Rice Race – East Timor 23rd February 2007

There is a shortage of rice in East Timor at the moment, apparently the government didn’t order enough plus with the very late wet season, the crops are down. The price of a 50kg bag of rice has gone up from $15 to over $30, some rumours put it up as high as $55. So the latest unrest in Dili is all about rice, or lack of it, which seems crazy as before the crisis most people couldn’t afford rice and existed on cassava and potatoes which do grow easily here. But because rice has been handed out for free during the last few months by aid agencies, the shortage and black market inflated prices are causing rioting in the streets.

We had been out to lunch and popped into Landmark supermarket to pick up some shopping. Landmark at the moment is a caution area as trouble often kicks off along that road. There were a few UNPol around and a bit of an atmosphere, as we drove through Bebeno we found out why, loads of guys running down the street with rice bags on their backs and happy smiling faces. They had just raided one of the government rice stores.

I was talking to a lady who’s job was looking after rice distribution at the (ex) British Embassy pancake do that night. She told me about the raid and the fact she waited ½ an hour before calling UNPol. “It’s their rice after all”. Good lady.

Much, much earlier that morning, 6am to be precise, I was driving to Dili Rock for an early morning dive. Coming up to the new traffic lights, they started to turn red so I slowly braked, but nothing happened, I went cruising through the red lights, luckily it was early an nothing was on the road. Coming back was a different matter, unfortunately the traffic lights are on a dip, so I couldn’t stop the truck, I had to turn the wheel into some gravel to stop myself going into the back of the line of traffic. That was more than a little hairy. Crawling back to the dive centre, Nelson was waiting for me at the gate, and started to laugh when I overshot the dive centre and had to reverse back, he thought I’d just been daydreaming until I explained about the brakes. Today, we heard a loud bang and the whole house shook, Wayne rammed the outside wall and Ann came out with the classic line ‘I take it we’ve got no brakes then!’ Needless to say we can’t drive it until the spare parts arrive.

Apparently the traffic lights are going to be turned off again because since they have been working there has been an increase in car muggings when car stop at the red light. Another unsuccessful project!

In other hairy moments this week, we had gunfire behind the Esplanada the other night, and a few days ago the FDTL (local army) fired 2 shots from an M16 into the Kampong next to us. Two men from the IDP camps have been killed by the Australian military, the first casualties by foreign troops. One of the men killed was firing an Ambon arrow at the soldier when he shot him. I don’t blame him, if I was faced with an Ambon arrow, I’d probably do the same. They are nasty things with hooks at the end which they dip in poison or excrement.

Anyway, the result of these fatalities was a protest yesterday to present a petition to the Australian Embassy, and then the protest would proceed to Bacau for the funeral. The UNPol and GNR were out in force, but no with no Australian UNPol or troops. They re-routed the protest and let a small faction present the petition which basically demanded that all foreign troops pull out of East Timor. Like that’s going to happen! As a precaution, Lindsay arrived from Darwin yesterday with a load of Union Jacks for us. The last thing you want to be flying at the moment is an Australian flag.

When he went to hire a car, Lindsay asked what the policy was if the car got rocked, as there is no insurance in this country. He was told, any damage he had to pay for. Then he asked what if he caught the scrote that did it, and brought him to them. The reply was, they would kill the scrote, but he still had to pay for any damage!

Meanwhile Alfredo ransacked three police stations and made off with a load of guns. You may recall Alfredo is a rebel leader that escaped from prison some months back. He’s supposedly hiding out in Same, so the UN have evacuated all personnel from Same and surrounding areas. The place is surrounded by troops. Let’s hope this time if they catch him, that they can keep hold of him.

On the diving front, I’ve had a fantastic week. I’ve been teaching speci

alities and will certify my first master scuba diver tonight. I did my first night dive in East Timor at K41 and had a huge turtle an arm stretch away from me as well as a frogfish, lobster and blue spotted stingray. At the weekend I saw 4 humphead parrotfish and today, shark, moray eels, a flying gurnard, barracuda, mantis shrimp and squid, incredible.

Jurgen came back from his IDC (Instructor Development Course) and IE (Instructors Exams) in Bali. He passed with flying colours as I knew he would, but I was like an expectant mum back here waiting for the results. The other good news is that we are a tic free zone again, the injections worked, thank god.

