Apart from disarray, confusion and a complete lack of
infrastructure one of the few things that the Portuguese left behind in East
Timor was the recipe for a perfect crème caramel and how to make a memorable cappuccino.
This is about all there is now that shows they were
ever there.
East Timor is another of those places I know about
through news headlines. I’m not sure what happened, just that during the 80s
and 90s it was bad there and a lot of people suffered. It is one of the poorest
countries in the world
Presidente Nicolau Lobato International airport in Dili
should be a museum. It has its charm, such as the 200-metre sun baked
walk from the aircraft to the visa hut, the huts's complete lack of shade and
the buffet approach to the baggage reclaims area.
Outside the arrivals shed, the gravelly potholed
surface of the car park looks like it is being resurfaced but it is
actually the complete opposite and has taken decades to get into that
state. The sight of dozens of us trying to push, pull and drag our baggage
across it must be the highlight of most porters' days.
I often think that the efficiency of an airport
reflects the state of a country and this airport feels neglected but somehow
still functioning.
Emma from ALOLA and driver Paulo meet me.
They are another amazing in country organization that
works in the education of women and children in East Timor which massive
problems amongst them with malnutrition in the countryside and an unemployment
rate of 48% in the cities. Poor education and the lack of continuity in their
lives means many mothers have not been passed on mothering skills and infant mother
mortality rate is high.
Immediately the quality if the light, the heat
and the unhurried approach to life in this country remind me more of
Africa than Asia.
It is hot and humid but the coastal plain where Dili
lies is dry and dusty with dried riverbeds dissecting it. Behind the city,
rising steeply are hills with darker mountains beyond them, there are baked brown
and leafless trees struggling to form barren forests on them. It is the
end of the dry season. Rain is imminent and anticipated.
A short and frustratingly slow drive down tarmaced
roads takes me to my hotel, which is on the seafront. Tankers and warships are
harbored out to sea and fishing boats move freely amongst them like flies around
a chained dog.
I don't like swimming in cities and though a hundred
metres out the sea is the kind of expensive blue that you don't see in Britain,
nearer the shore the water is silty and uninviting.
On the other side of the bay I can make out a
white strip of sand fringing a Peninsular and decide to make a dash for it
before dark.
But I hadn't accounted for the aptly named and
astonishingly camp duty manager; Romeo. He shows me to my room and shutting
the door behind him proceeds to show me in too much detail the light switches,
shower and safe before progressing to ask me about the size of my penis.
Naturally outraged, I was compromised, as I didn't
want to assault him because he was sorting me out a taxi to the beach. I
settled on suggesting he shouldn't talk like that to guests to which he replied
" Well me I am Mr. Little"
Bloomin idiot.
So leaving just their milky desserts a good coffee tradition
and a helpless nation the Portuguese left East Timor in a hurry as their all
their foreign interests collapsed in the 1974 after a coup.
East Timor is the stubbed, blackened toe at the end of
the Indonesian Archipelago and is only 500 miles from Darwin in Australia
There is a West Timor that is part of Indonesia
- the biggest Muslim Country in the world and two weeks after the Portuguese
left the Indonesian army crossed over the imaginary line in the island and
invaded East Timor. There followed. 40 years of occupation, insurrection, fighting,
strife, torture and atrocities for hundreds of thousands of people. A war that
that divided the country as allegiances to occupier and freedom fighters
developed. As East Timor had nothing the West needed they did nothing
until 1999 when Indonesia finally withdrew and East Timor was invaded for a
second time by the benign forces of the UN and aid agencies.
Consequently when I arrive at the white-sanded Christo
Rei beach it is heaving with UN vehicles who's owners were on the beach barbequing
the entire contents of Noah's ark.
The sea was clear and warm and it absolved me of
Manila's grime and sweat.
It wasn't hard to meet some people, we sat for a while
and I quizzed them on life in Dili. They gave me a lift back to town and I said
goodbye to them and set off to find my way back to my hotel.
Dili is part bombsite and part warehouse, any new
buildings are government, ministry, NGO or UN. There are areas of housing too
but on the outskirts of town. Low level unsanitary and powerless they appear
temporary more like slums. As I meander my way towards where I think I
should be Dili feels like a city that has just woken up. Laid back, unhurried,
an African outpost in Asia it is not yet running at full speed and is waiting
for things to happen.
I come across the city cafe with a fridge cabinet full
of crème caramels I order one and a cappuccino from the surly Portuguese
descendant owner who replies in a Portuguese Australian accent "obrigado
mate"
I had a moment then, new country, new culture, and old
favorite
It was a long way home but a great way to savor a
place. I felt no threat, and largely passed unnoticed. It is the greatest
advantage of traveling alone that you can make snap decisions without asking.
