Mr Timor – East Timor 27th May 2008

Forget American Pop Idol, forget the Eurovision Song Contest, the biggest extravaganza of the year was Mr Timor! Seven (very brave) luscious men, strutting their stuff in front of 300 screaming women (and men!) at the Atlantic Grill on Saturday night. Apart from a few Dili hitches such as power cuts, the night flowed as easily as the Bintang did. Even the wimpy men that didn’t have the guts to enter got Dutch courage after a couple of beverages and did an impromptu strip and strut. The winner of the evening was a gorgeous Timorese boxer, with an amazing physique much to Lisa’s luck as she was the winner of the raffle, first prize, a date with Mr. Timor. All the money raised goes to promoting HIV prevention and awareness in East Timor, so a great cause as well as a fantastic night.

I love menus in Asia, they are a constant source of amusement for the spelling mistake and Dili is no exception. In the Dili Club you can get unchooies on your pizza, at the Saigon you can order Sweetcorn and Crap meat soup, but still nothing could top the old Filipino restaurant that used to offer Chicken Crispy Skin and Ass (no spelling mistake there!)

I’ve just finished teaching the kids at one of the International Schools about Project AWARE and Reef Conservation. The ages ranged from 8 to 12 and boy do they have imaginations, they ask intelligent questions too like ‘How do they dynamite fish? Because if you lit the fuse and threw it in the water, the fuse would go out’. We played great games like pin the fins on the fish and measuring a blue whale and over 5 weeks we built a mural of the reef in East Timor, I’ve never seen quite as many whales and dolphins in one place, but their artistic talents are amazing.

Talking of artistic talents I actually picked up a pencil and completed a drawing last week for the first time since I left school. I sat in on an art class at Arte Morris, the kids there put me to shame, and they are so talented, picking up shading and perspective so easily (credit to the teacher of course). It’s a great organisation and some of the art they produce is stunning. They have a new exhibition in Hotel Timor for Independence Day, so I’m going to have a look this afternoon.

Unfortunately, I was working on Independence Day, so missed the parade which was reported as fantastic, I also missed the fireworks because they were moved from 8.30 at Jesus to 7.30 at the Palace. Still by the sounds of the vibe it was much more of a celebration than the last two years, may be now as things are settling down here there is more reason to celebrate.

The Pizza is still hot – East Timor 30th June 2006

In some western countries, pizza delivery companies give you a guarantee that if the pizza isn’t delivered within 30 minutes then you get the food for free. Given Dili's usual road conditions, potholes, chickens, dogs, goats, vendor carts and taxis crawling at 20kmph, this is a good achievement at the best of times.

We have had nearly a week of demonstrations where the whole place has been remnant of Notting Hill Festival. Thousands of trucks crammed with people, painted faces, Timor flags flying, music blaring, singing and chanting, horns honking, and banners everywhere. We even had 2 truck loads all wearing ‘I Love Xanana’ T-shirts, with Xanana’s face printed on the front; these are definitely not available in the shops. The slow convoy would crawl by with trucks of people as far as the eye could see and yet Flip still pulled up in the middle of all this with hot pizzas! That’s service for you.

East Timor – The land of surprises; this should be the country’s new strap line. They are not always good surprises, but you are always surprised. Finally we get the announcement we have all been waiting for, but it wasn’t Mari Alkatiri that resigned it was Ramos Horta the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Minister for Defence, we were gobsmacked! Mari Alkatiri did resign his post as Prime Minister the day after but remains an MP to deal with the budget matters until the election of the next government.

All the protesters so far have been from the West. There is still a strong West/East thing going on in the city. One of our staff was punched in the face for being the only Easterner in his village and ended up sleeping in the classroom because he was too scared to return to his house. The next day he returned to his home town. This put a really bitter taste on all the celebrations, the Prime Minister resigning is not going to stop this racism, especially when the guys from the East return to Dili and find their houses burned down, there will be more revenge attacks

Ann and Wayne were at the Hotel Dili when it all kicked off again. Wayne called me to tell me to stay put as there was a repeat of stone throwing, fighting and 3 fires nearby the hotel. Gino was a bit concerned as he has his gas company next to the hotel and if the fires got too close this could be a major disaster. Again in the midst of all this, 12 year old boys throwing stones and lighting fires, Australian troops fully geared up, cameramen and press running around, up pulls Flip with his Pizza delivery!

Another morning we were woken at 6 a.m. by yet another noisy protest. This time though the trucks were waving Portuguese flags not Timorese which was confusing. Portugal had won their game in the World Cup! And of course with the time difference these guys had just seen the match live.