Green for Stop? – East Timor 5th of January 2007

New Years Eve we did a bit of a tour starting at Hotel Dili, then Castaways, popped into Tiger fuels and said happy new year to Jim and Whitey, then the Smokehouse, One more Bar who had a band playing, and finally Yoey’s place. Unfortunately we missed midnight by about 2 minutes but driving along the Banana Road the Timorese were out banging metal poles for all they were worth and dancing outside the nativity scenes. We were in time however for the fireworks at Yoey’s, which was the busiest place we had been all night. Leading up to Christmas you couldn’t get a flight out of Dili, they were fully booked from the 12th to the 24th so many people took the opportunity to get away over New Years, so Dili was relatively quiet.

Late that night we heard that Whitey had been in a motorcycle accident and was being medivaced to Darwin. The accident had happened around 9.30 that evening only 10 minutes after we had spoke to him at Tiger Fuels where he had been wearing his crash helmet. Apparently the local army (FDTL) were overtaking each other at speed in their trucks and had run over Whitey. Unfortunately he’s not in a good way and the guys responsible have gone into hiding and are refusing access for the trucks to be inspected. Somebody needs to be held accountable for the accident, if the tables were turned and a Malai was involved in an accident with a Timorese, then the Malai pays whether it’s their fault or not. We are advised that in the case of an accident, to just keep driving, don’t stop, no matter what and get to the nearest police station.

My only run in with the FDTL was a few months back when I was crawling up the hill fully loaded in the truck. The first of 10 FDTL trucks came tearing down the hill, packed with machine gun wielding soldiers and screamed at me ‘Get out of the way!’ This is easier said than done when you are in first gear going uphill in a heavy truck. But these were the guys that were responsible for shooting 9 unarmed policemen back in April. The road has been blocked off with stones in memoriam to the dead ever since it happened.

Crash helmets are compulsory in East Timor, but since the trouble started this law is being ignored. You often see a family of four on a moped and not one of them with a crash helmet. For those that do wear them they are often thin moulded plastic, not even as protective as a hard hat and in fact would probably cause more damage by shattering into the skull on impact. We watched one guy yesterday, stop his motorbike to pick up his crash helmet when it fell off. He promptly put it back on over his baseball cap, didn’t do it up and it would probably fall off again in the next five minutes. The problem is the Timorese were told they had to wear crash helmets, but no one explained to them why and the benefits.

To cause more chaos on the streets, the UN are putting in 10 sets of traffic lights. For a capital city with no traffic lights, no street lights and a rule that you stop on a roundabout to let traffic come on, this seems pretty ludicrous. They are either going to be ignored or some drivers are going to sit and stare at them because they don’t know what to do. They are also painting pedestrian crossings on the road. Let’s see how many accidents they cause. The UN would be better off either investing the money in a proper driving education scheme or getting the street lights working again and making Dili feel safer at night.

Tonight I was driving home and the streets were pitch black (hence the need for street lights!). I wasn’t driving fast but there was a dog lying in the middle of the road, as soon as it saw the car, it bolted, and there was a sickening yelp as it went under the wheels. I drove another half a mile then pulled over and bawled my eyes out. I couldn’t stop to put the dog out of its misery as the local villagers would demand money for the dog and it could get nasty. They certainly demand money for livestock such as pigs, cows, goats and chickens if Malai run them over. I felt devastated, especially when our three dogs have taken to escaping recently because they are petrified of the fire crackers. Sickie has cut his head open trying to get out of the fence and Bandit went AWOL on New Years Eve in the middle of a thunderstorm. I know how I would feel if anything happened to them as I’m completely soppy about dogs, I even had a soft spot for our scabby instructors dog called Chicken Bones in Egypt.

I’m going to get on my soapbox again, this time it’s about the American Embassy. Of course like most embassies here it’s on prime time land overlooking the sea and they have just built a 25meter, 4 lane swimming pool in the grounds, visible by all the surrounding kampongs, the residents of which think rice is a luxury. Anyway if that wasn’t bad enough, American residents of East Timor only were allowed to use the pool and up to 5 of their guests, this was recently changed to Embassy staff only were allowed to invite guests, providing the were Malai, not Timorese, how racist it that, it’s disgraceful! It really pisses me off when the Malai act as if it’s just a job and the country doesn’t exist. This is Dili not Washington or Sydney, live with it!

Another incident involving the American Embassy was on Christmas Eve. Ros’s daughter had a temperature on nearly 40 degrees which in this country is usually a sign of malaria. She is an American citizen so they tried to see the American doctor at the Embassy on Christmas Day only to be told she could only see the doctor if they had a letter from the Ambassador himself. Luckily they managed to find another doctor and it wasn’t malaria just a virus.

