Tourist in Timor

Last week, our good friend Brady and new friend Cooper visited us in Dili.  One of the surprising benefits of their visit was getting to be a tourist myself, and getting to see Timor-Leste through fresh eyes again.  Word on the street is that TL has an average of 20,000 tourists per year, but it should also be considered that the only visa offered is a tourist visa, which means that NGO workers, long term residents and the like all count as “tourists.”  This is actually pretty surprising considering all the tourist activities we did in 5 days, and all that Dili alone has to offer tourists, let alone the rest of the country.

We started off with lunch at one of our favorite restaurants in Dili, sipping mango lassi and ginger beer while we watched the warm rain come down all around us.  Over the next few days, we spent some time at the Tais market, where you can buy beautifully handcrafted woven textiles, some made right in front of you, others brought in from remote districts.  We drank from fresh coconuts, had some of the best coffee in the world, talked about Timorese history and politics and development, browsed the new mall and pondered how it came to be in Dili, listened to live music and watched a dance show, ate the freshest of fish, and climbed up Cristo Rei to look out over the island and the ocean at Sunset.  We snorkeled at some of the best reefs and clearest water in the world, swimming with schools of fish over rare and delicate coral just a few feet away from the water’s edge.  We played board games and drank beer and generally relaxed as time slipped away from us.  Five days were gone in the blink of an eye.

So where are the tourists?  Why aren’t they here for the spectacular reef, the handmade artifacts, the history and presence of change all around you, the authentic experience so different from the rest of Southeast Asia?  Apparently, they’re starting to arrive.  According to the Timor-Leste Ministry of Tourism, the numbers have gone up steadily over the last few years, hitting 26,714 in 2010.  This is great news, especially considering the difficulties Timor faces as a tourist destination.  While there is essentially no crime here that would concern tourists, most people remember Timor for its “recent” history of unrest – regardless of the fact that 1999 and even 2006 are long past.  For people who don’t think about TL every day, these events might as well have just happened.  And for someone to think about East Timor, they have to have heard of it in the first place – definitely a hurdle for Timor tourism.  But even if they have heard of it and are aware that it’d be an amazing place to visit, they may simply be unable to get here.  There are only 3 ways in or out of the country – Bali, Singapore, and Darwin – not necessarily easy places to get to themselves.  Luckily, prices of flights are going down and down, and the more people begin to hear about TL and the progress it’s making, the more will come and discover a place they won’t soon forget.

Timor from the air

I wrote this moths ago and never published it.  Oops!  Sorry!

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Before we could get on the plane, the pilot weighed each of us to make sure the plane wouldn’t be out of balance or too heavy.  It was a weird way to board a plane, and a weird thing to have your pilot doing, but when 4 passengers filled more than half the seats, I guess it wasn’t just any ordinary flight.

Timor Aid had kindly offered to let me go along on their day trip to Suai to demonstrate a project to one of their partners.  We all decided I should go to make things go smoothly, but in truth they were just giving me the gift of a trip to the districts.  And the district really was wonderful, different, beautiful, and a breath of fresh air from Dili, but it was the trip itself that was the best part.

In a six-seater prop plane, you’ve got the feeling that you are only inches away from the edge of the plane in all directions, so you’ve got a whole new experience from commercial airliners.  Your feet are resting on clouds, you have to crane your neck NOT to look out the window, the sound of the wind whipping past is obvious with your ear so near to it, and you might as well wear the jet stream as a jacket, it’s so close around you.

Along with the rush of feeling like you’re actually in flight, a small plane like that never really gets to high altitudes, so the landscape beneath you simply seems to miniaturize a bit, but never disappears, and all the details are still visible.  I’ve become attached to Timor, to the flora here that seems to change so rapidly from mile to mile, to the weather you can see affecting another part of the country while yours remains unphased, to its mountains that come straight up out of the ocean, to its coral lined beaches, to landscape and its contrasts.  Seeing it miniaturized just below us was breathtaking.  Flying above the turquoise coastline, recognizing the landmarks and realizing how few of them there are, weaving between mountains, above the forrest in Ermera, the towns of maybe 15 small houses, the one and only road that goes to Suai, I felt like I was seeing all the things I loved about Timor at once.  I was overwhelmed by its beauty and surprised by how emotional it made me to see that this country I’m starting to fall in love with is, in fact, more stunning than I could have imagined.

