We went to a great concert sponsored by Arte Morris in Dili this week; it was a real Wembley Stadium affair. The stage was the presidential palace which is a wide, two storey building and has a load of arches which were lit up as the sun set on the beach opposite. It had a fantastic atmosphere, drinking Tiger beer while sitting on the harbour wall, listening to Timorese sing for peace and unity while the sun turns a glorious red as it drops below the horizon. As soon as the sun dropped though, the audience disappeared back to their homes, to scared to be out at night. I dropped a student back to her hotel last night because taxis don’t run at night anymore, I counted 5 cars and absolutely no people on the streets, it was like a ghost town, mind you it was Tuesday, and Dili never really roars with life at night anyway.
Part of the reason for the empty streets, are the incidents of violence and burning that have recently reared their head again, mainly stone throwing and arson, but there was one report of shooting in the city centre. Many associate this new outbreak with Major Alfredo Reinado escaping from jail. Major Alfredo, who is labelled in the press as the ‘former rebel leader’, was arrested the day after the arms amnesty expired because he didn’t hand his weapons in. He was put in prison under Australian Defence Force and Australian Federal Police guard and on the 30th of August along with 56 other prisoners, escaped. Rumours make it sound like he simply walked out right under the AFP’s noses. Either way the Ozzies have a lot of explaining to do, rather embarrassing!
We have had ‘The Mercy’ hospital ship in the harbour over the last week, apparently it visits East Timor every eight months or so. The view from the dive centre was this huge white ship with red crosses emblazoned on the side, next to which was an Australian battleship, its amazing how you think nothing of this sort of sight in East Timor, you just get used to it.
While it was here, they set up an emergency dental surgery at Dr Dan’s clinic. Ann went along with her tooth problem and joined 30 or so East Timorese waiting for treatment, but unfortunately that day they were only doing extractions. The one thing we could change though when The Mercy was here was our dive briefings. ‘The nearest decompression chamber is situated on that bloody great big boat in the harbour’, rather than Darwin or Bali. It’s left now to go back to Ache, Indonesia.
Occasionally you get moments where you think ‘Only in East Timor!’ We had one the other day whilst sitting outside the dive centre on the terrace, the sun on our backs, drinking coffee and listening to the water lapping on the beach opposite. Our moment was broken by loud speaker driven western music, not something you hear every day. An army truck with speakers on top pulled up outside the dive centre and with music blaring started handing out leaflets to Timorese. It was a surreal moment; it reminded us of Apocalypse Now. To make it even more surreal Ann encountered the same truck canvassing outside Dr Dan’s later in the week, but this time it was playing ‘Brown Sugar’ by the Rolling Stones, very appropriate.
Begging is becoming more and more of a problem around town. I stopped for lunch at the Terrace café and was immediately pounced on by an enterprising young boy who offered me security for my car. This did make me laugh as we always leave the dive truck open because everything that is not nailed down has already been pinched. The last time we locked one side door, they would-be thieves broke the little side window, even though the drivers side door was open and the other little side window was already missing. We now have through car ventilation! This is my life after the company BMW! Needless to say, I declined his offer and told him to go back to school.
On a personal front, good news, I’ve got a new 32 page passport. Or should I say a 25 page passport after you take out all the pages they have used for language translations etc. What a swizz, £100 for 25 pages, its hardly going to last me 10 years, the last one only lasted 3 years before it was full. When I asked about 48 page passport I was told they were not available until next year because of the new biometric system they have just introduced, great!
Other good news is the restaurant next door is now Thai, and very good. It was a Philippine restaurant before and very variable, you would order something one day and really enjoy it, then 2 days later you would order it again and it would be completely different. Phillipeno’s eat some strange parts of animals as well, so the Thai menu is much more appealing. I think any westerner would chance Prawn Phad Thai from a menu rather than Crispy Chicken Skin and Ass.
Business wise, I’ve just had my busiest two weeks since I’ve been here. A mixture of guided dives, Open Water students, EFR classes and Bubblemakers. Jurgen returned to East Timor with full dive kit for his two young daughters who are keen to do what Mummy and Daddy do. We had a fantastic time in the pool with an underwater torpedo, plastic rings, a hula hoop and a rubber snake! (Nandini’s – aged 8). Ann has made some fantastic certificates for the kids where we scan in a photograph of them in the water with scuba gear on; it’s the talk of the school. I’ve taught 10 year olds Open Water before but they have always had English as their first language, so teaching an Austrian/German and a Norwegian is a new challenge to me, even though their English is excellent. But the big reward is the smiles, especially when I hand them their own log book and they can choose their own fish sticker to put in it. The best £1.99 I ever spent in Hounslow High Street.
With the influx of aid we have some new NGO’s here. (Non Government Organisations). Obviously these Organisations are from all parts of the world, so sometimes their acronyms don’t translate so well into English. Here are just a few classics for your amusement:-
FOKUPERS- Komite de Unidade National Timorense, FAT – Don’t know what that stands for, and the best one, KUNT – also don’t know the translation.
Imagine a meeting with those 3 together!
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