It’s been a long time since my last blog entry so I’ve got a lot to tell you all. First and foremost, I just finished a final draft of my new novel, Pulling Down the Stars, weighing in at a mere 86,000 words. Timor-Leste has been a fertile ground for my creativity and I feel like I’ve done some excellent writing here. I’ve had large blocks of time to dedicate to my craft and few distractions. I’m pretty excited by what I’ve been able to produce, but now comes the difficult part –finding a good publisher that I can forge an ongoing relationship with and trust to look after me. Fingers crossed!

 In other great news, I recently got accepted into the Asialink Writing Residency Program for 2012. This is a major coup and a real privilege. The Asialink program is highly competitive and I want to thank The Australian Council for the Arts, the Malcolm Robertson Foundation and Asialink for seeing the merit in my application and for having faith in me as an emerging writer. I also want to thank them for the $10, 000 they have placed in my bank account! I begin my Asialink residency at Arte Moris on the 1st of January 2012. Arte Moris is a free art school for Timorese where I have been teaching English voluntarily for the past 5 months. Having already invested time at Arte Moris, I am in the advantageous position of not having to start ‘fresh’. I have already  established a great working relationship with my hosts. So I should be able to get the most out of my time with them. I think I’m wanting to start the planning process for my third novel: conduct interviews, develop character profiles, journal my heart out, reflect on cultural experiences, experiment by writing a short story or two, and begin the search for a compelling narrative. 
 
But stop! The good news doesn’t end there. During November and December it has been my absolute privilege to work as 1st Assistant Director on the set of Timor-Leste’s first ever full length feature film: A Guerra da Beatriz. Working with the creative people involved has been amazing and exhausting. In order to make the film, seasoned Australian film crew members, many involved in films such as Balibo, have donated their time to partner up with aspiring Timorese crew members who want to develop their own skills within the film industry. This capacity building model has been truly fantastic and very effective. I have personally watched the Timorese crew grow in their skills and confidence as crew members. 

 Now, rather than me bang on about it, here is detailed info about the film from the Fair Trade Films website. Please note that they are still looking for financial donations:

 MEDIA  RELEASE

FAIRTRADE FILMS presents A Guerre Da Beatriz

 Invest in East Timor’s First Feature Film

  Train East Timor’s Future Filmmakers

 Make History

 FairTrade Films

 FairTrade Films Australia is currently working together with young East Timorese producers, writers and actors on East Timor’s first locally produced feature film, A Guerra Da Beatriz, a powerful love story spanning the years 1975 – 2002. It will be in the Tetum language.

 SBS Television has acquired the film for broadcast in Australia.  This will guarantee a significant audience when the film is screened.

 FairTrade Films will produce the film with Dili Film Works, East Timor's first film & television production company.

 John Maynard, the producer of Balibo, has joined FairTrade Films and Dili Film Works to co-produce this historic film. The President of East Timor, and Noble laureate, Jose Ramos Horta, has pledged his support for the film.

 The Story
 A Guerra Da Beatriz is a love story inspired by a true 16th century French story about Bertrande de Rols and her husband Martin Guerre.  In this adaptation the story has been transposed to East Timor on the eve of the Indonesian invasion of the Portuguese colony.

 The story starts in September 1975 with the wedding of Beatriz and Tomas in a small mountain village in the heart of Timor.  Several months later, following the Indonesian invasion of Timor, Beatriz and Tomas, along with hundreds of others from the village, flee to the mountains. They are captured in 1979 and resettled in the village of Kraras.

 In 1983 Beatriz gives birth to a son. The child’s life is threatened when Indonesian soldiers massacre every male in the village, over two hundred children and men, in retribution for an attack by the Timorese resistance.  Tomas, Beatriz’s husband, is arrested and disappears. Beatriz is unable to find Tomas's body and desperately holds onto the hope that he has somehow escaped and will return.

 Tomas returns sixteen years later, in 1999, following East Timor's independence. He had fled to the mountains and fought with the resistance. It is a passionate and moving reunion. Beatriz discovers a different man to the boy who left her years earlier. Tomas is now wiser, gregarious and loving. He has learnt much from life and war.

 But as time passes, Beatriz makes a chilling discovery. She becomes convinced that Tomas is an impostor, that she has mistaken a stranger for her husband.  Who is this man? Why has he taken on a new identity? Tomas's sisters and family accuse Beatriz of treachery, of being mad. But she is determined to discover the truth.