It felt like the whole country was laid out beneath us, all the things that made up the landscape of Timor-Leste were there to make the picture complete.  And it turned out that I was, in fact, seeing the whole country at once.  The flight lasted only 27 minutes, including take off and landing.  We spent the day seeing Suai, enthralled by an increased love of seeing Timor, then at 4 it was time to go home.  We left from an airport that again made me smile in it’s very Timorese-ness: there was no “airport” to speak of, but instead we drove straight onto the pothole filled runway, passing a cow as we drove towards the only plane.  A crowd of kids (from 5 to probably 18) were gathered around our plane and shook our hands and giggled.  We boarded and waved continuously to our welcome party while our pilot prepped for take off, then waved some more to the kids and goats who were all along the runway, racing the plane the whole way.

Workin Girl

I know, I know, I haven’t posted in forever  I was doing my best to put something up about once a week, but I’ve neglected my blog since mid-October.  You see, mid-October is when I started my new job, and not only did this throw a wrench into my routine, but it also leaves me totally exhausted every day and blogging just doesn’t make the cut.  Sorry!  I’ll try harder, I promise!

I am now officially working for the US Embassy as the Logistics Support Coordinator, which essentailly means I’m helping to give an organizational makeover to the Embassy warehouses that keep and issue supplies, track and move all furniture and non-expendable items for all Mission houses, and process & deliver all items that are purchsed by the US Embassy.  The warehouses are operated by two incredibly bright, dedicated, but overworked and under-trained guys who have been doing their best to just to get things to people who need them – the most basic function we have.  They’ve had no time to get the warehouse into any sort of organized shape, inventory their items, get rid of old or broken items, receive and issue things with any speed, or even properly learn the computer systems that track things for them.  And somehow they believed me when I said I thought I could help.  I’m just doing my best not to let anybody down and to provide some much needed direction and support.

So my life has changed a bit from the month before.  Even just one additional person is not enough to help out this warehouse, but I’m doing my best.  All that aside, this is me promising to get back on my blog horse and keep you all informed of my happenings here in Timor!

Round Trip Culture Shock

I didn’t plan to write about my trip to Bali or Thailand, as the point of this blog is to write about Timor and what it’s like for this “trailing spouse” (disgusting term, I know) to live here.  I thought for sure that my next blog entry would be about what it was like to come back to Timor after being away, which in part this is.  But I was surprised to find that temporarily leaving Timor was as much a part of the story as living here is.

We’ve only been here 3 months, and I was still well aware of how ridiculous the Dili “airport” was when we were preparing to leave the country, so I didn’t think I was going to experience culture shock.  Especially not in Indonesia, our next door neighbor and the country Timor mirrors in so many ways.  Bangkok, maybe, but Bali?  Certainly not.

Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong.  Shortly after landing, we got in a cab and drove to our hotel in nearby Kuta.  All I could think was “look at all the stores!  You can buy a painting here ANYWHERE!  They sell shoes and clothes here!  And Billboards!  Look, they have chain restaurants!  Oh my god, is that a Pizza Hut??  What IS this place?”  Kuta is a lot like Venice Boardwalk meets Kao San Road meets… Australia? – it’s a crowded little tourist trap packed to the gills with crap you don’t need, long-term hippy expat tourists, and shirtless Australian bros.  Shops selling “Balinese” items and clothes are stacked next to restaurants with “Balinese” food,with “Balinese” bars and “Balinese” performances around every corner.  Nothing about it is authentically Balinese at all, but it’s certainly a very authentically Kuta experience.  And driving in and out of Kuta & Denpasar, I kept thinking how nice everything looked compared to Dili, how the streets weren’t broken, the walls were ornate and beautiful decorated, the signs weren’t all dusty, there were gardens and statues everywhere, all well taken care of; for being so much like Timor, it felt incredibly different.

