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.