Merpati Madness – East Timor 12th December 2008

We have 3 airlines that fly into East Timor: Air North from Darwin who gives you a ridiculously small luggage allowance for a ridiculously high airfare. Austasia who have recently started a route from Singapore which opens up that market, but also some Europeans who are banned from flying on any Indonesian airlines because of their bad safety record. And finally Merpati to Bali, who are Indonesia’s domestic carrier but charge an international price.

This is soon to change as East Timor is setting up their own airline to fly to Darwin and Bali, which should stop the monopoly. But at the moment you have one airline depending on your destination.

The Merpati experience is one to be endured rather than enjoyed. Every 3 months the price seems to increase, but you don’t have a choice if you want to get to Bali. The flight is functional, you certainly don’t expect any frills, and if there is anything edible in the stone cold lunchbox they give you, it’s a surprise. It’s even more of a surprise if they manage to give you customs card on the plane, unfortunately they were the wrong ones and we had to repeat the form filling process again when arriving in Dili.

Because my working week is more weekend intensive I tend to fly weekdays, so have never encountered the mass exodus on a long weekend. Last weekend was a public holiday so the Merpati flight was full, or should I say overbooked by 10 people. Rather than addressing this at check-in, they waited until everyone was in the departure lounge which is not a pleasant place, with ineffectual air conditioning which had broken completely that day, gross toilets and no water available to buy (plenty of gin and whisky though). After 2 hours Merpati basically told their customers that they were overbooked and had to ‘cull’ themselves! You can imagine how this went down!

Eventually 10 people did give up their seats and the remaining passengers were herded towards the plane only to find their luggage had been unloaded, apparently the plane was too heavy. So one hundred people protested on the runway. This is supposed to be an International Airport!

I’m not sure how it all got resolved but the plane landed in Bali 4 hours late minus some poor sods luggage, and most of the passengers who had connecting flights of course had missed them. So the Customer Service award East Timor style has to go to Merpati this year.

Last week the Dive Centre gained PADI 5 Star status which we were all really pleased about and celebrated with a few bottles of fizzy plonk. To get 5 star status you need to satisfy certain criteria in continuing education, reef conservation and also have a generally nice dive centre with changing facilities, retail shop etc. In the lead up to our application the place had a distinct feel of building site at times, a new storeroom was built, the old storeroom was turned into a toilet and shower and just when we thought the rubble, cement and noise had finished, my boss decided we needed a huge wall sized water feature with our logo on it. It does look fab now it’s finished though.

This water feature is becoming a bit of a mystery though. First the pump worked intermittently which meant we had stagnant water which is breeding ground for mosquitoes. A couple of scientists who were doing research on dengue fever confirmed that we had the dengue larva in the water. An easy remedy is to put fish in the water that eat the larva, so Megan came round with some fish for us. The very next day the fish had disappeared.

We worked out the problem with the pump, due to a slow leak, the water level dropped and the pump works on water pressure, so by topping up the water, the pump works and gone is our dengue problem as the water is always moving. Two days ago one of my UNPOL customers presented me with a present of a terrapin that he had found in a puddle in the middle of the main road. So we stuck the strangely named terrapin, Felicity, into the pond at the bottom of the water feature and an upturned shell so she could sunbathe and hide under it. The next day the terrapin had disappeared!

This morning, John showed me a bucket of fish he had bought to put into the pond, these were more of the dengue larva eating type. This afternoon I returned after lunch and the fish were gone! Now I know we have a lot of stray cats round here but this is getting ridiculous.

We also had another visitor a few days ago, I turned around to see Rita shooing a huge crab through the house with a dustpan and brush, it made me giggle as it kept changing direction causing Rita to run around in circles.

Another mystery occurred on Tuesday when I walked into the office and found one of the security cameras facing the wall. We installed CCTV after the traditional method of the Lulic Man didn’t identify the thief and we decided a more modern approach may be needed. As the camera facing the wall was very suspicious, the whole nights footage was played, nothing at all went on until 8 a.m. when on screen came Zelia with her feather duster and knocked the camera round. Mystery solved.

