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!