Come back Johnny the Tooth – East Timor 3rd June 2006

We have 5 staff here at the dive centre all locals of East Timor, 4 officially and then there is Johnny. Maria, the housekeeper, disappeared up to the hills at the very start of the troubles and hasn’t been seen or heard of since. We suspect she’s up in the hills with no money to get back down again but our endeavours to try and contact her have remained fruitless. Nelson and Jose are our main dive hands and are both Advanced divers, they are both staying in refugee camps with their families. Nelson is staying at Arte Morris, an Art centre for Timorese boys and Nelson with Dr Dan. Both these organisations are charities not NGO’s (Non-Government Organisations), so do not have funds from private investors. Arte Morris promote and sell Timorese art as far as Europe and Dr Dan is probably the most knowledgeable authority on malaria and dengue fever in this part of the world. Every other fortnight the proceeds of the quiz night at the Dili Club go to Dr Dan.

Manuel I can only describe as Manuel out of Faulty Towers, ‘Que?’! He speaks Bahasa rather than Tetun and is a man of very few words. If you ask him something and he doesn’t understand, he remains motionless looking at you, so you try again, an awful lot of pointing at things goes on. Manuel had left his bike at the dive centre and we hadn’t seen him for a few days so we were getting a little concerned as Jose and Nelson couldn’t contact him. Wayne was out at the Komoro Bridge yesterday which was the centre of the gang fights. As he approached Australian troops detaining five Timorese men crouching on the floor, he realised that one of the men was Manuel. Picking him up and giving him some money raised the voices of the Australian troops who demanded to know what Wayne had given him. Wayne explained he was an employee and he had given him his wages. Manuel was then allowed to walk away.

It’s very hard for the Australian troops to make a judgement call. Is this a looter? Or is this someone trying to save his own possessions before his house is burned to the ground. Wayne came across another guy who was being detained by the troops; he was trying to take the tin off of his own roof as he feared that the house was going to be torched.

At least though the Ozzies came and helped, along with the Kiwis and Malays, in total over 2000 troops. But the snotty Portuguese have refused to put 120 police in here because quote ‘Portugal did not accept, does not accept, nor will not accept that the Republican National Guard be subordinate to the operational command of a foreigner’. A foreigner! Who do they think they are, with their piddly little force! They abandoned East Timor and allowed the Indonesians to invade in 1975; they are just as much foreigners to East Timor as the Australians are. Sorry, I’ll get off my soapbox now.

Normality is returning, the trouble spots are much quieter, the supermarkets, banks and petrol stations are open again. A few chicken vendors are open at night, occasional taxis can be seen and an enterprising phone card vendor has set up a new pitch outside the Esplanada, lots of business for him because that’s where many of the journalists are staying. All we need now is for Johnny to return. Johnny owns a vending cart and his pitch is just opposite the dive centre Many a young whippersnapper has tried to muscle in on his pitch to no avail, when Johnny is there, we only buy from him. Because the dive centre has no bar, Johnny is our mobile off licence selling the cheapest Tiger beer in Dili. He also stocks our individual brands of cigarettes, Ann smokes menthol which is not popular with Timorese, but Johnny knows he will have regular demand. Johnny, like Manuel, is a man of little words and I've never seen him smile, but it would be quite hard for Johnny to smile as he has one protruding front tooth, hence the name Johnny the Tooth. Johnny sits outside come rain or shine with his extremely ventilated Freeflow T-shirt which has seen better years let alone days. So when Johnny’s cart appears again outside the dive centre then I can safely say things are getting back to normal.