We have already got into the Christmas spirit here; on the 2nd of December I gave Zelia a long list of shopping, paint, vinegar, pens, toilet roll and a Christmas tree. I was worth it just to see her face light up, she was so excited. I returned back in the afternoon to be presented with a garish, over decorated, multicoloured plastic tree, but the staff like it and that’s all that counts. So we are suitably decorated for our Xmas party and 5 Star celebration on the 16th. Although attendance may be a bit low as everyone is dropping like flies here due to a horrible stomach bug that’s going around. It lingers on and on and the weight loss in people has been dramatic.

There has been a big clean up around town getting rid of the market stalls. The stalls were illegal and in some cases like the Pertamina market, a bit of a safety issue as people would park on a bend to use the market. Apparently the only stalls that are allowed outside official market places are those that are on wheels as they are considered vehicles. So now the vendors have to go back to the official market places if they want to trade. The place looks completely different.

East Timor had a big quake last week 6.3 and the bed moved for me again. I’m getting used to it now.

We have had a load of tourists in recently, real genuine ones that have come here solely to dive, not visa runs or visiting relatives. We had a couple from Holland who were both instructors and had been diving for 27 years and only had enough time to dive for one day here. In all the years of diving, neither had seen a dugong in the water. On their second dive my friendly dugong playmate from a couple of months ago came back to the same spot and repeated his playtime for 10 minutes. It must like visiting instructors.

We have also had loads of squid spawning and a few humpback whales. Although the rain has come early this year and the visibility is dropping. Time to teach search and recovery and navigation courses again.

Electrical, Mechanical and Physical – East Timor 20th July 2008

Since I started my new job on the 1st of July, I’ve been plagued with breakdowns. So much so in the first few weeks I thought someone might have put a Lulik curse on me! First it was the cars. Prior to East Timor I’d only ever had one flat tyre, then one in the two plus years I’ve been in East Timor. In the first two weeks I got two flat tyres, one on each car! Then it was the batteries on both cars. Of course I was immediately asked if I had left the headlights on, I may be blonde but I’m not that dizzy! So now I’ve learnt all about batteries, alternators and glow rods (well enough to know when they break they are expensive and inconvenient!) Then I got a phone call from my colleague asking if I could send out the other car with a long tow rope as he had sunk the Land Cruiser!

I also went through a spate of accidents that kept me out of the water for a while. I think in five years of teaching I’ve had three days where I couldn’t teach due to illness. That was until a few weeks ago when I was doing a rescue course and whilst exiting the water carrying my own gear plus two others, my foot went down a hole and when a wave came, I went one way and my foot stayed in the same position, ouch! Luckily it was a bad sprain rather than a break. However, me being me, I don’t do ill, so the next weekend I thought I’d be ok to dive if I put my gear on in the water. So when a large wave came and I was dragged back out as I was holding on to my equipment. The sea literally spat me out straight into a rock and I bashed up my elbow.

Normally cuts and bruises wouldn’t be a problem providing you douse them heavily with Betadine, as in the tropics cuts can so easy get infected. However, if you are constantly in salt water it has a cleansing effect, constantly opening and cleaning the wound. So my predive preparations included strapping my elbow up with cling film and sticky tape as you can’t get proper waterproof dressings here!

I was on the mend when Mark, Pedro and Tania had their birthday party. Fuelled by Sangria; silliness ensued including jumping over the bonfire on the beach. Following several successful jumpers I managed to roll on my bad foot and went down heavily on my leg. I nursed a lovely bruise the next day as wet sand is pretty hard.

Finally, to add insult to injury (to coin a phrase), I was doing Open Water skills on the sandy bottom at Dili Rock. I felt a sharp pain in the same foot but couldn’t see what had bitten or stung me. By the time I got out of the water my foot was swelling up and turning a lovely red colour. Driving back to the Dive Centre I was finding it hard to breathe, swallowing was difficult which really started to worry me. For the first time since I started my scuba career I actually used my insurance to call DAN (Divers Alert Network) and spoke to a great doctor. Hence for the next hour I had to sit with my foot in a bucket of extremely hot water, much to the amusement of the staff.

Just when I thought the curse had lifted, the compressor buggered itself! Luckily we have two! So I spent the last few days in Bali getting a simple ‘O’ Ring changed on a filter. I had to go to Bali anyway as my quarterly Marks and Spencer’s shopping run was due. But trying to explain this weird looking mechanical device in your hand luggage to customs officers was slightly trying.

Still for all the lumps, bumps and bruises you get in this profession, it’s still worth it when you get a diver squealing with delight through his regulator after his first dive and telling you that ‘I’ll never forget my first dive, and I’ll never forget you’. Especially when he is from a land locked country such as Nepal.

