Flag Day

The Palacio was looking swish yesterday. The flags were up, and, presumably, the government was getting underway. Parliamentarians have begun a UN-led training workshop, and new committees and a new budget are on the horizon.

Following the parliamentary elections I did some number crunching to get at the question: What has changed?

In my view, these are the three major points:
1. Consolidation: Half of the parties represented in the outgoing body will not have seats and there are fewer parties overall.
2. FRETILIN's Losses: The strength of returning parties has shifted, and, in the case of FRETILIN, dramatically.
3. Rise of New Parties: The three parties new to parliament will hold a third of the seats.

These are expanded upon below and more fully illustrated with the pie charts that I posted on 3 August. To refresh, this is the 2007-2012 seat configuration: FRETILIN 21, CNRT 18, ASDT/PSD 11, PD 8, PUN 3, KOTA/PPT 2, and UNDERTIM 2.

- There has been a 42 % reduction in the number of parties/coalitions represented in Parliament. To reduce of the number of small parties was one of the main reasons for using the 3 % threshold, and it succeeded in knocking out PNT and PDRT. Without the threshold the results would have been FRETILIN 21, CNRT 17, ASDT/PSD 10, PD 8, PUN 3, KOTA/PPT 2, UNDERTIM 2, PNT 1, and PDRT 1.

- PDC, PL, PNT, PST, UDT, and UDC will no longer have seats in parliament. These were small parties, together holding nine seats (10% of the 88-seat parliament). Of these six parties, PL and UDC did not field candidates in the 2007 election. There no independent members in the 2007-2012 body.

- The breakdown of seats among the reelected parties has shifted, the clearest example being the loss of seats by FRETILIN. In the last parliament, FRETILIN controlled 61.4 %. In the new parliament, they will hold 32.3 % of the seats.

- The changes are subtler for the other parties. Both PD and the ASDT/PSD coalition slightly increased their shares of parliamentary seats. PD has gained a seat, and the party will now control 12.3 % of the body, up from 7.9 %.

- As a coalition, ASDT and PSD (each of which held six seats in the 2002 body) lost a seat. However, because of the reduction of parliament to 65 seats, the coalition will control 16.9 %, up from 13.6 %.

- The strength of KOTA and PPT, which each held two seats in the outgoing parliament, has been reduced somewhat. In the new parliament, they will share two seats – a reduction in control from 4.6 % to 3.1 %.

- Of the three parties new to the parliament, PUN and CNRT were only formed in 2007. UNDERTIM was established in 2005. The implication is that these parties do not have as developed networks, identities and teams as more established groups. These new parties now control over one third of parliament.

The 2007 elections are behind us; let's see if this new parliament can get down to work and do some good. Bona fortuna!

Total Eclipse

At night Dili is dark. The streetlights are few, and, looking up into the hills around the city, electric lights are outnumbered by small fires. In the evenings, the moon first emerges from behind the radio towers.

Tuesday was a total eclipse, an event visible, according to NASA from “the United States and Canada as well as South America, the Pacific Ocean, western Asia and Australia.” I looked up diagrams on Sydney observatory and NASA sites, called Mustang, and packed up my spotting scope. That evening we threw down towels and sarongs on her little lawn in Tasi Tolu and stretched out for a look.

I have watched lunar eclipses before; the last one was on 21 October 2004 – a date that was easy to confirm, as it corresponded with the Red Sox’s game-seven victory against the Yankees and the sudden, delirious eruption of Providence onto the streets beneath my dorm’s terrace.

Mustang and I were getting into it, trying to see if parts were getting darker or lighter, talking about Valkyries and musical theater and listening to unforgivable karaoke coming from her neighbor’s house.

Then the banging started. First a steady thump on a pole at some distance, but then echoed on another metal post, closer. A sign of trouble. Upon arrival it was drilled into me that if people start to close shops and if there is rhythmic banging, get the heck out of there. We looked around, saw some kids rushing indoors, grabbed the blankets and hustled inside.

It turned out that there was nothing to be concerned about. This is how it was later explained to me: Some people believe that when the moon turns red, and begins to fade, that it is dying. They hit buckets and bang poles to ‘drum’ it back to life, for, if the moon dies, it will fall into the sea and bring about the end of the world.

