Things are starting to calm as the troublemakers went a bit too far in Baucau. They raped an 8 year old girl and attacked the Bishops house. It smacks of the terror of the Indonesian times. So Fretlin could no longer be seen to support this level of violence and their campaign is losing steam. Evidence of this was the mass two day demonstrations last week, only 50 demonstrators turned up!
During the days when the security alerts were pinging every 5 minutes, we found ourselves without divers, which is unheard of on a Sunday afternoon. Taking advantage of this rare occurrence, we went to the Ocean View for a drink by the sea. En-route we stopped and watched a most amazing baptism, the sea was incredibly rough and the clergymen, all suited and booted, were finding it difficult to keep upright in the waves. There were a group of Timorese singing I guess equivalent to hymns, while each child, dressed in white robes, would enter the waves into the hands of the clergymen to be dunked. It was an incredible sight, especially in the midst of all the trouble around town. Life and faith go on.
To get to the best dive sites we need to go through a place called Metinaro, which is where the biggest IDP camp of 6,000 people is situated, right next to the Metinaro Barracks. On Thursday its market day in Metinaro town and trouble flared up between the residents of the IDP camp and the residents of the town, which took the UNPol all day to calm down. Apparently over 20 houses were burnt down over a football match! This means that the travel restrictions for the UN are not lifted, so we are Dili bound again this weekend.
The barracks have a large firing range behind them and last week the local army decided to carry out target practice. They told the UN, but unfortunately the message didn’t filter down to the 6,000 residents of the IDP camp living less than a mile away. Can you imagine the terror of those people hearing the mass gunfire so close when the country is as unstable as it is? Doh!
Talking of Metinaro Barracks, a friend had to go and see the dentist there, the day after the IDP/Town trouble. He sailed through, all was calm again. In the Barrack itself they have 3 resident crocodiles. One very large male about 4 meters long, a large female and a smaller female who has to be kept separate because the other two keep attacking her. Can you imagine a 4 meter long croc? Terrifying! As they approached the cage the male croc made a loud guttural noise and opened his mouth against the bars. One of the guys noticed one tooth was protruding sideways and hanging out, so he levered the tooth out with his car key. The croc then grunted and ambled away. The guy is insane, I’ve seen the tooth which is as big as my little finger, this is an 4 meter crocodile we are talking about!
A few weeks ago, we were going out diving and just past Rubbish Ridge I saw a familiar face. I turned to Wayne and said ‘That looked like Ross Kemp’. It was; he was here to film a documentary on gang wars which I had actually seen advertised when I was back in the UK. So when Caroline (Irish) said to me yesterday, ‘I know this sounds bizarre, but I’m sure I saw Phil Mitchell in Castaways a few weeks ago’, I could confirm that she wasn’t seeing things. From Easterners to East Timor, watch out for the episode. (UK viewers only!)
We have had a few tourists in town over the past couple of weeks. The local hangout for budget travellers is Backpackers, run by a guy called Henry who is another local character. He met Jim (a Brit tourist) after a couple of days and the first thing he said to him was ‘What! Don’t they have newspapers in your country then?’ Amazingly one night, we had 6 Brits around one table and it wasn’t even Pancake Day at the British Embassy.
Although we were restricted to Dili, the weekend was great. The boys set up a marquee on Dili Rock beach and we had a big BBQ with about 20 people, divers, snorkelers and some just hungry lunchers. It was a great social day. On the diving front I also did a couple of Bubble Makers this week which are always good fun, but this time the kids were Timorese. We reckon that we have the youngest ever Timorese on scuba at 9 years old and a girl at that.
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