Softened by cardboard

Luckily for the security guard I had one of my longer sleeps which means he slept almost to 6am. As I put water into the kettle I could hear him rolling up his cardboard from the cement balcony immediately at the front of my door. I opened the door to ensure it really was one of the security guards and it seemed to be. Glad he got some sleep.

Daily to sleep on hard cement? And even in this tropical build up to wet season the cold would seep into your sleep which in turn would remind you of each bone that ached from the unforgiving surface.

My privacy has been imposed upon, with this newer arrangement of some of the guards using my balcony.

the downstairs makeshift pallet for sleeping

However my security has increased.  The UNPOL (United Nations Police made up from many donor countries) Spanish pair who live downstairs in their separate house but in the same house yard as me, pay for the security guards. Up until the months I was away in Australia, the guards used to always sleep outside the downstairs house. When I got back to Dili I noticed that the guards now use my balcony during the day and also at night.

Part of me wants them gone. I have to start to wear clothes just to go to the toilet in the middle of the night or I need to get heavier curtains. I must put back up the kitchen curtains as that window was safe from street level eyes. But now a great view for someone on the balcony. Yet who am I to complain?

I already have so much. Each time I sleep in my lovely bed in my well decorated and pleasing master bedroom I know people are sleeping on cement. Why does that not bother more people in the world, is more of a bother? Besides there was violence between young men mid morning yesterday which involved one badly bleeding man seeking sanctuary at the house of the police commander who was out at work but it’s well known as his residence. The group violence as young men armed with metal stakes, machetes and short timber posts shouted and ran and chased each other, sent local families scattering and the large metal gates in everyone’s driveways were clanging shut behind those not involved in the manhunt. The rest of the day Timorese and some occasional UN police were patrolling the street long after the sirens from the ambulance had faded.

Part of me still wishes for the return of my privacy where there is no young man sleeping literally at my front door. Part of me is glad that the UNPOL lads downstairs have arranged that our joint house compound has these guards nearby and who am I to quibble over where they choose to sleep.

Community Spear fishing

Three men stand thigh high in water with spears over head. Two more have a net 10 metres away. There is a splash. Large splashing in the water near the men, where a fish is moving on the surface. At least a metre between splashes and the sound carries over 500metres to the beach where I sit with a book unread.  Big enough splash and fin movement, to be a tuna or a small shark? Surely not a dolphin?

One man runs from the shoreline with his spear. The first three gather and then one strikes into the water. And strikes again. And again. There is splashing. One man crouches down into the water. Some children who were playing near me, run the long way around the shoreline watching the space, where now there is no splashing. The two men with their net move a little further away and throw it again. The canoe is used for the large fish caught. I can not see. The canoe sits lower in the water.

The tide continues to go out. There was a huge high tide earlier, followed by one of the lowest lowest low tides. The reef along the beach forms a natural fish trap. More men join the group with their spears. Spread out they form a circle over the shallowest part, the circle having diameter of about 300metres. Children join the circle, with no spear but imitating the men, with their legs lifted high as they step quietly and eyes peering. All peering into the water looking for fish caught in the shallow water.

In parts the mud flats show clearly, in an area usually filled with mild surf. The canoe balances nearby.

The men circle slowly. Sometimes they throw a spear. And throw again. I do not see any big activity. No big fish caught. No little fish. Men circling as the sky turns yellow then pink. More men join with their spears. Some running along the shoreline around to the point, where it is now completely dry and they walk the mud to the circle. Still no fish found.

All that effort. And the community coming together to stand in a rarely dry beach area as this tidal phenomenon takes them back to the days of no clocks, no one going off to work in an office and no tourists on their beach. A time of a community working together, following the patterns of the earth.

Except they catch no fish. Well other than the larger fish caught by the first three men who had been out there since the tide had begun to turn.

It was spellbinding for me. The water, the reef in a horizontal line behind the loosely formed open circle, spears drawing lines into the pink sky. A child scrabbling after a crab nearby as his brother watched as I did, the spears. A toddler in the circle cries and a man picks him up, with his spear in the other hand and indicates to the grandmother nearby not to come out into the mud as he will return the toddler. The toddler stops crying. The sky turns pinker. The man hands the children to the woman but stays near her, watching too.

Still no fish. The spears are black lines held high. The sun sets. 

Romanticizing the ‘simple life’ of living off the land and how ‘local people seem so peaceful’ is all too common and awful a conversation to listen to from tourists and some expats. To view dirt floor kitchens, daily husking of rice and the fetching of water as completely different to an urban lifestyle in a western style city makes sense. To draw conclusions about how the people in the bamboo hut must be peaceful and ‘better off in many ways’ seems over simplified to me.

There was no fish feast that night.

Brown girl in the ring

Tra la la la la
One month in Dili.  So much I have in mind about my marvelous welcoming introduction to this country, but mostly I am humming along to “show me your motion” in my head!

The kids of the neighborhood are singing Bony M’s song. Singing in Tetum or possibly Indonesian and they only seem to know/like the chorus.
There was that moment, where I thought of the Good News Week show on Australian tv, where they sing a song using funny texts and from the tune alone, team mates guess the song. This time I was bopping along to the tune and humming along, before consciously realized/remembered that it was Boney M.

Means Timor will likely be similar to mainland south east Asia, where many classics of western songs are redone in local languages. Let’s hope that there is not that ghastly Black Eyed Peas song MyHump, My Hump, which I had to listen to on repeat for hours, from a neighbor in Ratanakiri! It is horrid in English in my opinion and redone with sympathizers and Khmer language did it no favours, I reckon. (actually am a fan of B.E. Peas but not when singing about ‘Lady Lumps’ – ugh)

So Boney M is quite classy as a kids singalong outside my window. Don’t suppose the kids will ever realize that what they are singing has a long association with children, as apparently the original was a children’s game in the Caribbean region.