 A Guerra Da Beatriz is the haunting, passionate story of one woman’s conviction to remain true to the man she loves and the country for which she fought.

 The Team

 A Guerra Da Beatriz has been written by Irim Tolentino, an award winning Timorese author, and Luigi Acquisto.  Bety Reis will co-direct the film.  Producers are John Maynard and Stella Zammataro.  Jose Da Costa from Dili FilmWorks will co-produce the film.

 The cast will feature Irim Tolentino as Beatriz.  Irim is an original member of the renowned Bibi Bulak theatre company in East Timor. She worked on Balibo and has starred in many local theatre and television productions.  Jose Da Costa will play Tomas. Jose is East Timor's most experienced actor.  He played major roles in Answered by Fire and Balibo.

 FairTrade Films is committed, through its charter, to an equitable and ethical working relationship with its East Timorese partners. Profits from the film will go to Dili Film Works to finance training and future development and productions. 

A Guerra Da Beatriz will be the first in a succession of exciting East Timorese films that tell the story of the nation through the eyes of Timorese writers, directors and producers.  Most importantly it will contribute to a sense of nationhood by identifying themes and histories that unite rather than fragment the Timorese people.

 Where will it be seen?  

SBS TV in Australia and The World Movie Channel have acquired the film for broadcast.  The finished film will have a gala premiere screening in Dili, tour East Timor’s districts, be entered into prestigious film festivals, be presented at film and television markets and be available for sale on the Internet and as a DVD.  A theatrical distributor will also be sought to secure a cinema release. 
  
http://www.fairtradefilms.com.au/
 If you would like a full
press kit please contact Stella Zammataro at FairTrade Films.  
61 417 592 977
(Australia)
 stella@abrafilms.com        

Finally,  back to me. The hardest thing recently has been to hear about 5 of my former students from Emmanuel College Warrnambool who were recently killed in a head on car accident. They were great students, all of them, and it's hard to comprehend what has happened. It's made me feel very homesick. I really would have like to have been there to journey with people through this difficult time. I understand that they had 4 funerals in 4 days in Warrnambool (two were twins!). My mind boggles at the thought of what that must have been like.

On another negative note, my family has been beset with horrible sicknesses over the last two months. My youngest boy was extremely ill at one point and flown to Darwin for a suspected appendicitis. My elder son, Finn, was also very sick; as was my wife who has had stomach problems and a severe infection. The sicknesses have certainly taken their toll on  us. Perhaps the hardest thing has been the lack of healthcare options here. When the kids get sick it certainly makes you worry. It’s hard to fathom how the East Timorese cope with the lack of services available to them. It’s a scandalous affair and the answers for solving it seem very far away.

Oh, and here are some photos from our time away at Atauro Island. It's an amazing place with great snorkeling.

The last three weeks have been busy for us here in Timor-Leste. Life keeps throwing up interesting challenges. Last week, we had to do a border run into West Timor to renew our passports, but the preparations leading up to us going were a real hassle. What was particularly annoying was that we had to get Indonesian visas from the Indonesian Embassy in Dili before we left. $180 for a 40 minute sojourn into West Timor. Talk about value. But wait. There’s more! Before our visas were actually approved, we got a call from the Indonesian Embassy and were told there might be a problem. We were told to go in and speak to, I kid you not, Mr More! (You may not believe me, but it is true!)

Mr More was a fat Indonesian man, who sat behind a large teak desk, with beads of sweat festooned across his forehead. Mr More liked to shuffle our passports back and forward with a look of concern on his face and repeatedly say, ‘mmm’, ‘mmm’. Mr More liked to tap his index finger on his desk and shake his head. (I learnt later that this is the way to ask for bribes). Clare and I sat across from Mr More and played dumb. He was frustrated with us. And we smiled back. He delayed our visas, but we still got them in the end.

The actual trip to West Timor, on the other hand, was quite amazing. It's the first time our two boys have been out of Dili. We rented a 4WD and drove to the border, dodging potholes (and the occasional crater) along the way. The poverty and malnutrition of the Timorese was easy to see, with some towns seemingly more prosperous than others. Many people live under lean-tos by the side of the road and try to make a living by selling bundles of sticks as firewood, or gather fruit and vegetables. It’s a harsh existence and many people in the districts endure it. In December, the hungry season starts, and I have been told that people in the districts are often starving and sometimes survive by eating the bark off trees.