We often get overlanders coming through East Timor doing the trip either UK to Australia or the other way round. Also we get people that want to visit every country on earth and East Timor is one of the newest. Lynda is the latest overlander starting out from Spain 21 months ago on her 600cc Kawaski motorbike. Lynda is tiny and the bike is huge in comparison, especially since she’s lost 10 kilos during her trip. To get any vehicle into Australia is must be taken apart and meticulously cleaned as Australia is very fussy regarding bugs entering the country. I remember years ago travelling in Australia and you were not allowed to take any foodstuffs into Queensland because of the fruit fly risk. Usually the overlanders hang around for a week or so, doing the cleaning themselves (which is a hell of a job), or getting their vehicle cleaned (which is very expensive), ready to be shipped to Darwin. Throughout the journey, Lynda had cushioned her bum with a sheepskin rug which was very dirty and bedraggled by now. Obviously there was no way that the Australians would let her take that into their country so she had a cremation ceremony for it and played Baa Baa Black Sheep on a whistle while it burned

I’ve been reasonably busy on the diving front with Open water courses, a mixture of soldiers, doctors and now a geologist. One of the GNR I have been teaching to dive is banned from drinking throughout his whole six month mission in East Timor. Apparently, when he first got here he went on a binge and got himself lost in Dili, so the whole of the GNR were scouring the streets looking for him. After that his boss banned him from drinking!

Population! Who has a clue! - East Timor 15th January 2007

This weekend we did a diving trip to Atauro and stayed on the Island overnight. The island is beautiful and very different from Dili. The population here is approx 8000, 70% of which are strict protestant, rather than the mainland which is nearly all catholic. According to folklore, when the Indonesians invaded and landed on the island, the chief from the village came down to meet them. He asked the troops ‘Who was in charge?’ And when the leader identified himself, the chief picked up his gun and shot him! So shocked by this, the troops ran back to their boat and high tailed back to Dili.

The only way to get to the island is by ferry that runs once a week (sporadically!) or by chartering a boat. Some backpackers have taken the cheap fishing boat route, but have come back with tales of endurance, sunburn, and sodden possessions, and with the weather turning now, it really isn’t a safe option. Barry runs an Eco Lodge over on the island and back in March his wife Nema was eight months pregnant with their first child. We had cyclone warnings at the time and the sea was very rough when Nema developed preeclampsia. Despite having 3 doctors staying at the lodge and the valiant efforts of 5 boats trying to get to the island, Nema and her unborn child died because she couldn’t get to medical care. In her memory, Barry renamed the resort Nema’s.

Barry is the only Malai in the village, but because he and Nema were so integrated in the community, Nema’s family and the village have supported him in developing the lodge, which now has a 4th hut being constructed. I say hut, but the buildings are sturdy two storeys affairs with a small veranda and a hammock outside. At night the lights are powered by solar electricity and the generator only goes on for an hour a day to keep the freezers cold for beer. The beer is bought from the local kiosk and resold to guests. Rather than bringing it in from the mainland, Barry would rather put the money into the local economy. Stocks brought in from Dili are transported via one of the 5 vehicle on the island (2 of which are not working!). There is only one road, so hopefully traffic lights won’t be the next UN project here!

The Timorese are very superstitious and believe an old couple in the village are witches and put a curse on Nema because she married a Malai. In Liquica this week three women were killed by the community for being witches. The UN have got their work cut out for them trying to develop this country if they are still witch hunting like they did in medieval times.

We set off on Saturday afternoon and stopped en-route to Nema’s to dive at Manta Cove. This is still up in my top 10 dives of all time, I just wished I had my camera with me, you cannot describe how beautiful the coral and sponges are. We then moored up outside Nema’s and were transported to the lodge is a very precarious dug out which wobbled with the slightest movement.

Barry gave us a tour of the lodge including his latest building which is under construction at the moment. The bathroom facilities are separate to the buildings because the toilets are dug out pits in the ground. He has built a raised block above the toilet and stuck a toilet seat with a lid on top of it, so it feels like a real toilet. Loo roll is kept in a plastic bucket next to the loo to keep it dry in the rain as the toilets don’t have roofs. The washing areas are separate again with a mandi arrangement. A mandi is a large bucket of water with a pail which is very common throughout Asia. The idea is you douse yourself with water, soap up, then rinse off. I actually enjoy washing this way and it’s much more economical on water compared to a shower.

The lodge is on the beach so it has superb sunsets and sunrises. We watched a local fisherman walk out of the water with 10 sardines between his fingers. That was the last of the fishing for the weekend, because being strict protestant they are not allowed to work on Sundays. We wandered round the village before sunset, everyone is so friendly here, they are so poor, and their living arrangements are so basic, but you don’t get the ‘One dollar Mister!’ like you do in Dili. We only spotted one IDP tent, but at the height of the troubles there were 2000 IDP’s here which increased the population by 25% and put a big strain on the natural resources.

