Kultura (Part One)

Welcome to Timor

Being a human being living within a culture* (When I talk about culture I'm also talking about the general conditions/constraints of lives lived in a certain place) is (I imagine) somewhat akin to being a fish living in water.

This (intentionally anthropomorphised) fish knows about the water, it sees it every day, it can study and analyse it until the (purely metaphorical) cows come home. However, what the fish can't do is transcend its intellectual understanding of the water. It will never really understand on a gut, emotional, heart, whatever level what the water means to it and how much of the water is merely one particular way (of many possible ways) of arranging life. It might be better than other ways of arranging breathing and movement or it might be worse. Probably it has both strengths and weaknesses.

This goes on until our clever fish invents a machine allowing it to leave the water. Only then can the fish step outside the thing it has always known, compare it with something different, and see both more clearly. Returning to people and culture, it is much the same. Most of what our societies run on is just one possible arrangement of cultural, social, physical, psychological and other factors. It is far from universal and chances are there is another culture somewhere that does every single thing differently. If this sounds impossible, you need to go somewhere a long way away immediately.

The key difference (I am not a biologist) between humans and fish is that we (those with the necessary financial resources at least) can leave our "home" culture far more easily than a fish can leave water. Whether we survive the experience is harder to say. An old expression goes: (or at least there should be one that goes) "If you survive a year in a foreign culture you are a goodtravelerr, if you return as the same person who left you are a bad one."

To me all of this creates a compelling case and reason why everyone should travel to at least a few significantly different places as early (before the cake is baked) in their conscious lives as possible (There are other reasons also, but these tend to be less intellectual and more fun).

In short, we can only see our own culture for what it is when we have lived in another. (For example, I was shocked to discover recently that some societies believe there are more important differences between humans and animals than the ability to acquire a mortgage.)

It is important to remember there is a spectrum (there's ALWAYS a spectrum) of cultural difference. The woman who moves from her comfortable life in the expensive Adelaide Hills to a mining town in Western Australia is likely to experience more of this "cultural dissonance" than an executive living a well resourced expatriate lifestyle during a six month stint in Hong Kong.

Therefore, I'm not being snobbish about this and restricting it to international travel. Any travel of any kind is good full stop. Taken further, "traveling" into sub-cultures within your own society can also result in a similar experience. The point is to get as uncomfortable as possible. Obviously the amount of information available in a western society also allows virtual traveling and a well informed person today has the capacity to understand other cultures (and consequently their own) to a greater degree than in anytime past.

However, for cultural dissonance par excellence I also suggest a few practical ideas:

* Waking up in a small village on a tropical island to the calls of seven competing (both for earliness and overall volume) roosters (whose only purpose in life is to provide violent entertainment for their owners);

* Having this sound soon supplanted by the man next door who decides some nondescript Brazilian elevator music needs to be surgically bored into the heads of everyone in the neighbourhood (including his young family) before breakfast AND the fact no-one complains;

* Having a drink from your limited bottled water supply (because you will get seriously ill if you drink the tap water - a choice the majority of locals are not able to make);

* Salivating at the thought of hearing news in English on Radio Australia because every other news source is in one of the many languages here that you do not understand;

* Realising that by 8am it is already as hot as a summer midday in Melbourne;

* Covering yourself in (toxic) mosquito repellent because otherwise your workplace and the outside world generally contains insects that can give you serious and (potentially) life threatening diseases - realising that this only reduces the risk of said diseases;

* Walking to the main road to the excited chorus of "Malae! Malae!" provided by the genuinely excited children, many of whom have been called by their mothers to see the passing spectacle;

* Catching a taxi to work with a young man who also thinks you require early hearing impairment. This man on average will not have a valid taxi driver registration, instead filling his windscreen and interior spaces with a seriously tacky assortment of decals, soft toys, flags, mirrors, glare protectors and other miscellaneous shiny objects. This has the added benefit of reducing his (and your) field of vision (through the windscreen) to something similar to trying to peek under a closed door. Regardless of anything else he will drive extremely slowly (in stark contrast to his Chinese brethren) and nurse his car like it is likely to fall apart any minute (often a reasonable assumption). Despite this he will find ways to endanger your life through a poor understanding of the concept that two objects cannot exist in the same space as applied to overtaking and the opposite lane of the road. Finally, he will not EVER wear a seatbelt (neither will anyone in any vehicle anywhere) and sometimes be so ?amused? (I haven't been able to pin down the exact emotion yet) at your very existence that he will spend more time watching you than the road and respond to your every statement/question with a giggle. When it comes time to pay the fare, there is no "right" amount and taxi drivers seem generally at the mercy of their passengers, unless of course you happen to be a woman and then it is the other way around;

* Watching the many people weaving in and out of traffic on motorbikes and scooters wearing the compulsory ¨ice cream container¨ helmet which apart from being made from thin metal of some kind is for all intents and purposes as protective as its nickname (among the malaes anyway) suggests. It has no chin strap and I'm sure it would escape to safety in the event of an accident well before your head encountered anything harder than air. Even more disturbing is the sight of adult(s) wearing these "helmets" while their children and/or babies ride or are carried without even this protection. One fellow volunteer suggests that either cultural or nutritional issues have reduced the Timorese capacity to link cause and effect. I find this theory quite offensive and think it is perhaps a combinatnecessitycessity and the fatalistic approach to life that persecution, disempowerment and religion can breed. I hope to write more on this later as it creates a host of interesting issues when viewed in the context of a newly independent nation, individuals endeavouring to improve their lives and capacity building;

* Realising just how rubbery "rubber time" can be and that the western concept of a workplace as a place workers spend the majority of the working week is not accepted everywhere, but that many people will turn up on weekends to socialise;

* Having a colleague tell you (with great sincerity) he will finish the short evaluation report required after one of your organisation's training sessions SOON, when this is the seventh such session this year and none of the previous reports were completed either;

* Spending your day at work sweltering in the heat and feeling guilty as your colleagues add two layers of clothing the moment you turn on a fan or air conditioner (if you are lucky enough to have one);

* Generally being so much more wealthy than the people around you (despite being a volunteer by western standards) that (whether you like it or not) you form part of an elite earning roughly 24 times the average local income. This is roughly the equivalent of both Sam and myself independently being millionaires in Australia. You also need to remember that most other national NGO international staff are on 3-5 times what we are on and that sitting on top of this obscene heap of wealth are the many UN'ers, international NGO staff and others who sometimes earn 2-4 times this again. A similar ratio in Australia would see many of these people on 5-10 million dollar a year salaries. (Of course, these figures are illustrative estimates only - unsurprisingly malaes don't talk about their salaries much here);

* Finally....no-one seems to use knives here, just forks and spoons. Spoons seem to be used for cutting when necessary and forks to help assemble food on the spoon.

Serious crimes against the environment series #134
Plastic cups which hold just 300ml of water made in such a way to make re-use impossible and sold with accompanying disposable plastic straws which are also individually encased in plastic. These cups are imported into Timor, a country that burns the vast majority of its packaging and household rubbish due to an almost complete lack of waste management services. These cups are paid for and provided to many NGOs in Dili by many donors who should know better. USAID to name one.

(Kultura part two coming "soon")

Category: Timor-Leste (East Timor)

Atauro Island and Human Rights training in Ainaro

Saturday 20 August 2005

There is definitely something about the sky and the sea that is very conducive to relaxation...

and play...

We have just experienced an amazing week on Atuaro Island and in Ainaro. We left for Atauro on the morning of Saturday 13 August. We were meant to catch the inter island ferry but the Timor government commandeered it without notice (to the general public) which left hundreds of people stranded at the dock. The government was conducting some kind of dialogue with the people of Atauro.

Instead of scheduling an extra trip for the regular passengers, they left them without any transport! It was appalling. Being “malae” we were informed by the Australian woman who runs the eco village on the island the night before that we would need to catch a speedboat instead, which she arranged for us. So instead of paying $7.50 each and taking 2.5 hours to reach the island, we paid $30 each and reached the island in just over an hour. We were not anticipating this increase in travel expenses so our weekend turned out more expensive than we had planned for. However, we quickly got over that and enjoyed a relaxing and peaceful two days in our beautifully constructed bamboo hut (below), which had views across the ocean.

Everywhere in Timor you will find coconuts and palm trees. Atauro was no exception.