And possibly our night in Kuta lessened the culture shock I had in Bangkok, which is good, because otherwise I might have simply fainted.  We’ve been to Bangkok before, but that didn’t stop my eyes from popping out of my head when I went out my first morning.  I decided I should start off the day by shopping, which is possibly one of the most surprising experiences one can have after being in a place where there’s so little shopping to be had.  I headed out to the Siam area to hit one of maybe 6 enormous malls all in the same place.  I poked around Siam Paragon for a while – a proper Western style mall with shops like Gucci, Hermes, World of Electronics, a Ferrari store…you know, the norm.  I headed down to the food court for lunch, where I could have easily spent a whole day eating or simply trying to find my way out.  A Hokkaido milk store?  A Krispy Kreme?  MOS burger? Possibly 1,000 other shops?  Holy cow!  And finally I figured I’d take in a movie, seeing as how Dili doesn’t have a cinema.  Little did I expect that my choices would be IMAX, 3D, blockbuster movies that have just come out, etc.  I went with Three Muskateers in 4D.  Yep, 4D.  Unfortunately, I didn’t get to see the underground Ocean Aquarium – there just wasn’t enough time!

So Bangkok was a bit overwhelming, mostly in a good way.  It was a lot to take in, but it was definitely a change of pace, and a welcomed one.  What I found strange was what it was like to return to Bali only 6 days later.  Having thought it was so nice after being in Dili, I was surprised to find my impressions of the same streets had changed drastically.  Suddenly I was aware of how bad the sidewalks were, or how someone had just put up a sign with branches, or the fact that  buildings or streets that were “fixed” weren’t repaired in a way that returned them to their original condition.  How did I miss all of that on the way in, and/or why was I just noticing this now?  I guess humans just adjust that quickly.

After a couple days in Ubud, Bali, we headed back for Dili.  All that culture shock and all that travel had me worn out, and I was glad to touch down in our “airport.”  We asked a couple of people “so, what’s new in Dili? what’s changed?” and got reactions like “Dili is just…Dili,” along with some confused looks as to what we expected.  Things move slowly here, and we were only gone a week, so I suppose our questions might have seemed silly.  But after you’ve traveled to what feels like several other planets, you can’t help but think that you’ve been gone for light years and that things must have changed in your absence.  It’s good to find that they haven’t, though, and that coming back feels like coming home.

Uncooked Rice

Over the last 2 months, I’ve had the pleasure of being allowed to attend several of the INDMO/SEFOPE work groups for creating the new Foundations Course.  Essentially, a group of very talented Timorese people were coming together to create the framework for a series of vocational/general education courses.  The Foundations Course, as the series of classes are called, is intended for out-of-school youth and even those with low-literacy to receive basic and mid-level occupational and life training and be presented with nationally recognized certification for their completion.  This is the first time that such a framework has been created entirely by Timorese people.

I was pleased to get to witness this group in action, and occasionally even contribute something, though I will admit that at first, I was quite unclear what I was headed off to see.  A week into my time here at Timor Aid, I got in a car with Luisa and headed off to the “certificate training formation group.”  I kept asking Luisa if she was getting training, and if so what was she learning.  She kept smiling and trying to explain, but obviously I was seeing this as something totally different, and the fact that the whole day was in Tetun didn’t really help.  It wasn’t until I was put in a group and watched them discuss the standards for basic English education that I really started to understand what was happening.

Three sessions later, and we are nearly finished creating the competency standards.  People have debated and struggled, thrown out ideas, edited and edited and edited again, shared ideas and hopes, and pushed forward to create something totally new entirely for Timorese people, by Timorese people.  At the end of my last day, people were congratulating each other and realizing the importance of their struggles to do what they’ve just done.  The group leader for the day closes with a Timorese saying: “Give us the uncooked rice so that we may make it ourselves.”  And so they have, and I couldn’t be more pleased to have witnessed it.

Unpacking Run Amok

Our HHE arrived yesterday.  That’s all of our household effects we had in DC, plus the load of consumables we included in it.   Despite our mediocre efforts, we weren’t really as organized as we’d like to have been when the movers came.  And due to the location of our room and our utter exhaustion, we basically let the movers do it themselves with minimal supervision, simply pointing out a few things that we wanted packed with care.