Swing into a roadside bar and just walk around it asking questions about the
food or where to go on a Saturday night. One fool is less intrusive and less
threatening than two or more. From a seemingly derelict roofless building
I hear the sound of a drum kit being played badly. Like a lost soul I head
towards it and find two teenagers in a room sharing the elements of several
drum kits one has a bass pedal and toms the other a snare and cymbals it is
some kind of youth club but held in the wreck of a group of buildings. No one
talks to me as I then seek the source of a voice and keyboard I can hear.
Framed in a blown out doorway is a dreadlocked youth singing a barely
recognisable version of "No Woman no cry" some chords and a rhythm
coming from a keyboard with a mind of its own that a boy was prodding randomly.
We nod and smile and with a proffered mic we sang together for a while, it
must have sounded terrible but in that bomb blasted ruin it didn't matter, we
were just sharing a moment. I moved away the sound faded and it all felt
unreal, dreamlike. Maybe East Timor hasn't just woken up maybe it's just living
the dream.
ALOLA are an in country organization run by and for
East Timorians, in fact they were founded by Kirsty Sword Gusmao now wife
of the Rebel leader Xanana Gusmao.
It’s a fantastic story worthy of a film – she was an
Australian Human Rights activist by day but became Ruby Blade by
night committed to the Rebel cause and lover of Xanana Gusmao the Rebel leader
who until his capture was working Che Guevara style in the hills. Even when he
was captured she smuggled English Grammar lessons and documents into his
Jakarta jail. From there he and her continued their struggle for Independence
from Indonesia
In 1999 when the Indonesian troops left the country
they ransacked it destroying buildings and homes.
Xanana was released from prison and after serving as
the country’s first president became elected Prime Minister in 2007.He never
had an easy task but it could have been made easier if he was offered assistance
on how to run a country. It is a big leap from freedom fighter to peacekeeper
and Government in power.
I interview Kirsty at a school where a mobile library
has been set up. She is passionate about education and totally devoted to
her adopted country. She is cool and composed in front of camera telling me that
she is not happy with the way things are and is not impressed with the results
of ten years of UN Aid.
Apparently there is more aid spent per head in East
Timor than any other country. For ten years the UN has been busy here but it is
hard to quantify their work. Along with dozens of Aid agencies from all
over the world that all have their own agendas and funding wars they are all
busy doing their own projects with little cohesion. They have their prime
location housing and nice lives sorted but meanwhile the nation of 1.1 million
people faces problems of only 2 in 5 homes having electricity, 40 % of the
population live on less than a dollar a day and and youth unemployment is 70 %,
45%of children under five are underweight. It occurred to me that the sum total
of UN Aid money could have been spent on giving every young person of school
leaving age a practical trade training lasting a year almost like a
national Service. East Timor had the chance to start again. A nation of enabled
artisans rather than Aid addicts with hand out habit. The Aid givers and UN had
a chance to learn from all mankind’s mistakes ever and try something new, state
of the art country building. There is most need in teaching how to run a
country. Advising a new Government how to govern. Admittedly few governments in
the world have got it right but but a large proportion of the present
Government were part of the resistance movement that and once in power they
were given jobs in Government. They have no idea what to and have no experience
in their new jobs. Wouldn’t it have been great if someone just said –
great work thanks for the sacrifice in the revolution here is a house and a pension enjoy
your life? Now with all this confusion and inexplicable madness going on East
Timor has now found Oil off its coast and is being courted by Russia, USA,
Australia and China? As I was told in Uganda, when prosperity come through the
front door. Peace slips out the backdoor
And the UN officially moves out in December Poverty,
Hunger Unemployment – our work here is done…
ALOLA are loved and respected by everyone and they are
addressing loads of endemic issues; they have a mobile Library. Many teachers
are not good readers themselves and they are shown how to inspire kids and
excite them in the learning place. They have breast feeding programmes
-culturally Breast feeding died out and a tradition of giving new born babies
the water used to boil rice emerged this leads to serous malnutrition. I
spend a long hot afternoon in a maternity ward working with the Alola team and
I am treated to filming the natural birth of baby boy. It filled me with awe
and respect for the woman who pants, pushes and finally delivers new life
into the world and she is encouraged to feed him immediately by breast,
providing him with the vital colostrum a newborn needs. Women I love you for
what you go through and marvel at the wonder of it all.
Up in the cool cloud veiled mountaintops, life is less
sweaty but there is no work and not much food, everyone has forgotten how to
farm since the civil war. Alola with its partners teach kitchen gardening and
how to supplement the children’s meager diet with vegetables. I meet a young
boy with excellent English who just appears out the rainforest and engages me
in conversation. He is desperate to leave the country he has amazing self
taught skills but no future.
I can sense his frustration and felt frustrated myself
as I drove away unable to help him or a nation.
I left East Timor with the feeling that it had not
been helped to the best of the West’s ability. We as a civilization have
achieved so much from test tube babies to Space Travel – surely through the
combined learning of all the agencies present a formula or a recipe for
how to rebuild a country can be perfected. By January 2013 the UN will have
left the country I wonder what they will leave behind them that will still be
there in twenty years time guaranteed crème caramels will be.
Tim Tyson Short