I finished reading Beating the Biological Clock: The Joys and Challenges of Late Motherhood by Pamela Armstrong, which I borrowed from the library at my work. The author is English and it was published in 1996 so it’s a bit out of date. However considering Timorese women have more children (and probably start earlier) than women anywhere in the world - I struggled to see the local relevence.

Moreover, it wasn’t a very well written book and I certainly wouldn’t recommend it to anyone. That said, it helped me with a few issues I am having to come to terms with regarding my plans to become an older mother. It was the catalyst for further discussions with Daniel as to what we would do if the foetus were severely disabled as given my age, the chances are great. We also wondered how many eggs I had left and when I would reach menopause. Australian researchers in Adelaide are working to devise a test, which they hope to have on the market in the future, which will predict how many fertile years a woman has left. It will be life changing to have such a test available.

The Australian woman who runs the eco resort we stayed at has lived in Timor for ten years, and for the three years prior in Indonesia. In the early 1970s she lived in Papua New Guinea. She is intelligent, fierce and charming. She had just become a grandmother and wore her long gray hair in a bun. She was just the most amazing woman and I think I partly fell in love with her! Daniel was a little concerned but I reassured him that I wasn’t going to run off with her.

The eco resort is a low impact construction with about ten huts, a communal dining room, composting toilets (the best I’ve ever used) and a “mandi” with warm water from the mountain springs. The food was really good (Timorese/Indonesian style) and for breakfast, we had the best (white) bread rolls we have tasted so far in Timor which we ate with wild honey. We mostly lay in our beds reading while watching the ocean and went for a couple of small swims close to shore in the early evening. On our last morning, we went for a longish walk along the beach. It was just sublime and there was hardly any noise. We highly recommend this place and plan on returning again soon. The cost was $25 a night each including three meals and $30 each for Saturday night.

The sun rises over the waves...

and returns again.

We returned by the same speed boat late Monday morning and ate at a little “malae” café which is owned by the Aussie bloke who owns the speed boat we travelled to/from the island in. An Aussie woman working there makes lentil rissoles and scones. We chose to have the veggie lasagne instead (which wasn’t very nice as it was store bought) but we had a scone each with jam and cream (from a can) which was yummy. We decided next time to have the lentil rissoles as the home made food appears to be immeasurably better than the store bought (and inevitably imported from Australia).

On Tuesday morning I went with Daniel to his work in preparation to leave for Ainaro at midday. It turned out that we weren’t leaving until after lunch so we went and enjoyed a Timorese/Indonesian meal. While waiting to leave, I read a booklet recently produced by the United Nations Office in East Timor, which summarised some of the many achievements of the UN during the past three years. It was the first thing I had read which was positive about Timor. It was actually a relief to read something that didn’t focus on the brutal history and the many problems that afflict the country. I also read about projects that will help me in my work and duly took down notes.

In the end, we didn’t leave until 4pm and I was not happy but I couldn’t do anything about it. I sat in the front passenger seat as I often get carsick and was the only person in the car to wear a seatbelt!

Again, these issues really get to me as I was in the car with mainly university educated people who saw no need to secure their safety when driving on very bad roads. I had to endure the constant chatter in Tetun of the three people in the back seat (including Daniel) while we listened to very loud 1980s music. It was a strange feeling being driven up incredibly windy roads into the mountains of one of the world’s poorest countries while listening to the music of my youth. The effect was to evoke many memories of my not so happy early teenage years.

After a food stop for the three Timorese men in Aileu, we finally arrived in Ainaro just after 9pm. The 110km trip had taken us just over 4 hours as we managed to drive mostly around 20-30km an hour rising every now and again to 45km an hour due to the windy narrow roads which often turned into large pot holes. A couple of times I screamed and flinched as we narrowly missed oncoming traffic or pedestrians.

We were welcomed at our guesthouse by a middle aged Timorese woman and her three grandchildren who were staying with her for the summer holidays. There was much Australian memorabilia all over her house as members of her family live in Sydney and many Aussie peacekeepers had stayed there during 1999.

We ate dinner (white rice, stir-fried green leafy vegetables and eggplant) and promptly went to bed. The mattress on our bed was dreadful so we managed to find a spare one to put on top of the other, which did increase the comfortableness of it slightly. The early morning was very cool and I woke up cold, which was a nice change from sweltering Dili. I declined to have a wash as it was cold water in the “mandi” and I really couldn’t bear the thought. There was a squat toilet next to the “mandi” but there was hardly any room to get around it so I had to back myself onto the toilet and then squat. Water was all over the floor, which made it all the trickier as I worried about slipping. The bathroom was simply awful and I tried not to have to spend too much time in there. Unfortunately I was due for my period so knew I would have to grow to like it!

We walked the short distance to the public building where the human rights training was to be held. The town is surrounded by mountains and clouds, which are pretty, and the air was cool. The key to the door could not be located so our Timorese driver broke the door so we could gain access. Daniel commented that we wouldn’t have done that in Australia and the meeting would simply not have gone ahead!

The human rights training began at 9:30am. Of fifty invitations issued throughout the district the week before, thirty-two people attended including the local police, the xefi sucos (village chiefs), a women’s group, and young people’s group. On the second day, thirty-eight people attended including two nuns. Three of Daniel’s Timorese colleagues conducted the training over the two days, each focusing on a different area of expertise. The first talked about human rights in general, the second about the legal system in Timor, and the third about women’s and children’s rights along with domestic violence issues.

We couldn’t understand most of what they said (Daniel got a lot more of it than me and one of the trainers assisted with translating bits and pieces also), but it was very good to observe how the training was conducted and the interaction with the participants. Over the course of the two days we had a number of instances of feeling overwhelmed by the level of participation of people in particular, how the police and citizens worked together in small groups. We felt this way of conducting training built bridges between those in authority (the police and xefi sucos) and the general population.

It was also very emotional to see the Timorese police officers in their smart blue uniforms and their berets on their heads. It has only been the last couple of years that the Timorese have been able to govern themselves and have their own police and army. It is such a wonderful project that Daniel’s NGO is conducting and my organisation also conducts similar work which we hope to jointly do together in the future.

We discovered that the guesthouse we were staying in was torched by the militia in 1999 and had been rebuilt by the peacekeepers. Evidence of the destruction was still visible, as the roof remained blackened from the fire. Our host’s brother was murdered by the militia (Ainaro was a hotbed for militia activity). Our host’s husband worked for the UN after the peacekeepers arrived and now he is a driver for local bigwigs and people like Jose Ramos Horta when they visit the area.

Before we departed early Thursday evening, I decided to take a photo of the mother duck and her 10 little baby ducklings. I was besotted with them since I heard their little chirps the night we arrived. I knelt down to take a photo and I noticed two little girls behind me watching. As my Tetun is not up to the level of asking if they would like me to take their photo, I motioned to them and said “hamutuk” (together). I took a photo and then showed them the result on the screen. They laughed. More little girls joined in and wanted their photo taken too. So this went on and on as I attracted many more little girls and then showed them the result. They all laughed very excitedly. I then went over to their mothers and showed them the result and asked if they wanted their photo taken. All the little girls joined their mothers so I ended up with a series of photos where the number of little girls and their mothers in them increases. We promised that when we returned we would bring copies of the photos with us. We have included one of them below, also with ´Tia´ (´aunt´ - woman far left) - our wonderfully attentive host!

The journey home resulted in both Daniel and I feeling sick. We didn’t leave until around 5:30pm and again we stopped in Aileu so the Timorese men could eat.

During the trip, my phone started ringing and I fumbled through my things to answer it before the person hung up. It was my Great Auntie Pat ringing to wish me a happy birthday. I was thrilled. When I hung up a text message came through from my sister also wishing me a happy birthday. I had had an unusual 35th birthday in that I had spent all day listening about women’s and children’s rights and domestic violence in a language I mostly did not understand in a small town of about 4,000 people in the middle of one of the world’s poorest countries. It was certainly memorable.

Thirteen kilometres out of Dili, our driver pointed out Xanana and Kirsty’s house. We had passed it on the way up and I had wondered then if that was the President and First Lady’s house. It was up on a hill so I couldn’t really see the house properly but there was a large garden all the way down the hill to the road. The house was certainly more modest than the one built specially for the President further on down the road (the official residence), which I mentioned in a previous post.