But in contrast, the beauty and richness of the natural environment we saw during our journey, at times, took our breath away. We drove up rugged mountains and hills and transversed sections of lush rainforest. We travelled along winding roads that hugged the seaside and provided us with some of the most  glorious ocean views you could ever hope to see. We crossed dry stretches of parched earth and amazing river flats. And we even went on a detour up to Balibo. At Balibo, we visited the memorial centre for the Australian journalists killed by Indonesian troops when Indonesia invaded East Timor in 1975 . Balibo is high up in the mountains and quite a beautiful place. There’s an old Portuguese fort located there and many Australian INTERFET soldiers were there stationed around 2002.

The worst part of the journey was the actual 40 minutes we spent in West Timor. Thankfully, it didn’t take too long to get our visas processed. But while we were there we had to endure an immigration officer who, in between processing our visas, was watching porn on his PC. As we slowly passed by, loud music was playing and the young woman’s voice was moaning sexually in the background. My son Finn saw some stuff on the officer’s computer which was not good at all. It made me wonder if East Timorese culture and Indonesian culture are different from each other. And is so, how different? I know it’s not good to make generalisations, but I find East Timorese, by and large, a very respectful people. Yes, their is corruption, domestic violence and many other problems (largely the result of their turbulent history and current poverty). But anecdotally they are a funny, generous and kind people. I like them. I really do. And it’s a privilege to have met so many new East Timorese people who I can now number amongst my friends.

In other news, I’m currently writing a lot and have been very productive recently. My second novel is progressing well and completion of my 1st draft looks like it may be not too far away. I’ve been writing five days a week, but realised recently that I was going a bit insane. So now on Thursdays I volunteer at Dili Film Works. Dili Film Works is currently working on East Timor’s first ever feature film, in Tetum. It’s very exciting project and it’s been really energising to be able to work with so many great people in some small way. There’s a real communal buzz around the place. At Dili Film Works, there are teams of people, great people (mostly Timorese), working on different parts of the film. Filming itself starts in November. Personally, I’ve been working in the production office, making myself useful where I can. Around me, teams are rehearsing, work is being done on props and costumes, people are doing final edits on scripts, while others are working on promotions etc. Lunch is a huge communal feast of rice and green leafy vegetables, served up with lots of laughter and good cheer.

The phrase for ‘giving birth’ in Tetum (the national language of  Timor-Leste) is ‘tuur ahi’. But translated literally into English, the phrase ‘tuur ahi’ actually means ‘to sit on fire’. 

I love Tetum! 

In fact,  I love all languages. But, Duh! I suppose that goes without saying considering I am an aspiring writer. 
 
Nevertheless, a love affair with language and languages can be a complex, so let me try to explain a couple of things about this love of languages that I possess. 

First and foremost, I love language for its poetry; for the sounds, rhythms and music that only poetical words can create. 

 I love hearing  vowels bubble into assonance. I love the zing a well metered sentence or subtly rhymed couplet makes . As for the lush lilting landscape that a good alliteration creates, well yes, I’m a huge fan. And, then there’s my favourite: the well conceived metaphor.  An exhilarating metaphor actually has the power to help  me to see an aspect of life in a completely new light.

Hmmm! What a word wanker I am.

Anyway, right up there with all that poetry stuff, is the humour that language creates without even raising a sweat. And this humour is probably best seen in the interchange between the different languages of the world.

 Let’s take a look at the comic potential that exists when a English speaking white boy (a.k.a. me!) goes to live in a country called Timor-Leste and tries to speak Tetum.

Here are a few gems.

 In tetum the word for ‘share’, ‘fahe’, is easy to mix up with the word ‘fahi’, which means ‘pig’.  So, when you offer your ice cream cone to your friend and invite them to ‘share’ it with you by saying ‘fahi’, don’t be surprised when they give a joyful snort and then start to ‘pig’ away at your two scoops of peppermint choc-chip.

 Even worse is the word,  ‘tein’, which means ‘cooking’ or ‘to cook’,and ‘teen’ which means ‘defecation’ or ‘shit’. Yes, people, that is correct and I know your sordid little minds are
already picturing the sort of grief these two words could create in a person’s life. For instance, as a word of advice to all future visitors to these shores, DO NOT, and I repeat, DO NOT, go up to the broad smiling and friendly  Timorese host you are staying with who has just cooked your dinner, lift up your half finished plate, and with a smile say: “Thank you for dinner, your defecation (‘teen’) tastes great!” In Timor, that is a sure way to get chased down the street by a machete wielding old lady. 
 