So since our stuff was packed in utter chaos, it’s no big surprise that the unpack was like an explosion of material possessions.  You know what it’s like on Christmas morning?  A mess of wrapping paper and new things strewn about randomly in the livingroom, the excitement of having new things overpowering the feeling of dismay at the mess you’ve just made and will have to clean up?  Our house is like Christmas morning on crack.  Exciting new things and packaging are in every nook and cranny of the house.  Can you imagine if on Christmas morning, you had to unwrap not just everything new you got, but everything in the house, and you did it randomly in different rooms.  Piles and piles of clothes in the corners, half pieces of furniture and shoes in the bathroom, cables for unknown electronics in every room, furniture stacked on other furniture, boxes and boxes that couldn’t possibly have been labeled “kitchen” or “livingroom” as they contain completely random items from every part of the house (amp+blender+shoes+picture frames+medicine=good to go!), bottles of spices and cans of food spread across the table, the counter, the couch, the floor, the hallway.  I’ve never seen moving do anything like this to a house, nor have I ever spent 3 months away from all of my worldly possessions. I may have had to move mountains (of clothes) to get to my bed, but I’m so happy to sleep in my own bed again or play with my guitar or have new shampoo that I feel serene, even against this disastrous mess.

 

Better save up on sick-leave

I am deleting my post about mosquitoes due to the fact that it caused some reaction amongst certain concerned readers.  I’m fine, believe me.  And I’d rather not delete another post or censor my topics in the future based on how I think people will react.  This place isn’t all that easy sometimes, but I’m not  watering it down, so please don’t make it out to be worse than it is in my posts.    Please don’t force me to stop blogging altogether simply because worry get’s the best of you. Sometimes life is hard in developing places, but it’s also very pleasant the rest of the time.  That’s the nature of the game.

Gaijin Head Nod

I can’t help but compare my new home abroad to my old one – Japan.  For the most part, this really isn’t fair to East Timor.  Japan is a developed nation, full of exciting traditions and history, with games and toys and technology that make young-twenty somethings feel like a kid in a candy store.  The whole country is a playground.  East-Timor, on the other hand, is a 10 year old developing nation just managing to get on its feet, whose people have a lot less disposable income and whose history is a little depressing.

Nonetheless, Timor has managed to keep me entertained and remind me of the excitement of life overseas.  Just this past weekend, we went to a fair with international food stands and handicrafts, went snorkeling along the coral reef, and did a 5k walk/10k run for charity, plus we ate Indian food and found everything we were searching for at the markets in town.  Hokkaido has some tough competition for easiest place to live abroad, but then again Obihiro was a small town out in the boonies with a lot of snow and not a lot of Internationalism, and Dili is the capital city, so they really shouldn’t be compared at all.  But they are, and there’s one strange thing I miss from Japan that I don’t get here: the gaijin head nod.

Gaijin, or malae as we are called here in East Timor, are the foreigners.  In Hokkaido, there weren’t that many of us, so in your own small town, you mostly knew them all or knew of them.  Even in the Hokkaido capital of Sapporo, when you saw another foreigner, chances were that you knew them or would run into them again at some point.  So there was an understanding that you gave a slight nod or a smile – a meaningful look as you passed each other in a train station or on a bus or in a supermarket- something to say “hello, fellow expat.  I acknowledge our similar life choice, and I wish you well.”

So where is my malae head nod?  Hmm?  I guess after so much time in Japan, I got used to my eyes seeking out the gaijin in a crowd since there was a strong possibility I knew them.  So I find myself surprised when the malae don’t look at you as you pass.  There are a lot of malae here in Dili, sure, but not so many that we should pretend we are total strangers.  The circles are small, we’re bound to run into each other, to know several people in common, and in the end you’ve made a similar choice to come to this remote part of the world to live, so isn’t that enough to bond us together for a simple look of recognition?  Don’t you even want to see if maybe you know me from somewhere?  Why are you looking down, away, anywhere but meeting my accusatory glance that’s screaming “HEY!  I’M FOREIGN TOO!  WE ARE FRIENDS NOW!”???  Ok, perhaps my glance is coming on a little strong, and your head nod needs room to breathe.  But I’m gonna see you at some event at some point and be introduced to you by name, and then your head nod is going to be all kinds of embarrassed.