Around 9km from Dili the traffic came to a halt as we saw police lights flashing up ahead. We pulled over to the side of the road and one of Daniel’s Timorese colleagues got out and went to investigate. He came back a short time later to say that a truck was stuck on the bend and was blocking most of the road.

The police couldn’t get it out and they said we would have to sleep in our car for the night and wait until morning. By now it was just after 10pm and I was tired and very angry. There was no way that all six of us would be able to sleep in the car comfortably. I got out of the car and decided to go and investigate myself. I couldn’t believe it; a massive lorry with an incredibly heavy piece of road building equipment had got stuck on the bend and couldn’t move. A rope was tied to it and the other end was tied around a small palm tree. As if the tree could hold that!

There was a crowd of men milling about looking at the problem and I assume trying to work out what to do. The lorry was on its way to Ainaro and had only made it 9km into a 110km trip along a windy, narrow, and steep pot holed road. How the hell the driver ever thought he could drive all that way is beyond me. After seeing the absurdity of the situation, I started laughing with Daniel saying only in a Third World country would this happen. We went back to the car and all had a laugh. Our Timorese colleagues were saying “difisil” and I was saying more than difficult! In the end, a couple of the narrower cars managed to pass by in a very tight space, including our own so we were only held up for about half an hour. As to the fate of the truck not to mention the buses of people unable to pass, I do not know.

I stayed home yesterday and rested as I had my period and was feeling a bit icky. Daniel went to work late and came back early with our USB full of happy birthday emails from friends and family in Australia and Belgium. I was very happy to read them all and catch up with news from home, including seeing photos of my gorgeous niece Riley who is now eight months old.

I’ve lost 6kg in the past 8 weeks with absolutely no effort. In Australia, I exercised most days by riding my bike to and from work (one hour) and regularly worked out at the gym (one hour) but never managed to lose any weight. Here, I hardly ever exercise because it’s too bloody hot and yet I’ve lost weight! It’s obvious it’s the food rather than the exercise.

We’re predominantly eating a vegan diet although we do eat eggs as they’re all free range so we know the hens have a good life (hens, chicks and roosters are all over the place). Our diet is made up of wholemeal multigrain crackers with honey or vegemite for breakfast; white rice, stir fried vegetables (mostly greens) and tofu, fried tempe and a mandarin or other tropical fruit for lunch; and dried fruit and nuts for dinner.

During the week we will eat Thai, Indian and Timorese/Indonesian for lunch, which basically includes the food, mentioned above. A couple of times a week we have a cup of soy milk with drinking chocolate and a gin and tonic (not together!). A couple of times a month we have a western style meal which we either cook ourselves (brown rice or brown pasta figure prominently in order to increase our wholegrain intake) or we eat out which usually means eating white pasta and a veggie sauce with cheese or a veggie pizza with cheese.

We’re drinking around two litres of water a day and little else. What we don’t eat is butter, margarine, bread, cakes, chocolate, pastry, ice cream and cheese (every now and again we eat these latter two treats as it is available but as it is all imported from Australia, it is very expensive unless we eat it as part of a meal at a “malae” restaurant).

So clearly, our saturated fat intake has decreased exponentially, but good fats are still consumed in the form of nuts, tofu, tempe and soy milk. I’m happy to be losing weight as it has slowly crept up on me as I have got older. Moreover, I wanted to lose weight before trying to get pregnant as I know it’s not healthy to be overweight when pregnant and it also becomes difficult trying to shed the extra kilos after giving birth. At this rate I hope to be down to my desired weight within six or so months.

Last night I completed reading John Martinkus’ A Dirty Little War. It was a harrowing read and only increases my respect for the Timorese and all the atrocities they have endured. Again, it made me angry about Australia’s complicity in and lack of political will to stop the Indonesians from invading in the first place (Australia was the only country to officially acknowledge Indonesia’s invasion and forced integration of Timor) and again in 1999, to believe the military’s lies in assuring the international community that peace would prevail. The UN also acted badly.

It is unbelievable to me that international intelligence did not know what the Indonesians were planning and were carrying out (of course they did but chose not to do anything about it).

Certainly Martinkus had an idea back in 1998. But yet again, diplomacy and real politik rule the day. One only has to look at Aceh, Ambon and West Papua to see that the Indonesian military continues to behave outside the rule of law while the international community looks the other way. It’s sickening.

Category: Timor-Leste (East Timor)

Visual feasts

Thursday 11 August 2005

We tried to watch Bewitched last night but the sound quality was very poor (not to mention that it was a very hit and miss film). I had wanted to see it because I am named after the character Samantha from the original series. However, I fell asleep towards the end of it so will have to go back and watch the end. Of the collection of seven animated films I mentioned previously, it seems only two of them actually work on our laptop.

Today we went to the “official” DVD shop and purchased lots more DVDs.

We bought the following television dramas: The L Word season 2 (which hasn’t been shown on Australian television yet and is due for release on DVD in the USA in October!) and Desperate Housewives (the last couple of episodes of season 1 which we missed because we left Australia for Timor).

Films: Spirited Away (the multi award winning Japanese animated film), The Manchurian Candidate (last year’s well-reviewed remake), I Heart Huckabees, The Sea Inside (the dramatic Spanish film about euthanasia that won the Jury Grand Prize at the 2004 Venice International Film Festival), Love is Thoughts (a German film).

I was thrilled to find these as I was wondering if any of the quality television dramas and art house films we enjoyed in abundance in Australia would be available here. The films we purchased were ones that we had wanted to see in Australia but had missed out on. We also found The West Wing and Queer as Folk but they were seasons we have already seen. The really weird thing is that the artwork on the cover of the latter was really funny: it had a picture of a scantily clad woman superimposed alongside the gay male characters. Obviously the graphic designer had no idea what this series is about! Daniel just had to take a photo(see below).

I have resisted looking at the ABC’s television guide online as to avoid knowing what I´m missing. However, today I took a sneak look and discovered that the third series of Spooks is currently showing! I then promptly went to the ABC’s shop online and found that it can be purchased for about $60. We will wait and see if it turns up in Dili (and I suspect it won’t, as most of the DVD’s are American content) then we will acknowledge that it is a luxury and spend the money anyway. It is amazing how the mere act of watching a creative visual feast from the English speaking world can bring you great comfort and a chance to pretend that you’re not actually living in one of the world’s poorest countries with all its attendant difficulties.

We received an internal memo at work today reconfirming that we can only access the Internet for 2.5 hours a day! 9am – 10am and again from 4:30pm – 6:00pm. I think I may indeed have to go to Daniel’s work when I need to do intensive research (work or otherwise).

Tonight we are meeting up with the two other AVIers that we came over with as one of them is finally leaving Dili for Aileu where she will begin teaching secondary school next month.

Category: Timor-Leste (East Timor)

Daniel returns from Ainaro

Wednesday 10 August 2005

Today I purchased six DVDs at a cost of $2 each!

Mind you they are pirated, but I do not believe that it is possible to buy the real deal in Timor. Daniel started our collection last week by buying three for $2.50 at the “official” DVD shop near his work: Supersize Me, The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions. However, we are having problems with our laptop. When we try and play a DVD, our computer will often freeze and we have to take the battery out and start again.

We purchased the laptop second hand before we left Australia. It is a four year old IBM ThinkPad. We’re pretty sure that it’s the laptop and not the DVDs. I managed to complete watching Supersize Me on Sunday night, which was a much-needed distraction. On the whole, the film was entertaining but I do have a problem with the sweeping categorisation of all overweight and obese people as being that way because they eat too much junk food!

I rarely if ever eat such food but am considered obese on the BMI much to my and everyone else’s surprise! Having also spent a considerable amount of time reading about health and nutrition including the recently published The Obesity Myth, I am critical of the film’s underlying assumptions about why people are heavy (genetics is a factor for many overweight people). Saying that, I do agree that supersizing is contributing to rising obesity levels and that advertising of junk food directed at children must be prohibited as it has been in Sweden (or is that Denmark?). Jamie Oliver’s School Lunches program, which aired on Australian television earlier in the year, was a salient call for the need to introduce healthy lunches in our schools.

The problem however in Timor is that children don’t get enough to eat and the fact that so many are malnourished highlights the inequitable distribution of the world’s resources. The only obese people I see are “malae”, although there are overweight Timorese, which does reflect their genetic diversity.

