“Malae, Malae!”

It's the fourth week in Timor-Leste. Things have started to assume a routine. Every morning I leave my home and walk through the kampung heading into the city. During my previous visits, the neighbours three year old girl would always run out and high-five me. Sometimes equipped (as Tanja can recall) with a parang – a large knife. She has not been around recently though, and I'm not sure why. Her many siblings however, will still greet me with their tussled curly brown hair, as they hang over the their fence, play with the rooster, or while playing marbles. Bondia, Botarde, and Bonoite are our custom, along with a nod of the head, and a hand waved at each other. That and the chorus of kids squealing “Malae, Malae!” though they have started to get used to me by now. Malae basically means foreigner. My language teacher Jocinta explained to the class that there are three categories of Malae. There are the white Malae, the black Malae, and the chinese. All Asians are Chinese by definition here. China has a very strong grasp on this little countries' little economy. The foreign ministry for example, was a gift. And we all know how it is with gifts and reciprocity. 

The street that I live on, would not be classified as Esplanada, or even estrada, but the smaller, tetun word: dalan. It was once paved with asphalt, but the truth is that half of this has crumbled, and we are left with a road almost impassable. Along it, dogs lounge in the sun, and huge pigs and their many piglets sift through rubbish. Roosters can be heard everywhere, irrespective of the time of day, and there is a general constant animal commotion that takes a while to get used to. Towards the end of my street, the road opens up to the Bidau Santana cemetry. It is quite large, and unfortunately, frequently used. Thus I have encountered over four funeral processions in these past few weeks alone. One was the funeral of a young girl of twenty, killed by the church of another funeral, by a reckless driver. Saturday a very large procession walked through the suco dressed in black to commemorate the late wife of the former Xefe do Suco. Whom helped Tanja and I with our project.

The street ends on a bigger road – the beach road. Make no mistake, big is to be taken into context. On the other side is the beach, and the small shelters made by fishermen of bamboo and tarps, some of which are printed with familiar abbreviations such as “IOM” or “UNHCR”. It is small traces such as these that keep reminding me that it is not so long since this country was founded, and only a few years since it last fell into chaos. The fishermen boats are lined up on the pebbled beach, painted colourfully, leaning on their support rafts.

In the mornings, and in the afternoons, freshly caught fish (or like today, lobster) are hanging in the trees, waiting to be sold to in the course of the day. While most days only provide smaller fish, every now and then, you will turn a corner and come face to face with an enormous creature dangling from a tree. The suco that I live in is known as a fishing community, and recently had some disagreements with the government when the government decided to build a wall along the beach. This did not sit well with those who obviously need the beach to land their fishing boats on. Therefore, the wall now starts some way before Bidau Santana, stops at our beach, and then continues on the other side.

Once on the main road, one heads to the left to reach the city. Every morning I pass by the Suco office where inevitably Xefe do Suco Fransisco waves at me greets me with Bondia! And the follow up questions, Diak ka Lai? And Ba Nebee? After confirming that I am Diak – good – I struggle for words to explain in tetun where I am going. When walking around the kampung, along the main road, or along the dalan of the Manumata aldeia (sub village) that I live in, people always ask me where I am going. “Bondia Senyora, ba nebee?”. While this may seem useless knowledge, it is the polite thing to do, and as I grow more accustomed to my home here, I realise that its is a good way for the community to keep updated. Thus, everyone now knows that I was going to buy a bicycle, that I have now bought a new bicycle, and that the pedal has fallen off. The word has spread.

