And Pigs Might Fly – East Timor 25th June 2006

Terrible news! Ginger Da Pig is dead! Robbie the adoptive owner is launching a full scale investigation into the case because Ginger disappeared in mysterious circumstances. Robbie went to ‘One More Bar’ where Millie the goat and Ginger Da Pig were housed, to take them for their daily walk around town. When he found Ginger he was basking in the sun, trotters outstretched, so Robbie assumed he was asleep, it was only later it occurred to him that pigs normally roll in wet mud and lie in the shade to keep themselves cool, they don’t normally sunbathe. Thinking nothing of it at the time he duly took Millie for her walk and then returned the next day to repeat the ritual, only the next day Ginger had disappeared.

Obviously concerned as to Gingers whereabouts, Robbie started questioning the staff. The first answer he got was Ginger had been bitten by a snake, yeah right! Where Millie and Ginger are housed there are also ducks that would have created alarming if there was a snake around, so Robbie probed further. The same witness then said the pig had died of starvation! Now given that this is a 50lb pig with enough meat on him to feed a family for a week or two, it was very unlikely that Ginger had starved to death in 15 hours. Also there was no body to verify this claim. Apparently Ginger had been taken away and buried, yeah right again! In a country where rice is in short supply, a 50lb pig is not going to be given a dignified funeral without passing through the bodies of several Timorese first.

Getting increasingly incensed, Robbie started to question the kitchen staff, their explanation was that Ginger had been bitten by a crocodile! At this point of the story I retorted ‘Yeah, and Pigs might fly’, which had us both laughing as it was as feasible an explanation to Gingers demise as any other that Robbie had heard.

In East Timor, the Timorese are very superstitious about crocodiles; they have this ongoing folk tale about an albino crocodile that terrorises fishermen. We tried to imagine a crocodile walking up the beach, across a main road, over a park area, and then scaling a 6ft fence to bite Ginger. Needless to say the vision didn’t work. The Timorese language is very basic, not having many descriptive words, so a headache is ‘Big stone in head’ in Timorese. So maybe a small crocodile was actually an iguana, but hardly likely to kill a 50lb pig.

So Inspector Robbie is no further forward in his investigations as without a body there can be no autopsy to conclude the cause of death. Was Ginger murdered or died of natural causes, if he was murdered was it Colonel Mustard in the drawing room with the lead pipe or was it the Timorese chef? I don’t think we will ever know.

Over the last couple of days we have had massive protests in Dili, thousands of people in Dili town centre all shouting ‘Go Alkatiri’. They are not supporting him; they all want the Prime Minister Alkatiri to resign. He has been linked with supplying arms to civilians to take out anyone who opposes him, a claim he obviously vehemently denies. We were returning from a dive at Dili Rock, much to the amusement of the Malaysian troops as the dive site is between two of their road blocks. As we were driving back, more and more trucks of people joined us on the road, women and children included, all singing and honking their horns on the way to the government building. I’ve just watched them return from the protest, a motorcycle convoy waving the East Timor flag following by trucks and microlets with bodies hanging off everywhere. I thought I’d seen the most people possible on one microlet (minibus) in Cambodia. But this beats it, there must have been 30 people crammed on one. The announcement regarding Alkatiri was supposed to have been yesterday, but due to the protest they delayed it until today (still waiting). I hope it doesn’t drag on too long though, as when a crowd that big gets hot and bored, young lads get restless and that’s when the sale of matches skyrockets.

There are still thousands of families in refugee camps. As well as food and water, they have been given soap, shampoo and rather spacious, robust tents. Unfortunately now the camps have a look of permanence about them as the tents are often better than their normal living conditions. Many of the camps are empty during the day as the adults go off to work and the children to school. It seems it’s the night that the people have the most fear of returning to their own homes. There was a rumour of a curfew, but it was only rumour, the Timorese people just don’t want to be on the street at night at the moment.

Needless to say with this activity, the hotels are full of journalists again and Wayne is reemployed as press, so I’m covering the little diving we are doing. A couple of nights ago we returned to the old haunt The Esplanada to meet with some of Wayne’s journalist mates, when in walked two camouflage clad New Zealand soldiers with MP armbands. Ann and I decided that the MP definitely stood for ‘Major Perve’! I think I need to get out more!