The DVD’s I purchased are as follows: The Island, Bewitched, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Just a Question of Love: a French film whose lead actor was nominated for the Cesar Award’s Most Promising Young Actor for Confusion of Genders; The Bear in the Big Blue House Dance Party, a creation by the Muppets folk and as shown on the ABC; and a collection of seven animated films: Madagascar, Pinocchio 3000, Robots, The Incredibles, Racing Stripes, Shark Tale and Team America: World Police. (Given this last DVD seems to be aimed at children, it is amusing to have Team America included as this is from the creators of South Park and had at least an M rating when it was released in Australia.)

The power cuts out at work at around 3pm like clockwork. Then when I get home it regularly cuts out at around 7pm, 10pm and again just after midnight. It generally stays off anywhere from one to two hours at a time. Thank goodness for the generator!

Although I am struggling to live here I do very much enjoy working with my Timorese colleagues. They are brave and funny women. I shall endeavour to gain strength by their example.

Daniel arrived home late this afternoon. I am very happy!

Category: Timor-Leste (East Timor)

Feeling vulnerable

Tuesday 9 August 2005

I decided to go to our German American friend’s birthday party after receiving assurances about getting a lift home. I left work later than planned as rain threatened, particularly so when my attempts at eliciting a weather forecast from my colleagues became a mutually amusing game of charades mixed with equally limited versions of each other´s languages. The eventual answer, ¨La iha problema¨ (no problem) allowed me to begin the long walk with some confidence.

Unfortunately it gets dark quickly in Timor and soon after 7pm I was surrounded by a pitch-black sky with very few streetlights. My small pocket torch guided my every step. It would be very easy here to fall into a big hole and break a limb or two (or disapper completely!). I arrived at our friend’s house 50 minutes later full of adrenaline from both the exercise and the constant fear that some bloke might attack me.

Our friend had again cooked the most amazing food and the evening was an enjoyable one. One of the AVIers we came over with was to my surprise also there, but then again Dili is a very small town. A Chinese American woman studying at my other alma mater Berkeley, who is in Timor for six weeks gave me a lift home, which was completely out of her way. I was grateful for her generosity as I just didn’t feel up to calling the “safe” taxi driver. I think Daniel and I should call him and take a ride home together so that we can suss him out for future potential journeys on my own.

I arrived home just before midnight to find my neighbour across the road (the one who loves playing loud music) hammering away at god knows what and he continued to do so until way past midnight. Needless to say I had trouble sleeping. I simply cannot comprehend how his wife and children manage to remain sane with the amount of noise he generates. Then at 6:30am this morning, I was woken by the sound of metal hitting rock. It went on and on and on. I gave up sleeping and got up to peek through the blinds to see where the noise was coming from. Both houses on either side of us are in the process of being built - although since we moved in two weeks ago there has been no construction work.

However, both owners (one being our “family”) decided to resume building this morning and one team of workers were hammering away at rocks to break them down into smaller pieces. The problem with paying rent to a family who are in the process of building their house is that they build it while you’re living there! Ugghhh! I think I’ll go mad! Upon moaning about the lack of peace and quiet in Timor, a guest at last night’s party told me that sleeping tablets are widely and cheaply available at the many “farmasias” around town. I think I might need to quickly cultivate a cheap drug habit! At the moment I feel that I don’t belong here. It’s as if I’m intruding on other people´s society and lives. Perhaps I should be at “home” working for social change in my own society as it doesn’t feel right to be a “malae” working on similar issues in Timor. There is also the fact that the most pressing issues here are ones ¨we¨ in the West began to address at least thirty years ago. Timor as a nation has only recently begun its journey on the road to respect for human rights, particularly those of women and children. (Of course this is not to deny that there are problems with the application of human rights in Australia particularly concerning our indigenous peoples and asylum seekers.)

However, there are enough well educated Timorese to do the job themselves without assistance from me. Also, I feel completely at sea with the culture. It is patriarchal, hierarchical, class ridden, conservative, traditional and incredibly influenced by Catholicism. There are serious limits to women’s freedom and liberty, which I find difficult to accept. The taxi driver who drove me home tonight would not take the $1.50 I gave him and demanded $2. I could hardly argue given my lack of fluent Tetun and the recent case of the rape of an Australian woman by a taxi driver. Our Tetun teacher has told us that a Timorese would only pay $1 but because we are “malae” we are charged more. The couple who lived here before us said we should only pay $1.50. It may sound a trivial amount but Dili is not a cheap place to live and we are spending nearly as much as we did in Australia for things like housing, transport, food, telephone calls and electricity. I’m sure that most of the taxi drivers think that all “malae” are on UN salaries but the fact is, the UN drive around in 4WDs, and it is volunteers like us who use the taxis.

Moreover, this incident induced in me a sense of anger, frustration, powerlessness and vulnerability. I had no recourse with the driver. As a Western woman, I am not use to having my autonomy and freedom curtailed and it contributes to my not enjoying living here. Many of my rights have been taken away simply because I am a woman. I do not like being left on my own having to negotiate taking taxis to and from work. I have never thought twice about living on my own in the West (and I have spent five years living independently outside of Australia). Since Daniel left on Sunday, my stress levels have risen sharply. It is not something that Daniel as a man ever feels. (Daniel: Certainly not the gendered aspect of it, but similarly a feeling of confinement and lack of freedom is something I deal with also.)

One of Daniel’s colleagues, who is a Timorese women’s rights lawyer, says that women are incredibly vulnerable in Timor and that she’s not surprised that I feel vulnerable living here. Her only consolation is that Timorese women are even more vulnerable than “malae” women are.

I think we may have to move closer to town and perhaps even into a “malae” apartment or unit. This is sad because we like our “family” but I cannot continue feeling so vulnerable when Daniel is working in the districts. It is regrettable but I need to limit the amount of exposure I have to male Timorese strangers and unfortunately, I have yet to meet a female taxi driver: I don’t think they exist. Daniel and I had decided that a way to contribute to the economy and support Timorese trying to make a living was to catch taxis and to eat out at local Timorese frequented restaurants. I think we will have to think again about this.

I have begun reading John Martinkus’ A Dirty Little War. In the opening pages it describes how in 1997 three bodies with their heads, hands and feet cut off were found dumped in Tasitolu, the suburb next to where we live. As mentioned in a previous post, the site of the now renamed Tasitolu Peace Park is where the Indonesian military used to dump the bodies of Timorese they had murdered. It is hard to fathom this level of brutality let alone it having occurred where you now live.

There are two women at work who wear black every day. I suspected it might be a sign of mourning or “lutu” and this was confirmed to me by a colleague. If one of your parents dies, as a sign of respect you have to wear black or “metan” for a year. (In this heat that must be difficult, not to mention the fact that one of the women is pregnant.) During this time they can attend festivities but must not dance. The end of “lutu” is “kore metan” or untying the black band and is celebrated with a big party.* There is also one young woman (our cleaner) who wears a swatch of black cloth pinned to her breast. I have also seen this on a number of people around town. Again, it is a sign of respect for relatives other than your parents who have died. The length of time you have to wear it is determined by the proximity of the relationship (eg aunt, cousin, grandparent). However, it appears to apply only to women, as I have not seen any men performing this custom. (This reminds me of the older female Italian immigrants in Australia, who do a similar thing out of respect for their dead.) I am now curious as to whether this is a “traditional” custom or whether the Portuguese and their Catholicism introduced it.

One of our happy discoveries was that we can pick up Radio Australia (RA). It has most of the programs I listen to on Radio National with one glaring exception, Life Matters. Without RA we wouldn’t have a clue what was going on in Timor or the world. It provides a much-needed lifeline and only increases my respect for our ABC.

The programs we regularly listen to include: News, current affairs and in depth analysis: AM, Asia Pacific, The Health Report, The Law Report, The Media Report, The National Interest, Background Briefing, The Europeans, Saturday Breakfast, All in the Mind, Verbatim. Commentary and interviews: Talking Point (which comprises one or two interviews done that morning on Breakfast), Perspective, Australia Talks Back, Late Night Live, In Conversation. Religion and ethics: The Spirit of Things, Encounter, The Religion Report. Arts: Movie Time, Books and Writing.

