seen in Ramos-Hortas’ Mini Moke. Time is not measured by days and months, but Bintang beers and GNR rotations.

While fostering enthusiasm for dairy products and making a fool of yourself, Dili also brings out the paranoid gossip mongerer. In the fishbowl that is malae social life, I have been told so many times lately ‘you can’t tell anyone this’ that I’m losing track of who said what and what was no-go and why the who said the what was no-go. It’s exhausting. Which is why it’s good that the ratio of malae to massage places in this town is roughly 3:1.

101 ways with cassava

I had visions of one of those aesthetically pleasing cooking blogs, complete with plentiful adjectives and softly lit photos of fresh produce. Yet somehow between the papaya leaf/2 minute noodle snack and the 4 tupperwares of cassava this afternoon, I lost my enthusiasm.

Yes, I’m back in Maliana, which is beginning to feel like a second home away from Dili. Sadly, this time I’m not staying at the hotel with the giant pink teddybear that doubles as a family mascot.  

Ted chilling on the couch

I like to call this one 'Ted and Bob'

But nevertheless I continue to become disturbingly familiar with Maliana’s quirks. Like what time the electricity comes on then goes off again, versus what time it really comes on. Which toilets have toilet paper (I’ve only discovered one so far). If you want something other than a bread roll for breakfast, it’s BYO egg. I now know that it’s better to bathe with the bucket of cold water at night rather than in the morning because it drops a couple of degrees overnight. And not to put too fine a point on it, but my muscles are getting better at the squat.

I’m always glad to get out of Dili and its relentless heat, dust and people yelling at you. Maliana also has heat, dust and people yelling at you but at least in this case, it’s a chorus of kindergarten children chiming softly ‘malae malae malae’ a la the seagulls in Finding Nemo.

It’s a relief to slow down and do things like watch the news on TV. And I mean really slow down. The half-hour nightly news starts ten minutes late and finishes only after the daily campaign activities of each and every political party (there are 26) have been covered. While this isn’t my usual idea of fun, it did give me a chance to admire my colleague’s impersonation of Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao and appreciate the finer distinctions of politicians’ headwear (FYI: red beret = communist, leather cap = socialist).

When work means dangling your feet in a stream of fresh mountain water and singing Indonesian pop songs with 8-year-old girls, I guess there’s not much to complain about. If there’s one KPI I’m definitely hitting in Timor, it’s halimar. Halimar means play, but it seems like you can attach it to almost any other word and imbue it with halimar’s laissez-faire, cest-la-vie, life’s-a-breeze attitude. 

I'm pretty sure halimar is exactly what Ted and Bob are doing in the photo. And if it's good enough for a giant pink teddybear and a suave military man, it's good enough for me.

Ate loron seluk (See you on a different day)

Living in Dili means you have a continuum of people in your life. Everyone is coming or going, digging their heels into the place or trying to break free from it. For me, the month of May had some goodbyes I was loath to make.

As a self-confessed introvert, I have unwittingly adapted my ways to the social maelstrom of expatsville by developing an extroverted alter ego. Let’s call her Joey (no, really, we do). Joey likes to meet new people. She’s talkative, always up for a party and apt to spontaneity. Joey forms attachments with people quickly. Whereas I take my sweet time letting people in, Joey rushes on, arms open and caution to the wind.

Add to that a visit from my Mum and Dad, who finally met the neighbours and pigs and craziness of Dili I’ve been going on about, and the tally in the recent goodbyes column is looking pretty full.

So in a nutshell, Joey got me into this mess. Some of the people I’ve said goodbye to, I will definitely see again. Others I may not. The problem with making friends with fascinating, experience-laden, wanderlusty individuals is that they’re prone to moving on to the next place.

I spent the first 21 years of my life living in the same house, so needless to say the thought of saying goodbye to someone who is returning to the faraway pocket of earth from whence they came feels deeply unnatural.

As you can probably tell, I wrote this blog. Joey is already off making some new friends.

Nicolau Lobato airport: where it all happens

 PS. I realise talking about yourself in the third person is one of the first signs of insanity. I submit my case to you for review.

President in a white jacket, Granny in a pink dress

Ten years ago, Timor-Leste became the world’s newest country. This weekend, they celebrated their first decade of freedom with pomp and ceremony, as well as entertainment from a Brazilian cowboy-hat-wearing duo and an Indonesian hypnotist.

This being the country of the public holiday, government employees received no less than a five-day long weekend, presumably to ensure celebrations were carried out with appropriate thoroughness.

Thunderbolt and T-Lo enroute to Taci Tolu

My own Independence Day celebrations involved hanging out at Taci Tolu listening to music and marvelling at the relentless energy of the mosh pit, who periodically climbed on stage and danced like it was nobody’s business. Then the ema bo’ots (VIPs) arrived and were greeted with lukewarm enthusiasm from the crowd, who preferred to cheer whenever someone in the crowd made it onto the big TV screens.

Finally, the two biggest ema bo’ots (VIPs) – president outgoing and president incoming – arrived, stylishly late. Then the evening moved onto flag raising, admiring of the military’s white socks and guessing what sartorial former president Jose Ramos-Horta was whispering to new president Taur Matan Ruak. My money is on ‘don’t worry, I’ll give you the number of my tailor’ (he was wearing an amazing white jacket and woven waistcoat). It also ended with a 2am walk on a darkened beach back to my bubble/car, traversing fallen barbed wire at the airport, prickly grass and a river.

As close as I got to the ema bo'ots

Not surprisingly, it turns out I am much more comfortable sitting in the dirt with the povu (people) laughing at the ema bo’ots than rubbing shoulders with them. On Sunday a whole bunch of us were invited to a reception for the Governor General (my guess is we were there to represent ‘fresh faced and idealistic young people’). But there is just no way to have a normal conversation with someone when their minder is hovering next to them, ready to whisk them off as soon as things get slightly awkward. While my conversation with Quentin was hardly memorable, I feel like we had an unspoken affinity as the only two blondes in the room wearing hot pink. Mine was a $4 dress from the markets, hers was an impeccable ensemble with matching lipstick.

There is no doubt the lady is impressive. She spoke graciously and even referred to herself as the ‘granny in a pink dress’ at one point. During his last speech as president the night before, Jose Ramos-Horta had joked about drawing out his speech indefinitely so he would still be president.

Real ema bo’ots = extraordinary people with a sense of humour.

The sun sets on Restoration of Independence Day