One other funny thing about language in Dili are the numerous signs advertising ‘Semen’ for sale. I mean, you can get the stuff for as little as $5.50 a bag over here. No wonder Timor-Leste has the highest birth rate in the whole of Asia. (Actually, ‘semen’ is the Bahasa word for ‘cement’.But you didn’t really want to know that, now did you?)

 But let me stop here with the humorous stuff. To finish with, I want to bring my thoughts about language around full circle. Why? Because on top of the beauty of language and the humour it creates, I also love language simply for its ability to speak truth. Great language cuts to the core. Great words wake you up from your apathy.

 Recently, I’ve been reading a powerful book called‘Resistance’ by the East Timorese author Naldo Rei. As a child and teenager he lived through the Indonesian occupation of his country and suffered repeatedly at their hands. His words and his language have touched me deeply and his language is slowly opening up within me pathways of understanding that I could otherwise never hope to possess. Here are some of his words. They are powerful words. They tell us what he experienced as a nine year old boy when he was arrested by the Indonesian Army and tortured at their hands. He writes:


“The prison cells were around the central torture area and only separated by bars so I could see and hear everything.  The army held families there.  Soldiers tortured them, hit them with guns and kicked them like a ball. They force husbands to have sex with their daughters, brother with sister in front of everyone.  After that they gave them electric shocks on their genitals until they died.  I had never seen anything like this before... There was no hope for their survival so I just prayed for them in my small cell”

 Sometimes I walk around the streets of Dili with Naldo Rei’s words in my head. His words are a gift to me and to others. They have allowed me to see other layers and shadows in the world that currently surrounds me.

‘Toto Power Salon’ the sign reads. The words trailing off into the images of a black and white checker flag and racing car. “Pretty classy,” I think to myself as I survey the little building. 

I stand on the kerbside of the busy street with my sandals buried in an inch of fine brown dust. The dust in Dili is like talcum powder and covers everything during the Dry Season, turning to mud in the Wet. It coats your skin like spray tan, clogs up your pores, creates brown stains on your clothing in the places where you tend to sweat and keeps all the cars on the road in a constant state of filth. All around Dili, people are constantly scooping water out of drains or squirting water out of hoses in a desperate attempt to wash down their prized vehicles. But it’s a losing battle. The dust is simply a constant in Dili. It mixes on a daily basis with the stench of burnt plastic and exhaust fumes, creating a toxic elixir that would have an asthmatic instantly reaching for their puffer.

 Of course, that’s painting a rather bleak picture of Dili when, in fact, it is quite a mesmerising and beautiful place. Dili itself is ringed with a spectacular vista of rugged mountains. It is blessed with stunning beaches, lush tropical plants and trees, magical sunsets that, at times, run a deep pungent red, and the hum of daily life in all its rich milky rawness. Despite the hardships, I have never known people to smile as much as the Timorese do.

 But I am digressing here and should get back to the story.

 The reason I’m standing outside Toto’s Power Salon is that I’m contemplating a haircut. It’s a hot place, Timor-Leste, and my rather longish hair is in need of a trim to alleviate the heat.

 I step towards the little white shop, put my hand on the door and push. There’s the tinkle of a bell and I have to crouch down to fit my head under the door to enter. 

Inside, the salon is a ramshackle parody of everything I am used to. The furniture is in a bad state of disrepair to start with. There’s a cane sofa held together by bits of masking tape in one corner of the salon.  A big cracked wall mirror covers one of the walls; its surface covered by a montage of haircuts taken from magazines. Most of the images are poorly cut out and fading brown with age. Some of the haircuts are taken directly from the 1980s. There’s even a few Madonna like perms thrown into the mix. Finally, under the mirror is a bench top of partly lifted lino covered in an odd assortment of archaic combs, clips, and cutting tools.

“Hello, Sir,” comes a campish voice from behind a counter. I turn to my left and gaze down at a plump little man with long hair pulled back into a ponytail. He puts a hand thoughtfully under his chin and looks me up and down. “A hair cut for the gentleman?”

 “Yeah, sure,” I mumble.

 The man stands up and shows me to a rickety wooden chair in front of the mirror. “Just a second, sir,” he says, stepping out the back through a curtain.

 He returns a minute later with another small man with short cropped hair who he introduces as my hairdresser. I soon learn that my hairdressers name is Toto and that he is Filipino. His English is very good.