The Philippine restaurant next door has finally opened again, so we popped in for a drink to show them some local support. The girls that work there are from the hills and gave us good news about our housekeeper Maria who disappeared two months ago. She is safe and well but is stuck up in the hills with no money. Ann is now trying to work out a way to get a message to her that her job is still open and send up her wages so that she can return to Dili.

This whole place is ringing with acronyms; it takes you a while to work out what someone is talking about. East Timor has the AFP, the GNR, NGO’s, APV’s, IDP’s, the UN and the RedX. Then you have a completely different language with the journos; ABC, shoot, feed, wingman. It reminds me of working for SAP again!

I’ve added another song to the list, ‘Should I stay or should I go now? – The Clash’. Seriously though, we are starting to get a few divers walking through the door with the return of the essential UN staff. Plus after sitting it out this long watching history being made and never feeling personally in danger, it would be crazy to leave now, so I’m staying put.

Footnote
ABC - Australian Broadcasting Company
AFP - Australian Federal Police
APV - Armoured Patrol Vehicle
GNR - Portuguese Republican National Guard
IDP - Internally Displaced Person
NGO - Non Government Organisation
RedX - The Red Cross
UN - United Nations

Covert Pizza Operations – East Timor 16th June 2006

We managed to go diving beyond Metinaro today with one of our local staff Nelson, he felt comfortable so it was almost back to normal for our diving day. Wayne and I dived a site he had discovered on an exploratory dive a couple of weeks before, but we hadn’t managed to get back out to it until now. I told Wayne at the end of the dive that he had ruined diving for me as all I look for now is nudibranch and critters, small, rare and unusual stuff. For the unordained, nudibranch are tiny sea slugs that are the Dolce & Gabana of the underwater world, stylish, unusually patterned and often very brightly coloured. Finding a nudibranch is like finding a Tiffany Egg. I saw five varieties on the dive today, three I had never seen before.

To get to the dive site you need to pass through several road blocks. Ann and I decided that the tastiest troops in town were the Kiwis. Unfortunately Australia seem to have sent over every red headed army guy they can find, so the poor pale skinned possums are running around looking like lobsters at the moment. Ann nudged my elbow as we approached a road block the other day and said ‘I don’t fancy yours much!’ This had us giggling as we approached two bewildered looking gun clad Kiwis. When asked if we were carrying any weapons, I told them about my dive knife, but when Ann informed them it was bright pink, they didn’t take it seriously as an offensive weapon.

Today as Wayne and I passed through the roadblock at Hera, the Kiwi boys told us that they would only let us back through if we bought them back some seafood as their ration food was dire. According to one Australian Embassy staff, the troops are not allowed to eat anything but their rations. That’s why we are seeing them in every supermarket then! Apparently, the rule was made back in 2001, when half the Navy went down with food poisoning after eating the local food. That sounds like a bit of an urban legend though!

There are a few people in Dili that are making a killing in these times, the hotels, the car hire companies and Flips Pizza Delivery! Instead of the usual address of 123 The High Street in 20 minutes, it’s, rendezvous at 1800 hours behind the portaloos next to the big tree! Covert pizza delivery! Jim has also been asked to hold a lock-in, where the boys will enter through the back door after their shift without their boss seeing them. This is not for an illicit drinking session though; this is for 6 rounds of bacon and egg and mugs of tea.

More and more clients from the past are turning up. My next open water course could consist of GNR (Portuguese Police). Their boss learned to dive with us the last time he was in East Timor back in 2001 so of course recommended us. Apparently, Army and Police are easy to teach as they are used to taking orders.

Sometimes you hear a song and it takes you straight back to a place and time as if it was yesterday. Well, here’s a few that will always remind me of East Timor:

Talking about a revolution – Tracy Chapman
We’ve got to get out of this place – The Animals
The Boys are back in Town – Thin Lizzy

More and more people are on the streets of Dili now, the military presence is everywhere although there are still many refugee camps. Phone cards are now down to $11 for a $10 card instead of $15. Market stalls are springing up again with an abundance of vegetables and fish and the whole place has a better feel to it.

It’s reported that the majority want the Prime Minister Mari Alkitiri to step down, but he is sticking by his guns, literally! However, there will be the minority that want him in, and in most cases it’s the minority that cause the trouble and unrest. I don’t think it’s over just yet, there may be more to come once some political decisions are made. At the moment it’s a bit of calm before the storm.