I can continue to hear Tony Eastley, Norman Swan, Damien Carrick, Richard Aedy, Terry Lane, Kirsten Garrett, Geraldine Doogue, Alan Saunders, Natasha Mitchell, Fran Kelly, Sandy McCutcheon, Phillip Adams, Robyn Williams, Rachael Kohn, Stephen Crittenden, Julie Rigg and Ramona Kovel. I just wish I could also hear Julie McCrossin on Life Matters! As my access to the Internet is limited, I am not able to go online and listen to previous stories.

I am looking forward to our long weekend on the island of Atauro (Monday is a public holiday as it is Asunsaun or Assumption which marks the day the virgin Mary was taken up in bodily form to heaven). Our German American friend is now coming with us, as she wanted to visit Atauro before she leaves Timor at the end of the month. We will share a cabin together at the eco village.

Daniel will return from Ainaro tomorrow afternoon and has to go back again next week from Tuesday through to Friday. I am hoping to go with him to see how public education on women’s rights is done by his NGO, as this will help me in my work. Therefore I might be celebrating my 35th birthday in a small, beautiful and with any luck, peaceful and quiet mountain village.

* ‘Death’ in East Timor Phrasebook, Lonely Planet, 2001, p.147

Category: Timor-Leste (East Timor)

On my own

Sunday 7 August 2005

Last night on RTTL (also known as TVTL), the Director of the NGO I work for was profiled on Timor’s version of ‘Sixty Minutes’. I was even on screen for a few brief seconds as the TV crew came to my work during the week to film the Director, and some of my colleagues hard at work. After a 15-minute or so profile, the program then aired a particular news story from every day of the week, and at the conclusion of each story, the hosts of the show asked my Director to comment. I so wish I understood Tetun better because most of the stories were political including the issue of an International Criminal Tribunal. I also thought this was an innovative way to present a round up of the week’s top news stories: every week you provide an opportunity for a high profile person from the community to air their views on current issues of importance to Timor-Leste.

Yesterday one of Daniel’s work colleagues came over for lunch. She is a second year German American law student at Harvard University in the USA and has been spending her summer vacation doing an internship with Daniel’s NGO.

A couple of week’s ago she invited us over to her place for dinner and we had such an enjoyable time, we decided to return the invitation. She went to so much effort to make us (and four other colleagues) a delicious three course dinner (home baked bread with butter, pumpkin and apple soup, salad with dressing, vegetable bake followed by a pudding for dessert, all washed down with Australian wine and brie!) Even when the power went off (she doesn’t have a generator), she soldiered on serving us cold soup which we did not mind in the slightest as the taste was sublime.

She is German born and raised but has been educated in the USA since her teens. We very much enjoy her company and conversations, as she is part of that rare breed who likes to talk about serious things like society and politics. For lunch, I made a lentil and vegetable pasta sauce with wholemeal spaghetti and grated New Zealand tasty cheese served with Greek calamata olives and for drinks: gin and tonics. As we do not have an oven, I could not bake a dessert, so we bought three little cup cakes: one with pink folds and the other two with green folds (I dare not think about the colouring agents that were used to produce such colours). We put a candle in each and wished her happy birthday (she turns 25 on Monday). She was touched. When serving the cup cakes we did add the disclaimer that we had no idea what they would taste like and so she must forgive us. They turned out to be quite bland but we ate them anyway.

We left the house at 7:20am this morning for a two-hour walk along the beach and around the Tasitolu Peace Park. It was relaxing if a little hot. In future we decided we should leave the house before 7am to allow us the opportunity to enjoy the experience free of perspiration.

Daniel left this afternoon for Ainaro, 110km or a three to four hour drive south of Dili. He went with some of his work colleagues to prepare for a public education program they are holding in the town next week. He won’t be back until late Tuesday or early Wednesday. I miss him already and worry about him because the roads in Timor are dreadful (imagine taking three to four hours to drive 110km!). I will have to catch taxis on my own for the next two days which is a little daunting. I have also been invited to a birthday celebration of one of Daniel’s work colleagues (the woman mentioned above) in town tomorrow evening but there is the problem of getting home. Many people have told us that women on their own should not catch taxis in the evenings. And although I know the chances of me incurring the same fate as the poor young Australian woman who was raped are remote, I don’t like to think about the fact that the taxi driver who raped her, is still out there. He knows he has gotten away with it at least once (perhaps more?) and presumably thinks he could do so again. Since hearing of the rape, every time I get into a taxi I think to myself, is he the one? However, I have been given the name of a “safe” taxi driver that I can call on in the evenings. Originally an Australian nun living in Dili gave me his name, and then yesterday the colleague, whose birthday is tomorrow, also gave me his name, so I can be pretty confident of his character.

Daniel called me from Ainaro just before 8pm to tell me that he had arrived safely. However, an hour out of Dili, the driver realised he had forgotten to fill the car with petrol so they had to return to Dili! There are only a handful of petrol stations in the whole of Timor, and sellers on the side of the road pour petrol from a container. Daniel arrived with a headache from all the bumping around he endured in the 4WD. He said the road was bad, but not as bad as he expected. Nevertheless, in a number of places he regretted looking down! Apparently there had also been rain in the mountains which compounded the problem. Upon arrival to the guesthouse, all Daniel could get for dinner was some rice and a cooked green leafy vegetable; there was no tofu or tempe on offer. I suggested that on his next trip out of Dili he take some nuts with him. As vegetarians, we are fortunate to be living in Dili as I suspect that outside of the capital, our diet would be lacking in essential nutrients (Daniel: and essential taste!)

We discovered a fantastic Indian restaurant during the week. For $2.50 you get a buffet lunch and for $1 extra you get the most delicious banana lassi. This drink was the best in the banana smoothie/lassi category I have tasted since arriving in Timor. Their vegetarian choices were also good so we have decided to have lunch there once a week. We’re also regularly frequenting the two Thai restaurants in town, which are close to my work. One has a set lunch menu for $4 consisting of an ice cold freshly blended fruit drink followed by green vegetables with thick rice noodles, or tofu and vegetables with rice; followed by fresh fruit). At the other you eat from the menu which costs us about the same if a little more. We also eat at a Timorese/Indonesian place near Daniel’s work where we normally eat rice with deep fried tempe and tofu and green vegetables for about $2, along with a lemon drink with teaspoons of sugar sitting in the bottom of the glass for 50c.

I completed reading Peter Singer’s Practical Ethics this afternoon. It has been an amazing journey as I have found a philosopher with whom I am in total agreement with! I am now inspired to read more of Singer’s work. Next on my reading list is John Martinkus’ A Dirty Little War. I discovered, from visiting the Dateline web page at the SBS website, that Martinkus is a La Trobe Uni graduate and is a mere one year older than me. I always knew that my alta mater turned out wonderful graduates!

The neighbours have been very good this weekend and only played loud music briefly last night and again this afternoon. Mind you, our neighbourhood is so often without power (although our house has a generator) that this is hardly surprising. We actually have a secret wish for the power to remain off more often as this prevents our neighbours from playing their music. Isn’t that a dreadful thought?

Category: Timor-Leste (East Timor)

The importance of education

Friday 5 August 2005

The Australian Embassy responded to our email concerning the Australian woman who was raped by the taxi driver with your typical civil service response: “we cannot discuss individual cases”. We weren’t after her name, just confirmation that an Australia woman was raped! How is that discussing an individual’s case?

We are being driven insane by our neighbours’ insistence on playing music for the entire neighbourhood starting at 6:30am and continuing on and off all day until around 10pm. It is much worse on the weekends as there is hardly any respite from its intrusion into our peace and tranquillity. We can just about tolerate the many and varied animal noises that abound, but music cranked up is just wearing. What is most disturbing is that this family has a number of very small children who have to endure this noise at much closer quarters than us. As it is the husband who plays the music loudly, whenever dad is at home, these children never get any peace. When he leaves (for work?) in the mornings, the music gets turned off. I have wondered if this is because his wife prefers peace or whether the husband has instructed her not to touch his equipment!

