Last year I was in England for Easter and the year before troubles were afoot so this year I was quite taken aback with the level of celebration Easter causes in East Timor. My first real encounter of a Dili traffic jam was Palm Sunday, thinking we were being clever we chose to go East via the Bekora route and found ourselves in what I can only compare to the Notting Hill Festival; people everywhere dressed in their finest, holding intricately woven palm leaves. One little girl caught my eye in a bright pink nylon fairy dress with matching pink wellington boots. Please, nobody light a cigarette near her! It never ceases to amaze me, the extent of synthetic fibres worn on a Sunday. In this heat, I sweat in cotton clothes, but I’m a Malai, I guess if you were born here you would be acclimatised. I get the Wellington Boots though, we have had so much rain here recently and as I live in flip-flops I’ve got a permanently soggy bum and dirty calves as the flip-flop flicks mud up your legs.
Easter Sunday we got stuck at Hera behind a procession carrying 13 crosses. The UNPol at the checkpoint cleverly diverted the traffic through a back road, unfortunately, they didn’t put anyone directing further down, so all the cars turned too soon and got stuck in a side road just before the church entrance. Not close enough to see the procession unfortunately.
The curfew has been extended again but now it’s 11pm until 5am. To me this curfew makes very little difference as I’m rarely out after 10 in the evenings, but you have to respect it. One Sunday night when the curfew was still 10pm I encountered a young woman who was completely plastered around 8pm. I stayed until 9 and advised her to get a lift home and not to drive. After I had left, she got several offers of lifts home but refused saying she was ok to drive. Of course, when the time came she couldn’t seem to get the car started (probably as she was using her house key to try and start the car), meanwhile curfew time came and went, so the UNPol turned up and asked if they could assist her by giving her a lift home. Being intoxicated as many of us know can affect you sense of reasoning, she decided to call her own security officer (her boss), slurring down the phone, way after curfew. Needless to say she had left the country by the Tuesday. What a way to get yourself sacked from an Aid Agency, call your boss and tell them you are in trouble, pissed and after curfew, doh!
When I first got to East Timor Manuel spoke very little, of any language. The strong silent type! So my communication with him resulted to a lot of pointing and gesturing. Two years later, I guess Manuel has resigned himself that my Tetum will probably never extend beyond ‘Good Morning, how are you?’ so he has been coming out with a few words in English, which not only astounds me but also his East Timorese co-workers. According to Jose and Nelson, Manuel can now count in English and he says goodbye to his colleagues with ‘See you tomorrow’, in English, which amuses them no end.
Manuel is the only one of the guys that is not a diver, he can’t swim. But he is not afraid of wading in the water to help divers out or retrieve equipment during my Rescue courses. During one of these courses I was swimming out with Jose who was playing the rescue victim. Jose said ‘Look at Mr Manuel’. Manuel was standing in the shallows with a wetsuit and mask on peering in the water. So next time I was out diving at K41 in the surface interval I put a wetsuit, fins, mask and an inflated BCD on Manuel and took him snorkelling. He swallowed a bit of water and I think he was relieved when he could put his feet down again, but he told the other guys he enjoyed it.
Continuing the lighter theme from Christmas, we have been inundated with cheap Chinese musical lighters that play the most god awful tunes that stay in your head for the rest of the day. At Landmark Supermarket today they are advertising Musical Lighters 35c, lighters with no music 50c. People would rather pay a higher price for ordinary lighters than be subjected to the tinny tunes every time they light up!
Lastly, I returned home today and my landlord told me he had fixed my water problem. Yippee! Since I moved in, water has been sporadic at best. This is mainly due to lack of town water in this area. During the day they fill the water tank so that we have water at night when the town water is at its weakest. The only problem is that I don’t have regular transport, so John used wait until he saw my car arrive and then open the water. Of course when I didn’t have a car, I wouldn’t have water either. This week has fluctuated between no water at all, a tiny cold trickle or such bad water pressure that you get scolded. So hopefully my water problems are fixed, but it makes me cringe to think of those villages I went through a few weeks ago relying on one small hand pump and a well for all their water needs. My water problems pale into insignificance.
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