On Tuesday, across the city and perhaps the country, people made noise to convince the moon to not give up. Dili is not like New York or London or Jakarta – the night sky is close and clear. The moon lights many streets more consistently than the power stations. Not forewarned and armed with NASA diagrams, I imagine that the rusting of the moon felt unsettling, eerie or at least worth a look. A friend confirmed the latter when told me that she saw two men emerge from brothel just to take a quick peek.

Bon Voyage

At the end of the week I head out for about a month - my first trip home in a year. I am estatic to see everyone as well as for my brief stops along the way. With a public holiday on Thursday, I have only three days left of work. Counting down...

Flour Power

This takes the cake:

Have your cake and eat it too?
Let them eat cake?

Three cheers for the brilliant baker of Beach Road.

Breathing in Bali (Photos added)

Once Dili gets under your skin, sunk into your imagination and concerns, it can be hard to shake. I think my sister understands that; upon leaving she said that Bali was beautiful - green rice paddies, rushing water, and frangiopani flowers - but that going to Timor-Leste had been special.

I took Jess straight up to Ubud. It has a bit of a hippie vibe - lots of wheatgrass colonics and dangling power crystals - and yoga classes. My first was a bit funny. The teacher, who wore reading glasses and flared, corn-flower blue spandex pants, said that it would be a "gentle class," and we spent the first 10 minutes breathing in and out while trying to follow her sweeping, unpredictable gestures.

Inhale (arms up), exhale (arms down), inhale (finger into a triangle around the belly button), exhale (raise the triangle to the nose), inhale (one arm up, the other out), exhale (arms behind), etc, etc.

I am glad Jess opted for a run instead - I wouldn't have been able to keep a straight face as I flailed for the sake of my neglected chakras.

Perhaps more beneficial for my inner health, however, was a long evening siting cross-legged on the couches of an open organic cafe with Jess, dipping bites of bittersweet chocolate cake into our cappuccinos. We did lots of walking and window shopping, talked easily.

I am back in Kuta now, and with my sister already back in the States, I feel ready to get back to the quotidian: Starco, Tetum, tomatoes on toast (Jess's and my favorite "hmmm, let's just stay in tonight" dinner), porch sitting, and taking care of my laundry. I feel ready to get back to work and back into the loop. The yoga teacher, inhale, would say that detachment isn't my strong suit. Exhale.

Dili Update

Jess has come to Timor-Leste at a difficult time. At the beginning of the week evidence of roadblocks and unrest was more visible and closer to me than it had ever been in March. The Customs House looks terrible.

Today and yesterday have been much calmer, and the UNPOL, ISF and GNR are on all major roads. Although things may be getting on track, we decided to head to Bali on Sunday, a bit earlier than expected.

Things were already heating up before Jess arrived. I was rocked for the first time at the end of July; it hit my door – very loudly – right after I rolled my window back down. The road was pitch dark and empty, and we just kept moving. I told my companion that it was a meteorite.

I didn’t anticipate things deteriorating as they did. Upon picking Jess up from the airport I took pains to point out the dark pocks on the road, shadows left of burnt tires (a Reading the Forested Landscape for urban unrest). Wasted breath! Doubly so, as she was already totally distracted by a knot of baby goats.*

I am not sure if she has felt unsafe. Some of it has been absurd: on Tuesday morning, clear and tropics bright, we walked past My Fali food center and saw a young guy dragging eucalyptus branches into the street through tire ash and glass. Once he was about half way across, a GNR patrol came gunning towards him, and he zipped back into the IDP camp. As soon as the patrol passed he popped back out. All the people hanging around seemed amused by his beaver-like drive to close off the road.

Nights feel different, and the toughest time for me was after pilates in Balide on Tuesday. As soon as I was up off the mat I started calculating the four different ways home – balancing directness against recent reports of problems. Both Jess and I understand that she’s flying blind, and on the porch, squinting out at the road, I kept thinking about if we caught a rock on the route I’d picked. These decisions become much harder when a person you love so much is your passenger.

I think that we’re out of the woods. And in some ways this is a useful time for a family member to visit. She has been able to see that when headlines shout “Dili is Burning!” we can still be drinking green wine under the stars, that friends check in on each other, and that I there is always verdant Bali if things in Timor-Leste get too hot.