We have talked about the music problem with our Tetun teacher and he tells us that it is a common complaint of “malae” in Timor (I wish someone had told us this before we agreed to come here.) He says the problem is caused by the fact that the Timorese have only recently acquired modern technology and they are unaccustomed to the social etiquette, which comes with playing particularly noisy equipment. That is, they just don’t know that you cannot play music so loudly and so often. He has given us a couple of sentences in Tetun, which roughly translated means: “please can you turn down your music.” We have decided to introduce ourselves to our neighbours this weekend and then at a later date (although not too late) we will ask them to turn the music down. If this doesn’t work, we can ask our landlady, as the people we are having problems with are her relatives. Also, if we make it clear that although we are in the main happy living here, we cannot tolerate the loud music and therefore, will have to move out, we hope that she can talk to her relatives and get them to turn it down. Our family is dependent on our rent for their survival, particularly as the father has recently finished his contract building roads in Ermera and is looking for work, which is not easy to find in Timor. Failing that, we have decided to move out, as we simply could not put up with the noise for two years. However, as we paid three months rent in advance, we still have two and a half months to go before we could move!

It is the norm in Timor that extended families live together either under the one roof, or next door to one another. This provides families with support that in the West, the welfare state provides. However, it also allows more opportunity for the sexual abuse of, in particular, little girls at the hands of their male relatives. Daniel and I could think of nothing worse than having to live next to all our relatives (no offence intended to anyone reading this, just having you ALL around ALL the time would be too much!!). This reflects our own cultural norms of raising individuals to be independent of others. Timorese society is also incredibly hierarchical (men without a doubt at the top followed a long way down by women, children and animals). There are also different classes within the society and if you belong to one, you only associate with those of the same class. I wonder if the Timorese suffer from status anxiety, as we do in the West, given they live so closely to their families and others of the same class.

We have noticed our family’s children washing, brushing their teeth (while the tap runs) and drinking from the tap in our front garden. They wash their face, arms, and legs but leave the rest of their body untouched. The fact that they drink the putrid water is of most concern.

I have been reading the history of the first six years of the women’s organisation that I work for (last month they celebrated their eight-year anniversary). It is a book of some 350 pages originally written in Bahasa but translated into English for use on the computer only. It is at times harrowing reading. The cases of violence inflicted on women and children by men both during the referendum in 1999 and after independence make your heart break. Cases of violence against women actually increased in the years following independence.

Most of the women I work with are so softly spoken that I find it difficult to hear what they are saying. Timorese men say it is because they are shy. I say it is because they occupy such a lowly position in society and as a result, they are not taught to assert themselves. I feel very loud in comparison.

A female colleague asked me the other day if I had any children. I said no. She said, “I’m sorry”. To be a woman and not to have children is considered very sad in Timor. Women are only women if they have children. This woman has five children aged 2, 4, 6, 9 and 12. She works full time so I assume a relative takes care of the two younger ones. In my team of three, one very young woman has a daughter (and I am sure more will follow) and the other colleague has three children. I have noticed that the women further down the hierarchy at work have more children than the woman further up the hierarchy. This is not so very different from the West, it’s just there are fewer children all round.

Despite our appreciation of and respect for the Timorese people, it is very difficult not to feel that as an educated Western person you simply have more information about the world, and in particular the consequences of local practices. This makes us uncomfortable, as it is not something we wish to feel. However, it cannot be denied that with education, comes a better understanding of many issues. From small things like turning the tap off while you brush your teeth in order to save a precious resource, to bigger issues like educating women as well as men. In the end, you have to say to yourself, they just don’t know any better because they don’t have the education. Living here highlights the incredible importance of education. It makes me very angry that although the constitution of Timor-Leste states that education, particularly primary, is to be universal and free, parents have to find $3 a month to send their child to school. When you have an average of eight children, that’s $24 a month or about $250 a year. And when the average GDP per capita is less than $500 a year that translates into spending half your yearly income on school fees alone! Imagine in the West if we were forced to spend half our income on our children’s education: we would be outraged! The consequences for Timor’s women are damaging as parents prioritise which of their children to send to school and given the low status of girls and women, their brothers win out. This is the same all over the Majority World (Third World or Less Developed Countries).

The entire budget for Timor is approximately $100 million a year and most of this is aid money. Sixty percent of this is spent on the civil service. I do not know if this is a fair amount to spend on the civil service. However, it upsets me that in such a poor country where half the population are illiterate (sixty percent of whom are women), that more is not done to educate the future generation (fifty percent of the population are under the age of 18). The ratio of teachers to students is 1:100. As a result, class sizes are enormous (40-50 students). And parents have to pay for their children to attend school, apparently in order to pay the teachers their salaries. However, it seems to me incredibly short sighted of the government to introduce school fees. I know that Timor is a very poor country and that they simply do not have the money to do everything, but surely education is a (the) top priority?

Timor has a flat income tax rate of 10%(*We are currently checking this, it appears there may be a higher rate if your income exceeds a certain amount). Again, I believe this to be shortsighted of the government. A flat tax rate is not progressive or equitable. The government could generate more revenue if it introduced a progressive tax rate. Although I am sure that there are not many wealthy people in Timor, there are some and they should contribute more to their country. It seems ludicrous to have a flat tax rate and school fees when you could have a progressive tax rate and no school fees!

There appears to be a lot of animosity towards the Timorese government’s decision not to pursue an International Criminal Tribunal (ICT) to bring to justice those Indonesians who played a significant role in the violence inflicted on the Timorese during 1999. Not to mention that the government does not want to pursue an International Criminal Court (ICC) for the atrocities committed during Indonesia’s twenty-four year reign. Most if not all the human rights NGO’s in Timor continue to call on the Timorese government to pursue both an ICT and an ICC but their calls go unheeded. The government, including the president, believes that it is better to forget the past and to get on with things. Tell that to the victims who cannot get on with their lives until they obtain justice! I am not the first to wonder if the reluctance of the government to pursue justice for their people is due both to ‘real politik’; and the glaring fact that most of the government were not living in Timor during Indonesia’s reign, as they were some of the lucky few who escaped to live elsewhere (mostly Lusophone speaking countries). They then returned to Timor after independence to claim a place in parliament. Could it be that, as they did not experience any direct violence (although many did lose family members), they cannot empathise with their countrywomen and men?

Category: Timor-Leste (East Timor)

Hairless in Dili

Monday 1 August 2005

Although we are still to receive a reply from the Australian Embassy, we have had it confirmed by a reliable source that a young woman from Australia was raped by a taxi driver. Apparently, they got into an altercation about payment for the fare, and he used his power as a male to rape her. I have talked to my organisation about it, as they document all known rape cases in Timor. It is only the second rape of a woman from a country other than Timor that they have been informed about in their eight-year history. Many many more Timorese women are raped every year. Regardless, it is very sad for the woman concerned.

As a response to the World Bank’s report on Timor-Leste, and Radio Australia’s (RA) interview with a spokesperson from the organisation in Timor, RA interviewed Tim Anderson on behalf of AID/Watch, about its views on the report. It’s well worth listening to.

We continue to experience restless sleep thanks to the plethora of noise that emanates from our neighbourhood. On the weekend the family across the road from us had an amplifier installed which has increased the number of decibels their music is played at. They usually begin around 7am and then stop and start throughout the day. Our fantasy of a peaceful beach house is fast evaporating as the reality of the noise pollution sets in. Our very young taxi driver this morning was playing his music so loud that I had to stick my fingers in my ears for most of the 15-minute journey. It constantly amazes me how much the Timorese appear to enjoy indulging/destroying their hearing. There is very little respite from it. I really wonder if they ever desire, as I do, peace and tranquillity.

We are thinking about buying a tent from the “malae” supermarket come furniture store, and catching a bus out of town on the weekends, pitching our tent some place quiet and enjoying some peace. There are no official camping grounds in Timor, but if you ask a landowner if you can pitch a tent on his land, he is sure to be accommodating. I’m very tempted.

I clipped all my hair off yesterday with the clippers Daniel uses to trim his beard. I now have perhaps a number three haircut. The last time I had hair this short was seven years ago just before I left for Berkeley. It feels so much better to be rid of it! As 70% of the heat in your body escapes from your head, I feel my body can cool down better. Moreover, washing my hair has become a breeze. It only takes a few seconds and I save on precious water, not to mention shampoo and conditioner. Daniel has taken to calling me his “little monk” or Sinead (O’Connor).