Taxi Drivers

So this was a stream of consciousness post about how all taxi drivers in Timor are jerks, but I’ve deleted my rant in favor of something more productive: a warning.  For those of you who travel to East Timor in the near future, I urge you to find another way around other than using taxis.  We were under the misconception that getting a car here from an exiting expat would be easy, but we were totally wrong – people searching for a car should be aware of that ahead of time as well.  The embassy allows us a car for 30 days for work-related trips (i.e. to and from work), and our new friends have kindly brought us with them to many different places, but sometimes you have someplace else to go on your own, or the free embassy car runs out, and you have to take a cab.

But don’t.  Do what you can to avoid it.  In all reality, some of the taxi drivers are nice people.  But inevitably you will meet one or two who are not, and this is just not worth the risk.  I have no idea how they make money with so many of them around, and they have to be bored and poor, so they get up to some unappreciated antics.  If I’m with a group, nothing ever seems to go wrong – I think we just out-number the driver, so he never tries anything stupid.  But when I’m on my own, they act like jerks.  It’s regular practice for them to try to get you to pay more than you agreed to when you got in the car, often claiming that’s what you said. One time the guy even had the audacity to smirk at me and looked embarrassed, like he knew we both knew it was a lie but he was just going to try it anyway.  Then there are the more lecherous drivers, who slide their hand down your arm when they go to take your money or hold on to your hand a bit too long or say things in another language they think you won’t understand.  If you’re sitting in the front seat, they can grope you and there’s little you can do about it (as a friend of mine unfortunately learned, and as the embassy now warns us), but don’t think that the backseat is any safer, as the cars are pieces of junk and often have broken door handles, so drivers have an excuse to lean into the backseat and put their hands on you.  Taxi’s also stop running at night for the most part, and there’s really only one safe night cab (790-7363 – timorlestenightaxi@gmail.com) but the others will try to get you to pay exorbitant amounts or even demand your wallet.

What’s most frustrating is that taxi drivers SO do not represent the general Timorese population.  So many of the people I’ve met are amazing and kind and funny and just all-around wonderful.  Even today, when I came in to work upset (I learned first hand today that sitting in the back seat is no safer), my coworker comforted me and got so angry that anyone would do that in her country that she threatened to write to the government, the taxi drivers, and to go tell her brother to help make it stop.  So yes, the taxi drivers do not represent the Timorese people, so do yourself a favor and avoid them so that you can just enjoy the rest of the amazing population.

You Are Listening To: Homesickness

Bret just left for a 3 day work trip to the Cova Lima district, where he’ll be very busy and most likely out of cell phone range.  It always makes me a little bit melancholy when he leaves and is totally unreachable.  Since he left quite early this morning and the house was so quiet, I decided to listen to some music while I got ready.  Which is when the homesickness slapped me in the face.

My iTunes was on my Puerto Rico playlist that Stephen made when we were all sitting around one evening in San Juan.  My heart grew heavy as I sat and listened to the songs that remind me of home, that pull me back to car rides and porch time in DC.  The soundtracks of other times in my life start to flash across my mind.  What’s New In Music’s playlist, Sarah’s car CD from San Diego, New Order and all those songs that bring me back to Venice, Dixie Chicks and artists that make me miss my family, the entire Rock Band repertoire, Dolly Parton and Mika and the Fun CD, 90′s music parties, the Badass Car soundtrack, Ace of Base and all the many many songs that made up my youth, The Beatles, musicals, Johnny Cash, all those amazing karaoke songs, Disney songs and the people I’ve bonded with over our love of them… Before I know it, my head is swimming with all these bittersweet symphonies, forcing a melancholy smile to my face as I long for people and places in times gone by.

Strange how music does this to us, isn’t it?  It doesn’t take long to bond with someone over a song and then you think of them when you hear it, and it’s rare that a song doesn’t make us think of a place or a time when we used to listen to it.  We don’t listen to music just because we like the beat but also because of how it makes us feel, and how much of that is the memories attached to it?  In a place like this, when home seems so far away, it’s good to have a little slice of it here with me whenever I need it, but sometimes it just makes me miss it more.