 Toto settles me in my seat and goes to work. But I can tell he’s nervous. His hands visibly shake as he puts some paper towel around my neck. “What sort of hair cut you like?” he asks.

 “Um, just a little off the back thanks. Just keep it simple please. Not too short,” I reply, feeling just as nervous as he looks.

 Toto works in silence.

 Inside, I’m screaming. The cut out images of 1980s rock stars, David Bowie, Bryan Ferry and Billy Idol stare down from the wall at me laughing.

 From time to time, Toto grabs the Water bottle from the lino bench, but his actions never inspire me with much confidence. He squeezes the trigger of the bottle but the old thing is clearly past its use by date. It doesn’t spray at all. Rather it leaks droplets of water out of the side of its nozzle like an old man in a nursing home dribbling saliva from the side of his mouth. He carefully drips the water over my hair. And that’s when the fun really begins. 

Off the bench, Toto grabs a big old set of fabric scissors that rattle and clink in his shaking hand. The scissors are kind of like the ones your Grandmother would have: half blunt, but built to last. Ever so slowly, Toto expands wide the metallic jaws in his fingers and ‘shinks’ down on a clump of my hair. ‘Shink’, ‘Shink’, ‘Shink’! The scissors hack out great wads of my precious samsonite hair. ‘Shink’, ‘Shink’, ‘Shink’!  As he hacks in with the scissors, he uses an old black comb with broken teeth in his other hand to guide him.

 I watch in horror as my lush, manly mane of hair is cut back in time towards the 1980s. Slowly, my wannabe grungy look is replaced by a pop revolution of hair. Wham. Bam. I am a man? Staring back at me in the mirror in George Michael himself.

 I’m speechless. Lost for words. No careless whispers here, Ladies and Gentlemen. And to increase the torture, after the main flurry of hacking was over, Toto starts to trim up the back of my hair, over and over with some smaller scissors, for what must be close to forty minutes. Forty long minutes to absorb the damage that has just been done.

 Then, to finish it all off, Toto takes out a cut throat razor and proceeds to clean up the back of my neck from all of its unwanted hair without the use of soapy water. 

Later that day, I picked up my wife Clare and had to put up with her stupid mocking witticisms all the way home and long into the next week. It’s not good to go to bed at night and for your wife to turn to you and say, “Hey, James, in the morning, can you wake me up before you go go!”.

 Not good at all.

 The weird this is though, (and don’t ask me why) I took my son Finn to Toto’s a week later and Toto did a magnificent job. While the haircut took close to an hour to complete, it was the best haircut Finn has ever had. 
 
He didn’t come out looking like Jason Donovan, he came out looking like a handsome version of himself.

This week Clare and I made a video to promote ‘Readers for Timor’. It’s a great initiative and we welcome people to get involved. Access to books is a real problem in Timor-Leste, as is access to education in general. The rates of illiteracy in this country are high.

 In order for Timorese to escape the poverty cycle, they need better educational resources. Resources like the readers featured in this video are quite cheap, but can make a real difference. These readers are written in Tetum, the most widely spoken traditional language in
Timor-Leste.

 We would like to encourage individuals, communities, business groups and particularly schools to support this initiative. Monetary donations will be received through Alola Australia and The Alola Foundation in Timor-Leste will distribute the books.

 Typically in Timor-Leste, class sizes are at least 35 students, but are often much larger. The classes that have received these readers need to share a set of 8 between a whole class. In contrast, Australian primary schools have access to hundreds if not thousands of books.

 Readers for Timor provides a really simple, but tangible way for people of all ages, and in particular school children, to connect with this issue and share with those who have less. 

For further information about the initiative or to find out about how to donate, please contact Clare Batten at: clarebatten@yahoo.co.uk

 Information about Alola Foundation Educational program please visit: http://www.alolafoundation.org/

Fevers that hit 40 degrees, sore throats and pissing blood. I’ve been sick. It’s been a difficult week. But I’m glad to say I’m now back in the land of the living and it feels good.

 Recently, I’ve been taking Tetum language lessons on Tuesday nights at Dili Film Works. Jose da Costa is our teacher and you might remember him from the ABC mini series, Answered by Fire. He was the scary militia guy who liked to intimidate and basically murder people.  
 
