Our Yellow Brick Road – Part Four

Day 11

‘Anyone up for walking to the port?!’

No one was up for walking to the port but we all did it anyway.

The port was on the way to the Resistance Museum where we hoped to learn more of the detail of what had happened during the 24 years of Indonesian occupation. We wanted to immerse ourselves in the history of the struggle and see the footage Max had shot, footage that had led to such a profound change in public opinion around the world…

The Harbour Master wasn’t there again but it was suggested that maybe we should see the Port Director. We agreed that was a great idea and sat waiting for a few moments but it turned out that he wasn’t there either.

We were outside on the pavement investigating what turned out to be someone’s piglet in a paper carrier bag when two men came hurrying out to call us back in…miraculously he had appeared!

I admired the ‘tell everyone I’m not here’ skills of the harbour reception team…and their equal willingness to come rushing down the road to bring us back in!

We went through into the directors office and told him our journey story and our request for help finding a boat…’ you need to speak to Harbour Master Rogerio Soares’ he said – we thanked him and agreed we would come back later…I did wonder if Rogerio was hiding in the back somewhere but no-one came out to get us so I assumed not.

The Resistance Museum was powerful and difficult – the pre-determined slaughter sanctioned by Henry Kissinger and George Ford on the very eve of the invasion, the tacit and physical support from Australia and Britain with promises of trade deals with Indonesia and the supplying of weapons.

The sheer scale of the suffering was impossible to comprehend – it was estimated that nearly 45% of the population had died by the end of the occupation…how had they kept resisting for 24 years?!

We sat and watched the Max Stahl footage in full – watching teenagers the same age as Rosa desperately trying to climb over the bodies of their friends and comrades to get away from a rain of bullets – it was terrible watching that, and at some point it started again and a steel came over me – those young people’s deaths had spelt the beginning of the end for the occupation – they hadn’t died for nothing.

Along one wall there were little containers with the clothes and photos of six of the young people who died that day. That made it real in a different way, personal…

For the second time in a week we walked home without noticing the heat.

I understood more fully than even when I’d been writing ‘With my Hammer’ why that group of 13 women had the courage and the determination to take the action they did…

I checked my emails when I got back and the replies from both container ship captains had come back with: ‘we regret…’

No chance of a container ship.

I think having the email of the director had made us feel pretty hopeful for something coming out of that…bugger!

I sat on the sofa for a while and a cat came close enough for me to stroke… ‘…how the hell are we going to do this Tillie?’

The cat stared back at me and said nothing.

It was time for me to go to the gig. I was heading there early for a sound check before we rehearsed with the choir.

Soundcheck was efficient and I had just been introduced to Tom, Irelands ‘Human Rights Man of the Year 1996’ when the President arrived. The air crackled a little and then Tom and he shared a private joke and the air went back to normal.

I followed the crowd into the theatre – clearly there were speeches being made…after the first one I went outside to find Theo and Rosa – I didn’t want them to miss this…and just after we’d walked in Jose Ramos Horta (that’s the Presidents name) got up to make his speech. It was moving and funny – he referenced the five Australian journalists killed in the lead up to the invasion and how he had refused to help Max come back into Timor – ‘I didn’t need the responsibility for this man…but he kept insisting, and in the end what could I do?’ He moved effortlessly between languages and when he had finished to rapturous applause he walked back up the stairs right by us and smiled at Rosa – actually smiled at Rosa!! A real life hero, come revolutionary, come exile, come President!

We rehearsed briefly, watched the moving theatre piece and watched the President walk away, just before we were due to play…

I didn’t feel disappointed or relieved – I felt glad he’d seen some of the theatre piece and wherever he was going and whatever he was doing was probably what he needed to do next – was I growing up?

No time to answer that, we were up…

It will not go down as one of the best ever performances of the song but I loved the fullness of twelve other people belting out the chorus and cheering in exactly the right spot when we got to  ‘not guilty’ – we were proud of ourselves and the song had come home.

Day 12

It was time for some lateral thinking – what hadn’t we tried?

I went for a walk on the beach as the sun began to rise, the water was warm on my feet and the sea barely moving…

I sent loads of messages home, my heart a little heavy and got one or two back from friends who stay up late – one jokingly reminded me of my list of ways to get to Oz and I smiled. There was less rubbish up this end of the beach but there were still loads of plastic bottles – I bent down to pick up one of them, and then another…why not?