On a final note, the diving here is great, but the place is quirky. We were kitting up to dive at Tasi Tolu when a Blackhawk started to take off behind us. Of course all dive preparations stopped as we watched the show, those things are impressive.

The Magic Man - East Timor 7th May 2007

This week is the one year anniversary of the start of the trouble in East Timor. To mark the occasion we had a Lulik ceremony where we each chucked a stone at the wall to mark hopefully the last stone to be thrown, the Timorese however took a more solemn approach and lined the streets with candles to mark the occasion.

Talking of Lulik ceremonies, our housekeepers youngest child has been sick for 10 days, so she took him to the doctors but he hasn’t got any better, so now she is taking a few days off and travelling 4 hours to Same to see her village Lulik man (witch doctor), so much for modern medicine. Good news though, she returned today and it seems the magic has worked.

A friend of mine had a bit of a neighbourhood dispute while I was away; unfortunately their house was stuck between the guy the village had a gripe with, and some feisty villagers that would not make the Red Socks. Their aim with the stones was so bad that they were landing on my friend’s roof instead. To solve this, the Lulik man of the village took some soil from the battleground, mixed it with water and made both parties drink it, so that if anyone fights on that ground again they will face the curse of Lulik magic. Case closed, the Timorese are very superstitious and wouldn’t dare upset the gods.

I love some of the ways Timorese translates, some of my favourites are:-
Ulun-fatuk moras – Head stone sickness (Headache)
Isin rua – Body two (Pregnant)
Laran Sa’e – Inside to go up (Feel like vomiting)

Recently, the incidents against Malai have increased, not major incidents but more opportunistic. These types of incidents can happen (and do happen) in any major city of the world, muggings, hotel rooms burgled, car vandalism, etc. However, a couple came round to return some snorkelling equipment on Saturday and they had been robbed by a couple of guys, one wielding a machete. They came out of the water to find a couple of guys by the car demanding money, the girl made a run for it and while the guys were distracted, the boyfriend gunned the engine and managed to screech away picking up his girlfriend en-route, not before they had lost a wallet and a camera though. Rest assured we always take security when we go snorkelling or diving, it’s just a shame that we need to.

Talking of screeching away, the UN has been given a ticking off this week. At a town hall meeting this week it was announced that in 2 months there have been over 80 traffic accidents where UN vehicles were the only vehicles involved. Last Saturday, a UN car was stopped at 1.35 am because of erratic driving. Needless to say the driver was drunk, but then proceeded to assault the police!

In response to this incident, UN Security set up a check point between Pig Bridge (Yes it really is known as that!) and the Dili 2001 Hotel. Between the hours of 1 am and 4 am, 26 UN vehicles were stopped, 4 UN staff members tested positive to a breath test. 1 refused to take the test! 3 vehicles and 2 weapons were impounded and 7 non UN staff were being carried as passengers in UN cars without permission. Mmmm, alcohol, guns and driving, a pretty lethal combination me thinks!

In the same speech it was stated ‘Many of you say that the driving conditions here can be challenging’. I don’t disagree, what with taxis doing 15km per hour, motorbikes not having mirrors, pigs/goats/dogs/kids running out in the road unexpectedly, indicators that are ornaments, pot holes and now traffic lights that are sporadically adhered to. But we were always taught to ‘read the road ahead’, if the UN slowed down a bit, then they may be able to find it less challenging and decrease the number of accidents!

The Presidential elections were not 200,000 votes over; apparently someone got the decimal in the wrong place! However, to win the election the candidate must have 50% plus 1 vote, which none of the candidates did. So the re-election is on Wednesday, and so far there has been no trouble just a few isolated incidents in the normal trouble spots. The atmosphere actually seems calmer and more positive since my return, taxis are actually running just after dark and it feels safer to walk around at night. Obviously with an air of caution, there are still absolute no go areas. I think everyone is sick to the back teeth of the violence and hopefully the June parliamentary elections will close the chapter on this unsettled year. Only time will tell, you come to expect the unexpected in East Timor.

Diving has been a bit quiet this week, mainly due to me being stuffed up with a cold. A real shame because the water is calm and the visibility is about 20 meters. Still it looks like what was the little rainy season we had is over, so the visibility just gets better and better from now on.