Thankfully, it turns out that Jose is not at all vicious or malicious. He’s an absolutely fantastic guy and a very patient Tetum teacher. At the moment, our lessons are made up of myself, my wife, Clare and Richard. Richard is a film maker and photographer  who is currently completing his PHD in East Timor. He’s a very affable and funny guy with the tendency to chainsmoke.  After the class, Luigi, who owns Dili Film Works with his partner, Stella, cooks us all dinner. His meals are fantastic. Like many other people liking in Dili, Luigi is extremely hospitable. 
 
(I should add here that Dili Film Works is currently getting ready to shoot Timor-Leste’s first ever feature film in Tetum! It’s a very exciting and important project, so keep your eyes out for its Australian release.)

 One of the things I’m doing in Dili is teaching English as a volunteer to a bunch of young Timorese artists who live and study at a place called Arte Moris (which translated, means ‘living art’). I’m slowly building my relationships with these young artists and I hope to work corroboratively with them in the future. I really admire them for what they are trying to achieve in very difficult circumstances. Arte Moris is a not-for-profit Fine Art School, Cultural Centre and Art Community based in Dili, East Timor. Since 2003 Arte Moris has been using the creative arts as a building block for psychological and social reconstruction of a country devastated by violence. 

Last night I went to an exhibition of the Arte Moris Students’ photographs. They had taken a series of photographs of people living and working at the local Comoro market. Richard, the PHD guy I mentioned earlier, has been working with some of them on the project. The photos at the exhibition were very evocative and I found myself deeply moved. Simple photos of real people. Each photo was accompanied by a little written story about the person who was photographed.

 These guys are all my students. This is a little film they made about their photography exhibition:

As you can see, it’s fantastic stuff. During the speeches it was noted the students’photos could be juxtaposed to the giant photos that now cover Dili’s brand new shopping centre, Timor Plaza. Timor Plaza, which opens soon, is covered in dazzling, happy images: consumer-fest,some might call it! But not one of the photos at Timor Plaza, not one, is of an East Timorese person. In other words, the plaza is not for Timorese. It is for rich Malae and the few locals with enough disposable income to enter. 
 
As you can see, the Juxtaposition of images can be a powerful thing.

 Side by side, opposing images say so much.

 Can you guess which photos are from the Plaza?

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Life in Timor Leste gets stranger by the day. It’s a place of contradictions.  A place where the various experiences you have can be very difficult to reconcile within yourself. The rich and the poor. The beautiful and the ugly. The simple and the excessive. They sit together inside you like fire and ice.

 On Thursday night, for example, night my son, Finn, got invited to the birthday party of one of his classmates from the School. This boy just happens to be the son of the country’s Prime Minister, Xanana Gusmao. See, told you it’s a strange place. So, we rock up at the Prime Minister’s house, steal past his machinegun toting guards, and arrive at this amazing pool party. We’re encouraged to stay, so we do; the whole freeloading lot of us. Finn quickly joins in the fun, while my youngest boy, Archie, plonks himself in the pool. I drink red wine, eat finger food and spend my time talking to some of the guests; which include a couple of film makers who have worked on films such as Balibo. Meanwhile, there are about fifty kids in the background going absolutely berserk. The kids are having the time of their lives.

 Now you might be thinking that this post is just one big name dropping, boast feast. And well, I suppose there is an element of that here. Let’s call a spade a spade. But this kind of thing doesn’t happen every day. And here I am, at the Prime Minister’s house, trying hard to make sense of the whole experience. I ask you, what would you do? Wouldn’t you want to tell the whole world? Meeting Xanana makes a person special, doesn’t it? Doesn’t it? Doesn’t it
at least legitimise a person’s noble (and not at all egotistical) quest to appear as the saintly type? Doesn’t a little bit of his mojo rub off on those who surround him? 

Hell, what a load of crap. Someone put a bullet in my head already. 

In all seriousness though, the important reality that I have glimpsed in this experience is just how normal the Gusmao family is. So what if he’s a former imprisoned guerrilla fighter and national hero turned political leader. What I saw was a decent, humorous man who loves his children and was unbelievably entertaining around kids. And Kirsty, his wife, seems like a really approachable, humble and down to earth woman herself. It makes me wonder what it would be like to really get to know my own political leaders back in Australia.

 At the party, Xanana came out amongst the kids wearing a plastic bag. The children went crazy, pelting him with water balloons – mind you, he gave back as good as he received. During the skirmish, both of my two boys tried to knock his block off with those little sacks of mischievousness. At one point even, my son, Archie, tried to push Xanana in to the pool! Archie had no idea who Xanana was; to him he was just this funny old bloke who was out to have a good time. 