We still needed to see the elusive Harbour Master but I also needed to try Airnorth again – they had a propellor plane but I still didn’t know if they used it on this route – back in the spring they’d been very cagey about sharing flight details with me…maybe they would tell us their schedule now that we were close to the time of flying, worth a shot.

I spoke to Tracey about it when I got back with my arm full of plastic bottles – she had her laptop open “give me a minute and I’ll  check if they’ve used it in the last month’

Incredibly she had a login for a website that showed every flight in and out of Dili.

The E120 had been used on the 27th of November – pretty flippin’ recently! I wrote to Pete, he might know when they were going to use it again and why they had used it on the 27th.

Tracey also offered to contact her friend who worked with the Catholic Missions – they had some small prop planes and went to Darwin quite regularly, cousin Bob had suggested this as a possibility too. We didn’t want to fly but between a prop plane and a raft made out of plastic bottles it wasn’t hard to decide which was more likely to get us there.

We headed down to the port after breakfast – we actually knew people on the route by this point. We waved a hello to the security guards at the entrance and walked in.

There weren’t many people there because today was a public holiday but we asked for Mr Rogerio anyway and found out that his brother had died and he’d gone back to the mountains…

We sent our love to Mr Rogerio and went back home.

Time to start building a raft.

Day 13

Now don’t get me wrong…however much I started to love our little raft I knew it wasn’t the best way to get to Australia – the most likely things to happen were 1) it wouldn’t float at all and we’d get wet 2) we would cause an international incident and an expensive difficult rescue operation 3) we’d make it and be heroes of the green movement and there would be a statue of us and our raft in Shepton Mallet 4) we’d drown and everyone would think we were idiots for trying to get to Australia on a raft made out of plastic bottles…none of this sounded very sensible!

…and yet.

Tracey and I got up very early on the morning of our thirteenth day on Timor Island – we were going to pay our respects to Jesus who sits on the tip of the crocodiles snout (the way the land looks not an actual crocodiles snout) sending love and kindness out across the world.

We had been to a mosque and a temple on our journey – all gods/religions should be given equal airtime I thought.

It was a good aerobic walk up the 570 steps to stand underneath him. And it was beautiful! Hundreds of swallows (or swifts – which is which again?) were making their nests around his waist and in his armpits.

It reminded me of the monkey helping itself to the fruit on the Buddhist altar in China – it brought the statue alive in the same way the monkey had made sense of the offerings.

There was a beach on the far side of Jesus – we had it entirely to ourselves and I went for a swim in tropical blue clear waters.

…back on the beach there was a job to do – there were lots of plastic bottles and they would be much better in our raft than on this beautiful beach. On the way back I started to do the maths re how many bottles we’d need to carry all three of us and our luggage…was I starting to take this a little too seriously?

We got back in time for our date with Savio – Helen (our original contact) wanted us to meet him. He knew the women who had done the Hawk Jet action and had come to live in the UK when he had had to flee Indonesia, after the occupation of the US Embassy in Jakarta.

Tracey and Helen both came with us to a little cafe five minutes walk away. Savio was straight talking, funny, inspiring and thoughtful. We all liked him a lot and it turned out that he not only knew the women who had smashed the Hawk Jet, he had a son with one of the women, Jo.

I don’t really know why I liked that they had a son together – I don’t know Jo and I have no idea what was wonderful and what was difficult about their relationship – it just felt to me like a circle completing in some way. (…am I a hopeless romantic?)

Savio was willing to talk about the invasion and the resistance and shared some incredible stories with us.

During the first phase of the occupation he and his sister had fled to the mountains with his dad and then his dad had fallen out of a tree and broken his back. The resistance were on the move but his dad could only move slowly so Savio and his sister were falling behind looking after him.

Finally one of the fighters came back and told them they had to leave their dad or they would both die as well when the Indonesian soldiers got there.

Savio was leaving his dad to die and he had no choice as a ten year old with an eight year old sister. We hung on every word as this little tragedy, among so many tragedies, unfolded.

He said there was more to the story and that two months later, Savio knowing for sure his dad was dead, had come down from the mountains and there was his dad sitting on a wall – he had crawled an incredible distance and somehow survived! I almost clapped, I LOVE a happy ending…

He also told us the story of the occupation of the American Embassy in Jakarta and how a friend of his had told him his name had reached the top of the list of people to be got rid of, that he had to run or die.

