World Bank Blaggers
I wake at one thirty in a darkness that is total and quite frightening. My fear is enhanced by the fact that I have no idea where I am and compounding the weirdness is the menacing sounds of a mosquito buzz somewhere above me. There’s no wall switch to help cast some light on the situation. After realizing that I am in rural East Timor, and there’s no electricity, I fumble my way to the loo. I may or may not have hit the bowl.
Breakfast doesn’t happen. Well, it nearly doesn’t happen. With complete nonchalance, Dominguez announces that the restaurant doesn’t have any food. Maybe we can pick some bananas from the road side during the day, he says. He also says that sometimes they pack food and water in the car to cope with such situations. ‘That would have been a great idea,’ I reply. He doesn’t seem to get my sarcasm at all, which is a bit annoying. In the end he somehow gets the owner to rustle us up some doughnuts. Strange that in a place so remote, with no electricity and intermittent running water, they can serve warm doughnuts to die for. A cup of local coffee completes what, in the circumstances, feels like a very decent start to the day.
We set out before seven. The soaring mountains behind Same are capped with a solitary pink cloud. There’s a jogger running around the basketball court. Nothing much else is stirring. Actually, there is one thing stirring. My stomach. Dominguez has spilled more of his palm wine over the interior of the car and there’s no way to shift the smell. Not sure whether it was stirring, or churning, but either way, by stomach wasn’t enjoying the ambiance.
Once again, local school kids are sloping off to school with a lack or urgency that befits their chances of finding a job on the basis of what they will learn today. The morning sun creates gorgeous pools of light around the wooden huts. One lady, wrapped in a gorgeous ceremonial cloak, waves at me through a golden haze. It’s a memory that I hope will stay with me forever.
We follow another overloaded public bus (pictured above) before passing a procession of elderly ladies and school children. The ladies are dressed in amazingly lurid outfits and bang traditional drums while the kids walk in pairs up front. When they spot me, all hell breaks loose. ‘Hey mister, mister,’ they yell while reaching for my hand. They are thrilled just to touch me. Every village we pass here is lined with beautiful bouquets, made from a folded palm leaf and four red flowers. Apparently a government guest is expected.
There are weird black stone terraces just north of Mape. The villages here are truly poor. Whole families are out in the fields together. One is hoeing in unison. When they hear us coming they pause, mid-hack, and turn around to smile and wave.
The road soon disintegrates. Every hour or so we pass a great gaggle of local construction workers trying to mend it. The new Prime Minister, Jose Ramos Horta, recently launched this ‘two-dollar-a-day’ initiative, providing work on the battered roads in return for a bit of cash and a bit of hope for these terrifyingly isolated communities. It’s going to be a long time till the full length of the road is fixed. It’s a long, windy one and, thanks to years of Indonesian neglect, it really is in a terrible state.
By early afternoon I have gained an appreciation of what the Queen must go through. No wonder she looks so bored. I always thought that sitting in a horse-drawn carriage and rolling a wrist was a bit of a doddle as day jobs go. Turns out that it’s massively tiring. I, like the Queen perhaps, feel that it is my duty to wave at every single person I pass in the hope that it might provide some modicum of comfort, happiness, interest, laughter, curiosity, whatever. Just something to break up another tedious day in the impoverished mountains of East Timor. But the sheer number of gorgeous kids and toothy grannies, combined with the fact that I have developing a neck ache, means that I am losing my enthusiasm.
Why is it that these folk, stuck out here, are so warm, so full of smiles? I guess if you have nothing, sharing is natural. It’s only when you acquire that you begin to learn lessons about protecting what you got and keeping others away. The folk out here, in their dusty villages comprised of wooden huts and barren fields, have little hope of a different life. Every day is likely to be pretty much like every other day. They live in the now, with the physical burden of staying alive motivating most action. I guess there’s very little time to get bored when you have an ache in your belly and a parched throat. That said, I don’t get any sense of fear. These kids have very little, but they are alive, and they are not scared by anything, and for that they are doing OK, I guess. Poor buggers.
Out here, in the mountains of East Timor, the kids walk. They walk up and down slopes. Perhaps its play, perhaps they are collecting wood, perhaps they are getting exercise. Maybe they are on horseback or barefoot. Some have no trousers, others again are completely naked as they wave at me from a darkened doorway. They should be in school but instead they are involved in the business of staying alive. It’s a tough life.
The local Mikrolet buses (pictured) rattle past, often with a roof fully loaded with people and cargo. Interestingly, each Mikrolet has an utterly unique name which is plastered onto the inside of the wind shield in funky, glittery, 70s-style lettering. ‘I need you’ says one. ‘Remember’, implores another. ‘Be Nice to You’, ‘Only One’. The rather cutsie, romantic theme seems consistent, until I remember one bus that I saw the other day which had the words ‘Bitch Bitch’ printed across it.
We finally pause for a lunch of peanuts and chocolate biscuits that, fortunately, one of us has remembered to bring along (hint: it wasn't the so-called 'tour guide'). We stop at a bridge across the first flowing river that I am seen in a long time. You can look up the valley towards the majestic peak of Ramelau. Way up on high a waterfall is gushing. In the foreground, the world is verdant. Villagers sometimes stop by to pluck crops. A group of men wander past, each one clutching a massive machete. Given their frightening blades, the fact they smile and wave comes as a great relief.
At Letefobo, I clamber up to one of Timor’s many mountain-top Jesus Statues, ever paranoid that I am about to be bitten by a grass snake. We ran a photograph of this place in Asia and Away at the end of last year. I can remember the amazing blue hue of that image. It may have been a polarizer on the camera, or perhaps a bit of post-editing on Adobe Photoshop, but I still want to see the scene with my own eyes.
The view is stunning. The statue looks out over the central mountains of East Timor and the entire vista is painted in a milky blue. I can’t capture Jesus and the view on camera as I am way too close and this lense doesn’t do wide angles. The statue itself, however, looks better in silhouette. Jesus himself looks like a giant gingerbread man.
Just short of Gleno, the landscape turns lush and the forests crowd the road. After eight and half hours of craters, the road finally gets good and we find ourselves swinging around mountain bends, occasionally bursting through a pale of smoke from one of the many fires that are being used to clear land in preparation for the rainy season. Occasionally, the smoke is illuminated by the light filtering through the forest canopy. It’s truly beautiful.
At Railaku, there area angry stares instead of smiles. After everything that has come before, it is quite a shock. The profusion of burnt out buildings here is testament to the troubles of the Spring (and, perhaps, generations before). I want to move along quickly but, sods law, Dominguez has a sister-in-law living in this town who he insists on chatting to at length.
Near sunset, we hit the ocean and wind along the coastal path back to Dili. I’ve only been away in 'the districts' for a night but I feel like I need some creatures comforts. I am looking forward to Hotel Timor in particular. It takes passing through another Australian military to get there.
The guy on reception asks me how I will be paying. I say, oh, it’s OK, the Ministry of Tourism is paying for this one. He has no idea what I am talking about. ‘Have you got anything to prove this?’ he asks. I haven’t. ‘You see, Sir, sometimes people come from the World Bank and tell us the World Bank will pay. When we go to ask them for the money, the World Bank has no idea what we are talking about.' No wonder this country has problems.
