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Tonight I am thinking critically about filing systems.

Taking a break from trying to figure out what the heck the proposed electoral law says (it is, as is de rigueur, in Portuguese), today I ran a meeting on NDI program activities. The meeting was part of a larger project that should be titled: What is NDI actually doing? I thought that previous interviews with NDI field staff were for my benefit, but now I realize they are also for Telibert’s.

When Telibert became the director East Timor operations, he took over a ship already under sail. He was then promptly evacuated.

Now that things have settled down, the office is trying to get moving both before the rainy season makes roads impassible and the elections gear-up. The substance of NDI’s work is to train suko – the equivalent of city councils – to be more effective. The office in Dili, however, is away from the action, as trainings take place in the districts; today’s purpose was therefore to take stock what we are doing on the ground. I have come to NDI during a period of review – a process made candid by the fact that the director’s ego isn’t married to existing practice.

The agenda for the three-day trainings is set by a government agency (INAP). During the meeting the field staff went through two days worth of material on formal letter writing and filing systems. It seemed like such a crock – sukus get $50 per month, often have no offices or computers let alone secretarial staff, and key members may be illiterate. Why are we sitting the community down to talk about heading format?

Camillo, one of the trainers, said that when he asks the participants what a filing system is people respond that it is a type of rope. Telibert interrupted and asked why they made this connection – were the words similar, perhaps? Camillo responded no, people say ‘rope’ because in order to explain filing systems he used the metaphor of collecting eucalyptus wood, a common way for people to make a living:

In East Timor, men go into the dry, open eucalyptus stands and gather the tight bundles of wood that one sees on all the roadsides. Filing systems are ways to collect papers, tie then together and then stack them neatly. Not bad. Camillo also added the clutch detail that after teaching participants about using the hole-puncher he makes them clean up.

Overall, however, I think that Telibert shared my incredulity, and he asked the trainers how they felt teaching the sukus how to use hole-punchers, etc. “Senti contenti” said Mana Domingas – “I feel contented.” Her perspective is that the sukos don’t have some basic skill, skills that NDI can teach.

It reminded me of how I felt earlier when Elsty, the office manager, brought me my own business cards, or earlier in this year when I pieced together a suit. While I understand that these are party favors for joining the larger, capitalist system that would eventually require long days in an office, they also sing of importance. Sukos should have a filing system because it brings them into the club. I would argue that the system makes the correspondence worth saving, rather than the reverse.

And why shouldn’t suko have decent filing systems and have the skills to write letters requesting funding? There has been some writing pushing back against the mandate to use “appropriate technology” in development projects, calling it a euphemism for out-moded junk. So I say, give them the good stuff! (Or see Borges's example of afiling system.)

So tonight, I am trying to think critically about filing systems. Do they communicate respect? Do they discipline a Western mode of communication and memory? Are filing skills relevant? To whom? To what?

This is what a curfew will do to you.

Note: The pictures are part of a new project entitled “A Photographic Guide to the White 4x4s of the Democratic Republic of Timor Leste.” Top – Portuguese Embassy; Middle – ICRC; Below – UN, rare utility variant.