…and he told us a little of life working in the Foreign Office in East Timor, and throughout our whole time with him he sought out Rosa’s opinions, made space for her thinking and questions – I had another one of my fab mum moments which I put in my little heart pocket for when she leaves home to go to Uni.

We said a warm goodbye with promises to meet again if we could and I sat down to look at emails.

Tracey had heard back from the Catholic Missionaries and they weren’t able to help ‘for insurance reasons’ – as we weren’t part of their organisation.

We talked about trying to get hold of someone Tracey knew who was likely to have lots of propellor plane contacts and she very gently pointed out that if there was a flight going to Darwin every day, which their clearly was, wouldn’t it be better to get on that rather than there being two flights to Darwin in our attempts to get there with as low a carbon footprint as possible? By chartering a propellor surely we would be adding more CO2 to the atmosphere…?

Yes.

So we didn’t bother contacting him. There was no way round that logic, one plane was better than two. 

Pete had emailed me back though and he rang me that afternoon. He really liked what we had achieved and wanted to help. The scheduling for the plane was done based on numbers of bookings – if less than 30 people had booked in both directions they used the E120 and his opinion was that in the coming week numbers would be low…what was the latest we could leave by?!

I said I’d get back to him and we had a family meeting. It was no quick ‘hop on a train and you’re there’ when we got to Australia. We were looking at four to five days minimum and Ellie was getting married on the 28th (…and we all wanted to be there for Christmas)

We agreed the 17th was the latest we could leave Timor and he said he would get back to me…

‘Let me see if we can get you to Darwin in a prop aircraft’ …so kind!!

He also told us that their propellor plane was chartered by a company called Santos on two days every week, to take passengers to Darwin, maybe they would take us?!

All four of us wanted to do something to commemorate the anniversary of the invasion. Tracey suggested we go to Rosa ‘Muki’ Bonapartes Memorial and take the roses she’d been given that morning.

Rosa had been a leader of the newly formed women’s popular liberation movement and was part of the East Timorese government of independence for nine short days. She was captured and executed on the first day of the invasion and there are graffiti art pictures of her dotted all over the city.

The 5th inspiring Rosa!

Day 14

We spent the next morning looking for a way to contact Santos – we found their office in Dili but it was a public holiday – we would have to leave that avenue for a couple of days. I sent a long email to customer services, which would have to do for now.

We waited for news from Pete but he didn’t reply to texts or emails so raft building began in earnest.

Day 15

Yesterday evening Marion (one of the choir – a warm and funny nurse and a long term volunteer on the island) took us for a drive up into the mountains. We could see Dili from up high nestling in the valley with Jesus and the birds looking down on everyone from the end of the crocodiles nose!

We found a cafe and ate chips and interesting juices (avocado for me) and then a family arrived. Marion knew them and said hello and then later they came back over. They lived near by and invited us all back to their BEAUTIFUL home.

We had a great couple of hours drinking wine and hearing some of their stories – Jaoa had been the vice minister for health straight after independence and was now a director at the University – his wife Niselle had lived in exile with him, raising their children in New Zealand and Australia – her two daughters were living in Portugal studying to be a doctor and a lawyer and her son had been very unexpected! She hadn’t known she was pregnant until she was 51/2 months in!!

It was such an unexpected and fun evening – we liked the whole family very much, easily playing with the boys and laughing – it was noisy and easy and spontaneous. Maybe this was the nature of the Timorese heart…

It had been what we needed which wasn’t quite how Rosa and Theo felt at 5.45 the next morning when it was time to go and see Jesus.

I knew they didn’t like early mornings but I banked on the view and the tropical ocean being enough for them to forget the dawn wake up – and I needed more bottles if we were going to finish the raft!

We did have a lovely morning the tide was out which made swimming harder but we found a way and it gave us time to talk to each other about what we thought our chances were…

We agreed to look properly at our flight options – everyone we’d met had said there was no way off the island (except Dan and he looked like he had seriously regretted it AND it had taken him 4 months!)

Tomorrow we would have the weeks schedule from Airnorth, we could go to try and see the Harbour Master one last time and go to Santos’s offices – if all those doors closed we were done here.

I picked up another plastic bottle and shoved it into my bin liner.