(very happy to have a reading light in my room under the staircase)

The new bike was bought in a little store across from the Presidential office (palace). After searching for a bike for two weeks. I was shopping for a reading lamp (since two weeks of being unable to read in my room after nightfall was driving me crazy), and had just found a hardware store to buy an extension electricity cable for it. While the store did not have a cable, they were able to sell me the components. A friendly gentleman was helping me ought in my attempts to explain what I needed in three different languages, and after paying at the counter, he started to assemble the cable for me. I made polite conversation, and asked him where he was from meaning; where in Timor. He answered, the PNTL. The timorese police force. It occurred to me now that this man ought not be assembling my power cable, seeing as he was probably also a customer in the store, rather than an employee as I had first assumed. This should perhaps have been obvious, the nice suit and shoes taken into consideration. We made some more conversation, and I explained my difficulties in finding a bicycle. Having finished my cable, he asked if he could give me a ride to the Presidential palace to find the store. I felt it would be rude to decline, since he had taken the trouble to fix my cable for me, and cautiously accepted. As we exited the store, he told his police officers that were waiting outside, decked out in full gear, that he was going to look for a bicycle with me, and off we went in the police car. He had an interesting story, having been working on the Timorese border for the last many years, and having worked for the Indonesian police during the occupation. I was starting to worry slightly, but we found the shop, and I hopped out. I found my dream bike. The cheapest yet, ticking in at only 170 dollars compared to the 500 I had been warned I might have to cash out. This bike is an army green, with red metal emblems with golden Chinese writing. Yes, it looks like it just came out of communist china. The PNTL gentleman dropped me off at the World Bank office.

On a different note – I have now got a new job. An unpayed volunteer job, but a work to do nonetheless. I will be working for the organisation Ita Nia Rai. Our Land. Timor doesn't have a land law yet. It will be implemented hopefully in the start of the next year. However, few people hold any certificate or proof that they own the land. Often the land belongs to the community, and with the high degree of internal displacement, a lot of disagreements regarding who owns which land, arise. Ita Nia Rai travels out to the districts and literally measures the land and consults with the owners, and the neighbours, to agree where the borders are. Ita Nia Rai then leaves the gathered information in the community for a select period of time allowing people to contest the claims for land. Most disputes are settled locally, other times they will have to wait for the land law to see who was 'right'. My job is to manage the new audit team, and we will be checking various cases to ensure that things have been done correctly, and gradually to ensure a high quality of work. Making suggestions for improvement in for example training. The team will consist of three local staff, and myself.

Socialising with foreigners here is quite interesting. The first questions after “What's your name again?” is always where are you from, and who are you working for. A Norwegian girl called Ingrid Martine is here to write her masters in collaboration with the European commission. She hosted a barbecue last weekend, and it was a nice opportunity to meet a lot of interesting people. We grilled fresh fish on a tire rim found in a scrap heap, and drank wine outside on her veranda til late in the evening. Young people from Portugal, England, Australia, Brazil, Norway and more, working as lawyers, volunteers, with immigration, with land rights, with the ministry. Everyone has an interesting story, and as there are few people in Timor, the social circle is small but inclusive, and there are frequent shifts as people move on, or move in. It was a very nice evening, and left me feeling more confidant than ever that it was the right decision to move to Timor-Leste. And while this is not the same place, I want to share the beautiful sunset as seen from my house the other day:

As mentioned last, I had the chance to volunteer at the Suco to help with some English teaching. It was an interesting experience, and the class of about 10 girls ages six to ten were all very endearing and shy. They seemed a little confused when I introduced a ball game to teach them English, but soon they were yelling “My name is... What is your name?” to their hearts content. I was supposed to teach them to say things like “How is your mother?” “My mother is fine.” and while this may seem like no problem at all in our countries, it is a bit rough when you smile and ask a girl, and her response is simply “My mother is dead.” And once again, it is things like this that remind you of the conditions of this country, like talking to people and hearing that they have fourteen children, of which five have died. Timor is no walk in the park, and maternal and child health are very low. It is a country with a brutal history, and hopefully a better future.

While I used to think to myself that I hoped to look back on this country in ten years and think “Yes, I was a part of that progress” I think it is more realistic to look back in 20 years and hope that it is not a failed state. There are many things that can go wrong here, with the lacking infrastructure, with a population suffering from post-traumatic stress, and a mismanaged wealth in petroleum. I hope the future is bright, and I hope those girls will find their English skills useful. While we might learn two languages in the west, the kids here really need to be able to speak four just to get a decent job later in life. Its not an easy situation, and I must admit that I am relieved that I am a malae.