We actually ran out of water on the weekend. Our “family” turned on the water pump to obtain more water but from where it comes from I am not sure. However, upon turning on the tap, the water was dark brown and left sediment in the sink. It took quite some time for the water to run clear. The water in the toilet also often runs out and we have to fill a bucket with water from the tap in the garden in order to flush it. Having such poor quality water and so little of it makes me even more conscious of our profligate waste of this precious resource, particularly in Australia where we use drinking water to flush the toilet.

Our power supply also regularly cuts out but the generator was fixed on the weekend so that we can switch over to it when it does so. We mainly uses electricity to run the cooling fans and in the evenings, to switch on the air conditioner in our bedroom for about an hour. Without electricity our body temperature increases and results in an inability to do very much.

Yesterday afternoon we had a friend of a friend from Melbourne visit us at our house. We took her for a walk along the beach down to the Tasitolu Peace Park to see it at sunset. It was quite cool and as an enormous red sun set behind the mountains, the colours reflected were beautiful. There were a small number of different birds on one of the lakes including a group of pelicans and terns. On our return journey we walked through Tasitolu village, and again, we felt like royalty on procession for our subjects. The first group of houses we passed near the lake was inhabited by very poor people who we deduced were such by the materials of their houses and their clothes: most were wearing sarongs not western clothes. We returned home along the beach and were slightly harassed by a group of young boy children. I made my African beans dish for dinner and luckily without the recipe on hand managed to remember most of it; it turned out okay. Our friend stayed the night and left for Australia this afternoon.

This morning when leaving for work, I did not want to frighten the little children in my neighbourhood so I wore my hat en route to the main road. The children continue to be captivated by our presence. Their little smiling faces make our start to the day very rewarding. My colleagues were all a little shocked about my new appearance. Some of them laughed. Most asked what happened to my hair. Some said positive things. I can’t imagine if they did not like it that they would say so.

Category: Timor-Leste (East Timor)

Cautiously optimistic

Wednesday 27 July 2005

Last night while listening to Radio Australia (RA), we heard a news item about the World Bank’s latest report on Timor-Leste. They praised the government for their performance since being elected three years ago; especially their plans on how to safeguard revenue from oil exploration in the Timor Sea. However, they also expressed concern about growing corruption in the government and dissatisfaction amongst the population with their performance. Then this morning, RA again did a story on the report citing an article in the Australian newspaper that focused on the challenges as outlined in the report. A representative of the World Bank in Timor-Leste said that the article was too negative and that he was cautiously optimistic that Timor-Leste could address its problems.

This morning an AVI friend told us that a taxi driver raped an Australian woman a couple of night’s ago. She was medivac’d to Darwin by an Australian helicopter pilot. We are in the process of contacting the Australian Embassy to confirm this story, as we need verification of its veracity. Unfortunately this town is one big rumour mill and we’re often unsure what we should or shouldn’t believe.

Category: Timor-Leste (East Timor)

In search of sleep

Tuesday 26 July 2005

Last night we met a friend of a friend from Australia for dinner in town. I told her about my sleep deprivation and she offered me some of her sleeping tablets. I took one tablet last night and it worked: I finally slept from 10:30pm to 6:30am. However, Daniel is concerned that I will become addicted. Perhaps it is worth the risk as sleep deprivation is really reducing my capacity to function normally.

It does not feel right to have a woman (Senyora Domingas) clean and tidy our house, hand wash and iron our clothes. It feels very colonial and exploitative and makes me uncomfortable. But here when you rent, the landlady’s services are included in the cost of renting. In response, we have become tidier and I have been cleaning things thoroughly so that Domingas does not have to do so. However, it is disconcerting to arrive home every day to a very clean and tidy house, and Domingas does such a good job that we often cannot find things. We even acquired a plastic fish, which was put on our bookcase in front of our slowly growing collection of books. Daniel in particular finds it confronting, as he likes his privacy. He has even taken to locking our wardrobe, which I find infuriating, as I can never get in to it when I want to! I can also see why couples with household help, are spared the unceasing arguments about household chores that can really wear down a relationship.

We have small little geckos scurrying about inside and outside our home. They’re about 10cm in length and harmless to humans but apparently keep our house insect free.

At 7am this morning we went for a half-hour walk along the beach before getting ready for work. It was lovely and cool. I’m very glad that we live so close to the beach, as walking along it is a relaxing way to start the day. However, I said to Daniel that we are being spoiled for when we return to Australia, we simply couldn’t afford a beachside residence there.

While walking up our street this morning to catch a taxi from the main road, we passed many little children who either stared at us or exclaimed “malae, malae”. This is often accompanied by much excitement; one mother has taken to calling her children when she sees us coming! They were all very cute and adorable. It is hard not to feel like royalty, as if we are on procession for our subjects. The status accorded to us white fellas is hard to deal with.

We’re both thinking of getting our hair shaved to a number 2 or 3. The water pressure in the shower at home is woeful, not to mention the water is hard and difficult to work up a lather with, and given we both have very thick hair, we’re not sure how we’re ever going to wash it! Hair just seems another luxury we can both do without. However, we’re also not sure how the Timorese will deal with a shaven haired woman as most of the women have long hair!

I’ve had an on/off again headache for the last couple of days and I’m not sure if it’s malaria or the fact that because I’ve always got my hair up, it results in me having a headache. I will feel a bit silly if I go to the hospital for a blood test (by pricking a finger) and it turns out to be nothing more than my hair pulling too tight on my head! It’s also difficult to tell when a mosquito has bitten you. I have had a number of bites around my ankles (they love it down there), but they’re just red bumps without the white hard centres that I am used to in Australia. I wonder: am I being bitten by mossies or something else? One of Daniel’s Australian colleagues has been diagnosed with dengue fever. It’s a worry. We feel it is inevitable that we’ll both get it and/or malaria in due course. It is very difficult to completely avoid all mosquito bites. I cannot imagine continuing to slather mosquito repellent on myself 2-3 times a day for two years. Apart from the fact that the stuff is poisonous and rubbing it into your skin is not good for your body, it’s a hassle to be so diligent. The Timorese certainly do no such thing and have to live their entire lives with the risk of contracting mosquito borne diseases (in addition to everything else).

This morning our taxi driver stopped at the petrol station and proceeded to fill the car with petrol as the car was running! Daniel quipped that he wouldn’t be surprised if he and the attendants were also smoking! I had visions of us meeting our end in the car as it blew up. Petrol costs 66c a litre. Most taxi trips in Dili cost $1 (there are no meters). If you do a drop off or pick up en route it’s an extra 50c. At night the price doubles. Because we live 7km from work and I am dropped off first followed by Daniel, we pay the taxi driver $2 anyway. We’re spending at least $4 a day on taxis but sometimes this is more if we stay in town till late. Daniel is entitled to make use of one of the motorbikes from his work every other week but we’re not sure this is a good idea. Although many other “malae” ride motorbikes, it isn’t particularly safe. Apart from dengue fever and malaria, our biggest health issue is traffic accidents. The roads are in terrible condition (particularly outside of Dili), and although people drive quite slowly (around 40-50km), there are still many accidents. We have to come to work via a major road which is full of mikrolets, taxis, four wheel drives, bicycles, motorcycles, people, dogs and pigs. There are no traffic lights, and very few stop or give way signs so people take pot luck when coming to intersections, when turning into traffic or when passing each other. A law was recently passed that said that motorcyclists had to wear helmets. Because the genuine ones are expensive, a market was soon created for the cheap imitation tin pot/ice cream container things that most of the Timorese wear. They provide absolutely no protection in the case of an accident and are simply worn to comply with the new law. An AVI friend who lives with a Timorese family told us one of the family members was involved in a motorbike accident last week along with her friend. They were both on a bike wearing the tin pot helmets when a car rear ended them killing the friend who was driving the bike and badly damaging the leg of the other woman.

I think the two biggest problems for the people of Timor are poverty and a lack of education. The example of the bike helmets is a very good example of this. They cannot afford the genuine helmets, so buy cheap imitations that do not protect them in the case of an accident. But it would also appear that they do not understand this, as they have not been taught about road safety. No one wears seatbelts either. Unfortunately, the poverty contributes to the lack of education, which contributes to a lot of ignorance about many issues that affect their lives: road safety, health, and water conservation to name a few.

There is a lot of Che Guevara iconography about, whether on t-shirts or graffiti on walls. Many times a Che poster will hang alongside one of Jesus. Daniel has remarked there is a distinct similarity.