So, in the end, as I said, it was all a bit weird. And yet, having just said that, is was normal, whilst big, birthday party.  It was a contradiction.  To get a glimpse of the man behind the name took away a bit of the whole aura thing. What a horrible burden it must be for people like him to carry; not to mention the burden of people always wanting something from you. I may have nothing to do with him again, but at least I’ve come away thinking that at least
I liked the man I saw. I liked his humanity and I liked his wife too. I reckon Xanana would be a great guy to have a beer and a laugh with. 
 
Now where did I put those car keys. It’s about time I gave Jose Ramos Horta a little visit!

 And Finally:

 I want to leave you now with a reflection from my wife, Clare. It contrasts well with my own more flippant words. Her reflection really moved me and in some ways, her words are probably closer to how I truly feel. It’s much easier to write something humorous rather than write something raw and true.

 Help me, I’m  drowning!

Overwhelming guilt... When I hear the sound of Ana washing our clothes.  Guilt when I see children selling goods on the side of the road.  Guilt when I think of what we pay for our children to go to school.  Guilt for not having to worry about our next meal.  Guilt for being able to buy a car.  Guilt for being invited to Xanana’s son’s party simply because we send
our children to such an expensive school.  Guilt for knowing that we will simply leave this country if we get sick.  Guilt for knowing that for the majority here, even seeing a doctor isn’t an option.  Guilt...for being born into an overwhelmingly privileged country.  Guilt, for having the luxury of choosing to ‘volunteer’ here.

Layers and layers of suffocating and paralysing guilt. Guilt that I don’t know what to do with or where to put.  Please be transformed, guilt, into something constructive, something useful, as I may just lie down and give up under this weight...

Contradictions:

The following blog entry was written by my wife, Clare. We often
sit together at end of the day talking about our experiences of Timorese life
and the issues it brings up for each us. Our discussions are frequently raw and
difficult; raising more questions than we can ever hope to answer. I think her
thoughts expressed in this blog entry really touch upon some important aspects
of our experience in Timor Leste and some of the moral dilemmas we have had to face.

The images below are of our house and neighbourhood.

 We have been in our house now for a week. It’s great to have our own space and to be able to cook (although we only have a wok and one saucepan).  Our kids, Finn and Archie, are enjoying having their own rooms too.  We are living right within the Timorese community, in a ‘western’ house, but surrounded by an extended Timorese family.  Most foreigners, or ‘Malae’, live in compounds or within Malae areas, surrounded by high fences, razor wire and sometimes, security guards.  We feel safe here (even if we are a novelty to the Timorese). The Timorese families are our security.  Any crime that does occur in Dili usually involves break-ins, rather than any kind of violence.

 The only down-side is that there are about 20 roosters living all around us, along with about 7 noisy dogs.  The first night I thought I was going to go crazy, woken every hour by the farmyard.  We seem to be adjusting now though.  Archie sleeps through the ruckus, Finn wakes a bit, but is getting better.  I guess that it all adds to the ‘village-like experience’.  The best fun we’ve had here is kicking the footy with Finn and Archie and a whole gang of little boys who come along to join in.  They are complete naturals with ball.

 Finn and Archie are thriving, really enjoying school and often getting invited to birthday
parties.  James is in writing heaven, and enjoying the creative and spiritual nourishment he is receiving from Timor Leste.  He begins teaching some English classes at Arte Moris next week. 
 
The most confronting thing we have had to deal with is that the house we rent comes with a Timorese lady who comes for a couple of hours a day and washes our clothes and generally
cleans.  At first I couldn’t deal with this at all and said no. But a friend of Jason McLeod’s, Louise, challenged my thinking about it.  She said that ‘Malae’ have something to contribute, so they should, and that this was one of the few opportunities for work for women in this
country.  She said it’s different in Timor, more communal, less individualistic, and it’s all about ‘exchange’ and ‘relationship’.  So, I relented, and even though I still find it extremely confronting, I think it is good.  I really like Ana, and the reality of her situation in life is coming alive to me more and more as we build relationship.  Ana is 29, but looks more like 40.  She only went to school up to year 7.  She has always done cleaning.  She lives with her older sister who is a single mother of 2 children.  Ana is the only income earner.  Plus, she gives money to her elderly parents in Baucau. ‘The Poor’ take on a different meaning when they become your friend.