They don’t have birth certificates in East Timor, but there is a register when a child is baptised. However, they don’t have death certificates either and the last couple of Census they tried to do here were disasters. The population is supposed to be around the million mark, but who knows without any form of registration.

We were offered a pre-dinner appetiser of deep fried tiny crabs which you eat whole, they were delicious. Dinner was fresh tuna with cassava chips, vegetables and rice followed by a sticky toffee made from boiled condensed milk, (the nearest thing they have to chocolate on the island). The room that I was sleeping in was quite hot and sticky under the mosquito dome so I ended up sleeping under the starts in the hammock on the veranda with a lovely cool breeze from the sea.

The next days diving took us to Barstool, then made our way back to Dili. Sailing through the channel between the two islands we were surrounded by dolphins as far as the eye could see, there were hundreds of them. They were jumping and somersaulting, I’ve never seen dolphins jump that high out of the water, it was spectacular.

Damp and Rank – East Timor 20th January 2007

The diving went a bit quiet this week, the UN are back from their extended holidays but need to be seen to be working. Dedication and all that! You can tell that the UN are back with the return of the 3 hour nightly power cuts. Bless them; they just can’t survive without their air-con.

So when a Thai guy walked in and asked us to do a commercial salvage job, it was more than welcome. He described the job as locating and raising a propeller of a large Thai fishing boat, ½ a kilometre off shore in 30 meters of water. The prop was supposed to weigh 20 kilos which sounded a bit suspicious as Thai fishing boats are normally big so the prop would normally weigh 200kg not 20. The location of the boat was on the south coast which is unexplored territory as far as diving. We would be the first people in history to scuba dive the south coast of East Timor (we think!).

We set out on our adventure on Wednesday morning, loaded up with tanks, lines, torches and snack food, we literally raided Tiger Fuels (Dili’s equivalent of a 24hr BP Garage). The road out of Dili is steep and we were soon shrouded in thick fog, we were in the clouds! It was weird to be cold for the first time in East Timor, in Dili it’s a humid 33 degrees at the moment and doesn’t vary much from that. Because of the moisture, it’s really lush up there and you immediately see different vegetation and flowers. The road took us to Aileu where the heavens opened and unfortunately because the truck was filled with bodies, we had to put our overnight packs in the back so our clothes got soaked. What the hell, we were on an adventure.

The scenery on the way to Maubisse reminded me of Bali with tiered rice paddies and water buffalo. In Maubisse itself there is a hotel which is situated on top of a hill overlooking the valleys below. This is where Alfredo was camped out with his rebel troops in May/June this year.

Throughout the journey to Same the scenery changed, I was reminded of the lush hills and dark earth of Guatemala, the flat roads of Dartmoor, the wood smoke of Nepal and at one point the mountains of Switzerland with the clouds cutting the mountains and cabins dotted everywhere. We even started referring to Switzerland, on the way back we agreed to stop at Switzerland for a pee stop. In fact we stopped at Dartmoor because Switzerland was on an uphill gradient. A dog decided to bark at us there and the sound echoed through the mountains.

All through the journey, with some awful roads, we passed small villages where the kids waved and screamed ‘Malai, Malai’. You see more and more horses up here and often see old guys riding them, one guy wore a cowboy hat with ‘Marlboro’ emblazoned on in, a different type of ‘Marlboro Man’ than the American cigarette adverts, this one was smoking a clove cigarette.

The boat was situated about 5km from the costal village of Betano, a 7hr drive from Dili. The boat was about 1½ km from shore, not ½ a km and although the sea was calm but there was a huge swells which could make the job more hairy. The fishing boat sent a tinny out (a tinny is an Ozzy description of a small boat with an outboard motor, but in this case it was a traditional Thai motor with a propeller on a stick), which the Thai guys promptly capsized much to the amusement of the local village. Of course the Thai guys didn’t speak English or Tetum, so with improvisation and fingers we arranged to meet them at 6am the next morning.

One of the guys wanted to sleep on the beach but after being ravaged by sand flies in two minutes flat we revised the plan and talked to chief of the village. We were not exactly sure that he was the chief but certainly the caretaker of the school, which, we were heartened to see, was the most modern, well kept building in the village. The boys were going to camp out but because I wasn’t married to any of them, ‘Missus’ had to sleep separately, so the villagers offered me a bed in their house. I’d had similar treatment in Lombok years ago when I stayed on a tobacco farm. If a Malai is a guest then they are given the best room in the house no matter how many people it normally sleeps. I was presented with a small airless room with a double bed, mosquito net and a garish pink bedspread and matching frilly pillow, the best room in the house. There was no running water and the toilets were a hole in the ground, but we were given special treatment because the caretaker unlocked the school toilets for us which were clean with running water (literally!). I actually slept like a log because we had had a power cut for the whole night the night before. The power surge had actually blown up our connection this time, so I hadn’t had more than 3 fitful hours the night before.