* Is there a group noun for baby goats? A gambol of kids?



Photos: In forty years Jess may not remember Dili, and she’ll look back at the photos she took here and think that it was some kind of glorified farm tour. Heavy emphasis on the baby goats and piglets.

Announcement

It has been almost a month of speculation, interpretation, and consternation. In Dili we've been reading the reports and the tea leaves, hoping for a glimpse into how the deadlock over which group - FRETILIN with its 21-seat plurality or the CNRT-ASDT-PSD-PD post-election alliance with 37 seats (57% of parliament) - will be chosen by President Ramos-Horta to present a prime minister.

The announcement has been put off repeatedly, but today it actually happened. At around three thirty Jess and I got ready. We hole-punched Jess's old Boston College photo ID and strung it on a blue lanyard so that she could be official. We grabbed a camera and a cab and headed out to Caicoli.

Once everyone was in the room for the announcement, Jess took pictures and I scribbled notes. It was a good speach - delivered clearly and slowly, emphasizing that the constitution gives the president a choice - the most-voted party or the party or alliance with the majority - and that he had chosen the alliance based on viability.

In closing, the President called upon the people to give the new Prime Minister the opportunity to rule, a chance. It was an appropriate inversion: although it had ultimately been Ramos-Horta's decision to pick the PM, it will be the people's choice to let Gusmão begin his work.

Jess and I walked home via Mercado Lama, riding the rush of excitement. As we turned into Audeon it also became clear that we should stay in for the night. Balide, Santa Cruz, Comoro - beep beep, beep beep (another text) - all these neighborhoods were starting to heat up. Restrict movement. Lay low.

But it was a good day, an important day, and I was glad that Jess was here to squeeze in behind the TV cameras with me to see the beginning of the new government, the first line of a new chapter.

Parliament Graphics

Sometimes visuals help.

I made these charts right after the parliamentary election, and they illustrate two key changes in the composition of the National Parliament: first, a consolidation of power among fewer parties and coalitions. Second, the more even distribution of power amongst those parties.




The first graph makes me think of the 2006 Lusophone Games fustal match (five-a-side soccer) pitting Brazil against Timor Leste. Brazil scored once every 31 seconds; in a 40 minute game, this doesn't make for good soccer. Real competition has its benefits.

Offline - Online

It's been a while since I've written - a combination of taking on a research project, elections, and mild allergy to my computer. The last I blame somewhat on Mustang, who found herself a cottage by the sea. While she was on her circumnavigation, I found myself, limpet-like, attaching myself her porch, slowly grazing through her bookshelf and my library of cast-offs.

With the help of Goode I got a good bicycle brought in from Darwin, an arrival that happened serendipitously as all three work cars went into meltdown. I've been riding around town, avoiding potholes instead of rushing over them, smelling the stink of the gutters and ringing my little bell for kiddos. (That is when I don't have a flat.) I'm in a Luddite phase - a pushbike, non-virtual, get up with sunrise and roosters kind of phase.

The photos are from a spontaneous road trip at the end of June. The mother of one of our field organizers passed away, and on that Wednesday morning, without thinking twice, almost the entire office emptied - including the gardener - and we jumped in the car, and rode 3.5 hours to Maliana for the laying out of the body. This is my third funeral, ne'er a wedding, and I am getting used to the ritual.

After viewing the body, we sit, eat some noodles or rice, and chat. There is a very well developed plastic chair economy here, and I see trucks bumping through Dili moving tilting stacks of rainbow chairs from weddings to wakes, back and forth. And on my turquoise chair in Maliana, I was struck that everyone there had done the same thing: dropped work to go sit and talk quietly as the kids run around. After about 40 minutes we got back in the car and rode the 3.5 hours back to Dili.

I talked about this with a number of friends when I got back - the different priorities, the willingness to drop everything. But there was some irony that those conversations happened amongst people who have decided to be continents away from their families, making those gestures very difficult.

So with this in the back of my mind, it is wonderful to say that my family is coming across continents to be with me: my sister has already begun her trans-Pacific journey. She'll get in on Saturday, and I could not be more excited.



Photo: A happy staffer with a load of fresh shrimp bought en route back to Dili. To keep them from stinking up the car we hung them off the back windsheild wiper.

The bottom photo is looking west into Indonesian West Timor.