Dili in the Dark
I realize the drawbacks to my quaint little farmstead accommodations (view pictured). The dogs howled last night until gone midnight. And the roosters started up at about five thirty or so. Both like to sing in chorus too, so once one started, the whole bleeding neighbourhood joined in, playing call-back games or just building to a nice little crescendo. The noise insulation in the room is zero. I wake up shattered and resolve to leave as quickly as possible.
A enjoy sunrise from the balcony, enjoying a breakfast of fresh bread and coffee while my neighbours intermittently slope off to school or work. I then head back to the dive shop to finish off my last two units of study. I take another quick quiz and then a final test. Twenty four hours after I first opened the PADI book, I have passed the 50-question theory exam.
I head over to the internet bar during my break and take lunch in City Café – it’s a very nice buffet (very nice in the East Timorese sense...I am spoiled in China, and frankly, the quality of food here reminds me of England) for ‘only’ five dollars. The place is simple, little decoration adorns the walls and the sound of chatter echoes around the room like it does in a school canteen. Nevertheless, it’s about as good as it’s got so far.
From there I pop into the ANZ Bank. Frankly, the whole thing makes me a little creepy. Blokes loiter outside on the dusty street selling 10 USD phone cards, while inside the expats and military guys come in to collect their wage packets. I thought China had a pretty bad two-tiered economy but it’s nothing compared to Timor. Locals live on virtually nothing and expats pay prices virtually indistinguishable from those back home in Australia, America or (more rarely) Europe.
The afternoon is spent in a very, very murky swimming pool. On the video, the diving students moved elegantly through a gorgeous turquoise pool that was about four metres deep at one end and shallow at the other. This pool is the colour of jade, and has just been shocked with chlorine. Moreover, it’s no longer than eight metres long and barely 1.2 metres deep. I can barely see Steven, my instructor, as he moved underwater. I do all of the tasks asked but half of them I have very little clue what I did or did not do. The first time we swim for any distance I get completely disorientated. I have no idea which way is forward or back, up or down - in a bloody eight metre long pool?!?
Steven also has become quite belligerent. Back in the classroom, maybe he sensed my academic nature meant he wouldn’t be able to boss me around with the theory stuff. But here, he knows he’s the man and he has this very annoying way of letting me know it. He has three beer rule whereby if I commit one of three cardinal sins, I owe him a beer. I fall foul three times, largely on the rule where you must not walk away from a tank standing up. I do this because he deliberately beckons me over to him - not because he wants to say anything but because he wants to catch me out. I duly oblige and he sticks up a finger to indicate a beer is owing. Not a word. Perhaps this teaching style works elsewhere, but it’s winds me up. I am not a child and I’m starting to really dislike him. Nevertheless, we get everything done, albeit at breakneck speed. I can sense Steven has an evening appointment and wants to get away as quickly as possible.
Dan, as ever, is waiting for me at the end of the day. We take a taxi to a little place on the main back street called Café Brazil. As we walk along, we spot a woman driving a car. She waves at Dan and he waves back. Only after she has passed does he realize that she was driving his car – the one he’s being trying to track down ever since he arrived.
Dan has developed a habit of taking me to a place and dumping me into a conversation like a cruel stepmother might dump a child into the deep end of a pool to see if it sinks or swims. I’m not sure if he is testing my journalistic credentials with this. Perhaps? Conversation quickly develops onto specialist East Timorese subjects and I have no idea where I am, who I am with or what is being discussed. The people Dan and I meet obviously assume I know the background to the chat, but half the time I don’t even know the names of the people I am talking to.
That said, the people we meet tonight do seem very nice indeed. First off, we run into a chap called Steven Scambary. He’s a quiet Australian chap who, despite his years he reminds me of a teenager in terms of shyness. His work, by contrast, seems really rather important. He had just released a report on Gang Activity in Dili, listing and describing the various groups and youth movements than operate in the capital and are responsible for many of the troubles. He proffers many theories about the cause of current stone throwing and violent outbreaks, including one that suggests the disputes were largely over property – people who had fled their homes in 1999 or 2002 returning years later and finding other people living in their places.
As we chat, another friend of Dan's arrives. Originally from America (but operating on British and American passports), Janet Gunter is a very smart lady (Dan later tells me she is the former girlfriend of a superstar UN academic who was the 'eyes and ears of Kofi Annan' in East Timor during the troubles). After two years living here in 2002-4, she has now returned to research a Master's degree she is taking at a Lisbon university. If memory serves, she is collecting personal anecdotes from the troubles that occured here in 1959 - mostly anthropology, with a bit of pyschology thrown in. She quotes Timorese poets and effortlessly creates the impression of knowing an awful lot about this country. A bit like earlier this afternoon, I feel quite out of my depth.
Janet very kindly lends me her bike so I can peg it to the supermarket to buy some water and wine before the witching hour is upon us. I am delighted discover that the shop is Chinese owned, and I speak a little Mandarin with the check-out girl who giggles almost hysterically when she realizes a white man in East Timor can speak her language. She’s from Fujian. The shop owner is Singaporean. How the hell did she get here? I resolve to ask next time I stop by.
Dan walks me back home, passing some very pleasant, and well fortified villas as we go. I get back to my place to discover that the power is off and that there are a couple of people moving their things into the apartment below mine. They are as shocked to see me as I am to see them. They are George, an Aussie who works in logistics for the UN, and Nina who was born in England, raised in Aldershot but who lived for a long time in New Zealand and considers herself a Kiwi. They have just come back from a break in Darwin (the casino is apparently very good) and are not too pleased to be back. She is particularly vocal, slating everything and everyone Timorese. These people are beyond help, she says, just dependent on handouts etc.etc. They are too lazy, she says. There’s no attempt to analyse the history or the current troubles. Fucked country, fucked people. I am slightly depressed by their cynicism, and – frankly – stupidity. How do not very clever people get to work for the UN?
I spend the evening sitting on the balcony, swilling an entire bottle of Nottage Hill out of a plastic water bottle. The power is off (the picture left was taken on a 30 second exposure) and the village is beautifully quiet. I spend the night looking at the stars twinking above, thinking things over. It’s so peaceful here. The contrast with the tension on the streets during the day is amazing. I feel very happy all of a sudden – on my own, with a bottle of wine and the stars above, here in the darkness.
At about nine PM the power comes on again. Apparently it’s like this every night. Nobody in this whole city has paid their electricity bill since the troubles in April. I guess we should be grateful we get anything at all. I retreat to my little room, pictured right, and sleep early.