After sleeping arrangement negotiations, Wayne opened the cooler and offered the elder men of the village a beer which they accepted with flourish, he had to stop the kids helping themselves though. The boys then erected the tent which fascinated everyone; I bet that they have never seen a house made like that before. Unfortunately the boys didn’t get such a good night’s sleep, drenched in their own sweat and dew and listening to the villagers talk half the night, topped off with a baby crying. I didn’t hear any of that; I was dead to the world.

The next morning we set off for the boat, we decided to swim in, kitted up rather than torture the Thais into beaching the tinny again. Wayne had the idea of being towed in, but unfortunately I had my long wetsuit on and my legs were incredibly buoyant, so I was hanging on with my arms outstretched unable to get my fins down, after a while my arms wouldn’t take it any more so we gave up on that idea and got on board. Once we boarded the Thai fishing boat we were greeted by coffee, biscuits and 5 pigs! Poor things, their fate is pretty much sealed. The captain of the boat was Indonesia with a mixed crew of Thai and Timorese. They explained that we were not looking for the prop but a cap/nut that holds the prop on, hence the weight of 20kg. Wayne and I dropped down the line that marked the search site and the visibility was OK for the first 20 meters, but after that it was like diving in soup, a maximum of 2 foot visibility. After letting our eyes adjust we realised the bottom was pure silt, and anything heavy would have probably sunk, any movement and you had no visibility whatsoever. It was like looking for a needle in a haystack and at 31 meters the maximum time we had down there was 17 minutes.

During the surface interval we boarded the fishing boat again and were presented with a lunch of rice with fish, or fish, or fish, funny that! At least it wasn’t fresh pork. The crew had managed to secure a line down to mark the site and we found out how. At the back of the boat there was a small compressor, commonly used for inflating tyres. Attached to this was 40 or so meters of clear thin rubber tubing which was directly attached to an old fashioned divers mask, with a valve to exhale out of the nose. It’s a wonder they didn’t kill themselves.

Our second attempt gave us a couple more foot visibility and we changed the search pattern but to no avail. When on the 3rd attempt one full circle couldn’t be achieved due to diabolical visibility, we gave up for the day and hot legged it to Same in search of a dry bed and wet beer. We found a small hotel that gave us just that as well as a slap up feed, after which we all crashed for the night, knackered! The only thing to add to this was the presence of Boris. At 4am I needed the loo, grabbing a candle as the generator was off, headed for the loo only to come face to face with an extremely large spider. Luckily I’m not faint hearted when it comes to spiders, but I did wave my candle near it to evict it from the loo seat as I didn’t fancy sharing.

We decided to give it one last shot in the morning, although we had enough tanks for a 2nd dive we were keen to get home. Firstly because we had found out from Ann that some little scrote had shot our dog Doris with an Ambon arrow during the night (she’s ok) and secondly because our damp clothes were now rank and we couldn’t stand the smell of each other. The 4th dive was no more fruitful than the previous 3, the visibility was bad again and the swell was up to two meters which made getting in and out pretty dangerous. We managed to get out with our kit on but the Thais managed to capsize the tinny again, worryingly with one of them trapped underneath, but luckily he emerged 30 seconds later, but we lost a weight-belt in the mean time.

The constant presence of 50 plus kids was also getting a little claustrophobic. Initially they had been shy and giggling, but now they were getting bolder, so every time we were on shore we had a throng of kids standing and staring not two feet away from us, which was great when I was trying to get changed. The previous day, I walked up to use the school loo and as I walked back I could hear the shuffle of small feet behind me getting louder and louder. I turned suddenly and shouted ‘Waaaaaaah’ at them, they scampered away only to dissolve in fits of giggles seconds later. You can’t really blame the kids for being curious, we are probably the first Malai they have seen in a long time, I am probably the only female they have seen with white blond hair in a wetsuit and scuba gear, in fact, we are probably the first scuba divers they have seen. Most of the locals where we dive regularly just think we are really bad fishermen, we go in with all this technical gear on, and come up an hour later with no fish!

It was a shame that we didn’t manage to find the treasure, it felt quite dissatisfying, but we hadn’t really got a chance in hell, if we had found it, it would have been sheer luck. But the trip itself was worth it, for the journey, not the diving and we were getting paid for it. Can’t be bad!