The cleaner at my work was burning off rubbish this morning. During the dry season, Dili becomes smothered with smoke as people burn off. Burning off has begun in earnest and on our return journey home in the evenings we often pass through the resulting smoke.

I haven’t mentioned the weather yet as I guess it is a given that it’s hot and humid. Most days are around 30oc and the evenings around 20oC. It is the dry season or their winter and the humidity increases as the year progresses towards the wet season. We have been told numerous times to enjoy it (the dry season) while it lasts! It is difficult to walk outside during the day, for when I do, I quickly work myself into a lather of sweat, which is most disconcerting, particularly after having walked to and from lunch when I have to return to work. However, recently the weather has been a little on the cool side, so much so that I don’t have to sleep with the fan on.

From my desk at work I can see quite a number of trees and plants that surround the buildings. There is one particular tree that has beautiful red flowers but I do not know the species. I can also hear and see birds although many appear to be of the sparrow family. A hen and her two little chicks often come onto the grounds looking for things to eat, as the mother hen teaches her chicks how to scratch the ground. I also see the many neighbourhood dogs that wander freely in and out of the grounds looking for scraps of food. They inevitably find some and eat what they can, as they’re all usually very undernourished (much like the people). The dogs are very timid and as soon as you get within a couple of metres of them, they scurry off. Still, I love the fact that I can see and hear nature as I work (barring of course the pesky mosquitos). I hope to be able to find a book on the flora and fauna of Timor as I am curious as to the many different species I have seen. The only trees I have been able to identify are the banyans and frangipani, of which the latter’s perfume, is intoxicating.

The Internet connection at work costs the organisation a fixed price of $15 a month plus approximately $3 an hour to dial up. From looking at two previous telephone bills, they appear to spend about 15 hours a month online. This is therefore very expensive compared to Australia where we have a fixed monthly price and then only the cost of a fixed local call to dial up (or broad band which is different again and which most organisations now have). All telephone calls in Timor whether they be local, mobile or international are charged at a per minute rate. However, to call Australia from Timor on my mobile is one-sixth the price it is to call Timor from Australia with Telstra (50c versus $3)! Daniel’s work has broad band but I don’t know what the fixed cost is. We are discussing the possibility of me going to Daniel’s work to use the Internet to do some research for the project I am working on as I am conscious of how much it will cost my organisation to use the Internet from their office. His organisation has a spare computer and is much better resourced than mine. Moreover, both our organisations work together on the issue of domestic violence and sexual assault, so we don’t believe that there will be much of a problem arranging this.

This morning (and again this afternoon) a colleague offered me fried banana. I reluctantly tried one but was surprised to find it tasted very good. The banana is covered in a batter that is fried (by which method I do not know). I believe I could improve the taste slightly by dipping it in sugar.

Timorese food is nothing to write home about; it is simply subsistence in nature. Indonesian fare is more widely available and I believe has influenced Timorese cooking (although Daniel thinks that Timorese food is for all intents and purposes very similar to the ‘Indonesian’ food you find here, bar the presence of some Portuguese influences). You can eat a hearty meal for around $1, which consists of white rice, meat (which we don’t eat), tofu, tempe, and a small variety of cooked green leafy vegetables.

The “malae” places are more varied and offer Indian, Thai, Japanese, Chinese, Australian, Portuguese and American fare for a price. We mostly eat at the bottom end of the market at around $5 a meal. It is very hard to resist this food as the Timorese/Indonesian variety for a vegetarian isn’t very great and there is just no way that we could eat this food every day (although Daniel seems happier with it than me). We are spoilt for choice in Australia and living in a place that offers variety is just too tempting. We eat our main meal at lunch and then usually eat imported dried fruit and nuts at home for our evening meal, unless we are meeting up with people in town. There are at least three supermarkets aimed at “malae” but the prices are generally double as the products are in the main, imported from Australia. I finally found a good brand of soy milk, Australia’s Own, (mostly the cheap nasty brands are available) but it costs more than double what I would pay at home. Good bread is very difficult to find, as most of it is white and fluffy as the Portuguese like it. However, there is a very popular bakery, which is aimed and frequented by “malae” which we have now visited on three occasions. Their bread is better than what is generally available but it’s still not the hearty stuff I really like. We have found Burgen bread in the supermarket freezer section but at nearly $5 a loaf, it will have to be purchased as a treat. I worry about our wholegrain complex carbohydrate intake as the carbohydrates consumed here are of the simple variety (white rice and bread). I therefore have purchased wholegrain crackers which we eat for breakfast either with our without vegemite (which we found in one supermarket), and brown rice and wholemeal pasta (all Australian). We have realised that a good chunk of our volunteer income will be spent food, taxis and electricity.

As Daniel and I only work about 1km from each other we often take our lunch break together. We ate lunch today at a Chinese run Indonesian/Chinese restaurant. It was busy (always a good sign) and the meal cost me $2. The Chinese man who served us didn’t speak Tetun, which we have noticed in other Chinese run establishments. Daniel then usually switches to Mandarin, which surprises the person serving us. The restaurant was across the road from the “Tais”* market. I was shocked to be told by Daniel that it was in fact the market for tais as it was so small and ramshackle. We walked down one small section of it and the tais available for purchase are very beautiful, despite their surroundings. We will return on a day when we have more time (and money) to purchase a couple of large tais: one for our dilapidated futon couch and the other as a spread for our bed. Tais come in all sorts of different colours and sizes. They remind me of the weaving done by the indigenous people of Mexico, some of which I purchased during my trip there in 1999.

This afternoon I read my sixth report concerning women and the formal justice system. This report was titled ‘Analysis of Decisions in Cases Involving Women and Children Victims: June 2004 – March 2005’. This report was particularly difficult to read as it discussed 11 cases involving the rape, sexual assault and murder of women and children at the hands of men, mainly fathers and neighbours. The crimes themselves were harrowing enough, but to then read that in most cases, both the Timorese and international judges failed to convict the perpetrators to appropriate length sentences, has really disturbed me. The judges consistently fail to display gender sensitivity or awareness of children’s rights. I believe this can be partially forgiven in the case of the Timorese judges, who are all young and inexperienced, but the four highly paid (more than $250,000 a year tax free) UN appointed judges from other Lusophone (Portuguese speaking) countries, should know better. I just despair that supposedly well educated, highly regarded, and UN appointed judges could be so ignorant of the issues. And even more saddening, half the international judges are female!

Elections to appoint a new national parliament are not due until mid 2007. There is speculation that things will turn nasty and the current lot will be booted out. Hopefully it won’t result in more upheavals for the country but I’m not holding my breath. There appears to be a lot of hostility towards the current government as they are mainly the Portuguese speaking elite who escaped Timor before or shortly after Indonesia’s invasion, many of whom fled to either Portugal, Mozambique or other Lusophone countries. Although I understand the linguistic arguments for making Tetun and Portuguese the two official languages of the country, only 10% (in the highest estimates, the lowest say 2%) of the population speak the latter, and often not also the former. Outside Dili, Bahasa Indonesian and local languages are most common. Of the numerous laws, which have been promulgated since independence, only three have been translated from Portuguese into Tetun. The police and court clerks therefore don’t understand what some of the laws are because they cannot read Portuguese!

There appears to be a created elite here of Portuguese speaking Timorese which excludes the majority of the population who when you ask them, hate Portuguese and instead want to learn English as a second language. Daniel always asks our taxi drivers about themselves (in Tetun: where they’re from, how long they have been driving taxis, whether their family is with them in Dili, how many family members they have) including whether they speak Portuguese. Only the older men speak Portuguese, the younger men were educated during Indonesia’s reign and therefore they speak Bahasa. These younger men are not interested in learning Portuguese and instead want to learn English as that is their preferred third/fourth language. The question we ask: if the government wants the entire population to learn Portuguese, who is going to pay for it? Children at school at least have the opportunity but often they are stretched too far in that many of them are forced to learn their local language, Tetun, Portuguese, Bahasa Indonesian, English, French and Japanese all at once! And with half the population illiterate, first they will have to be taught how to read and write before a new language can be learnt. I therefore fear that come the elections, the ruling elite will be in for a big surprise. They have recreated a neo-colonial system that the Timorese certainly did not spend 24 years fighting the Indonesians for to have it replaced with another set of colonialists!

* Tais is hand woven cloth

Category: Timor-Leste (East Timor)