In some western countries, pizza delivery companies give you a guarantee that if the pizza isn’t delivered within 30 minutes then you get the food for free. Given Dili's usual road conditions, potholes, chickens, dogs, goats, vendor carts and taxis crawling at 20kmph, this is a good achievement at the best of times.
We have had nearly a week of demonstrations where the whole place has been remnant of Notting Hill Festival. Thousands of trucks crammed with people, painted faces, Timor flags flying, music blaring, singing and chanting, horns honking, and banners everywhere. We even had 2 truck loads all wearing ‘I Love Xanana’ T-shirts, with Xanana’s face printed on the front; these are definitely not available in the shops. The slow convoy would crawl by with trucks of people as far as the eye could see and yet Flip still pulled up in the middle of all this with hot pizzas! That’s service for you.
East Timor – The land of surprises; this should be the country’s new strap line. They are not always good surprises, but you are always surprised. Finally we get the announcement we have all been waiting for, but it wasn’t Mari Alkatiri that resigned it was Ramos Horta the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Minister for Defence, we were gobsmacked! Mari Alkatiri did resign his post as Prime Minister the day after but remains an MP to deal with the budget matters until the election of the next government.
All the protesters so far have been from the West. There is still a strong West/East thing going on in the city. One of our staff was punched in the face for being the only Easterner in his village and ended up sleeping in the classroom because he was too scared to return to his house. The next day he returned to his home town. This put a really bitter taste on all the celebrations, the Prime Minister resigning is not going to stop this racism, especially when the guys from the East return to Dili and find their houses burned down, there will be more revenge attacks
Ann and Wayne were at the Hotel Dili when it all kicked off again. Wayne called me to tell me to stay put as there was a repeat of stone throwing, fighting and 3 fires nearby the hotel. Gino was a bit concerned as he has his gas company next to the hotel and if the fires got too close this could be a major disaster. Again in the midst of all this, 12 year old boys throwing stones and lighting fires, Australian troops fully geared up, cameramen and press running around, up pulls Flip with his Pizza delivery!
Another morning we were woken at 6 a.m. by yet another noisy protest. This time though the trucks were waving Portuguese flags not Timorese which was confusing. Portugal had won their game in the World Cup! And of course with the time difference these guys had just seen the match live.
The Philippine restaurant next door has finally opened again, so we popped in for a drink to show them some local support. The girls that work there are from the hills and gave us good news about our housekeeper Maria who disappeared two months ago. She is safe and well but is stuck up in the hills with no money. Ann is now trying to work out a way to get a message to her that her job is still open and send up her wages so that she can return to Dili.
This whole place is ringing with acronyms; it takes you a while to work out what someone is talking about. East Timor has the AFP, the GNR, NGO’s, APV’s, IDP’s, the UN and the RedX. Then you have a completely different language with the journos; ABC, shoot, feed, wingman. It reminds me of working for SAP again!
I’ve added another song to the list, ‘Should I stay or should I go now? – The Clash’. Seriously though, we are starting to get a few divers walking through the door with the return of the essential UN staff. Plus after sitting it out this long watching history being made and never feeling personally in danger, it would be crazy to leave now, so I’m staying put.
Footnote
ABC - Australian Broadcasting Company
AFP - Australian Federal Police
APV - Armoured Patrol Vehicle
GNR - Portuguese Republican National Guard
IDP - Internally Displaced Person
NGO - Non Government Organisation
RedX - The Red Cross
UN - United Nations
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