Our Yellow Brick Road – Part Three

Day 7 (continued)

After crossing the border the drive to Dili – East Timor’s capital – was relaxed, mellow even compared to our first seven hours – this driver slowed down on bends and for pedestrians, even for goats …and there were a lot of goats.

The road was smooth and well made, it followed the coast most of the way and the view was beautiful. The villages looked more traditional here than those in West Timor, roofs made of thatch and homesteads with wooden fencing around, not so much corrugated iron.

We passed mangrove swamps, some obviously being regenerated, and near the end of the journey we saw a small group of monkeys by the side of the road, it felt like a softer place.

We arrived into Dili at 18.30, our bus taking everyone where they needed to go and dropping us really close to the home of Tracey, our host, the Honorary British Consul. She had sent us a photo of the entrance to her home and Rosa spotted it in the gathering gloom.

So many things greeted us at once, we walked through a small piece of jungle garden and up some stairs into a large living area that didn’t have walls on three sides. The place was covered in cats, (‘home’ I thought) – and plants – there were no windows just metal struts covered in green living things – we were outside inside.

There was a large portrait of Charles and Camilla behind the sofa with some discreet Union Jack bunting around it (probably expected of the British Consul I thought) and two pictures of Queenie on the walls as well. It looked liked someone’s home and we loved it!

Tracey showed us our room, comfortable and more like a bedroom than a guesthouse room, and then she left for a dinner date so one of the three other people living here showed us a few of the quirks of the house – which made it feel even more like home.

We were hungry but we didn’t have it in us to go to a restaurant. Instead we went to the local supermarket, just on the corner, and there they were:

Aisle 2, three quarters of the way down on the left, third shelf up: – BAKED BEANS!

Not a brand we recognised but we didn’t care… we bought two cans, and some white sliced bread – we were going to eat our favourite meal!

Contended, we gave the cats a run for their money as we licked our paws that night 🙂

When we left Kupang we were told it would be hotter in Dili. We struggled to believe life could get much hotter but here we were, even hotter – and Tracey had fans rather than AC for two reasons: 1) she had lived in East Timor for 21 years and has got used to living with the heat and 2) she does everything she can to reduce her carbon footprint.

We were going to be well prepared for the 40 degree heat my sister said was being predicted next week…

Day 8

After the mosquitos had had their breakfast it was time for us to have ours. Tracey is one of the most well connected people I have ever met – it’s her self appointed job effectively, by connecting people with each other, she helps make everything go better here. She looks after the new arrivals in town – making sure they know where to go and who to see, helping them find their feet and get on with whatever it is they are here to do…and we needed two things – help finding the best way to get to Australia, and to meet the people and the stories of the struggle for independence. Our first chance came that next morning at ‘Sunday breakfast’ –  Masala Dosa at Hari’s.

There was a picture on the wall of Hari, the owner, with Xanana Gusmao, the Prime Minister and ‘father of the nation,’ and another with Joe Biden – the restaurant was nothing special to look at but my god the food was fantastic.

We met so many people chatting through mouthfuls of delicious dosa – all three of us telling our story and hearing about the work others were doing here.

We met an Australian vet involved in eradicating swine fever, educators and PhD students, road builders and people involved in educational development.

It was a great chance to learn a little about this country from the perspective of its visitors – some as long term as Tracey. Most committed to months and years rather than days and weeks..

We learned a little of Tracey’s life here that day – she did lots of things that gave people a focus, she ran a community choir, from a love of singing rather than any formal training (although she was more than capable of singing each of the three parts in the four Christmas carols we practiced that afternoon) – she organised walks and ran Facebook groups keeping people connected and aware of what was going on, from art exhibitions to traditional markets, she paid attention to what was going on in Dili and signposted people in the right direction.

She quite quickly became our project coordinator for all our efforts to find our greenest way out of here and our first really good lead came that afternoon.

The Dili Community Choir was scheduled to sing at a Christmas Market and there was a rehearsal at 2.30, just before the performance – we could sing so, with the minimum of fuss we became members of the choir. People slowly arrived over the next forty minutes – some clearly regulars, others who looked as shell shocked as we did – ‘can you sing alto?’ …’er…’ ‘tenor, soprano?’ I said I had had no formal music training and she needed to dumb it down if she wanted me to understand…

She decided Theo was a tenor (low) I was an alto (middle) and Rosa joined the sopranos (you’ve guessed it – high)

It was more than bizarre singing ‘Hark the Herald Angels Sing’ and ‘Silent Night’ in 32 degree heat – but it was fun, there really wasn’t an option to sit on the side lines and it’s amazing what you can get away with if you sing slightly later than everyone else so you can hear your part!

Our ‘performance’ was well enough received by the audience and afterwards I made a beeline for the fun Australian – she had been slightly irreverent during the rehearsals and I got a definite sense she’d be a laugh…

We found out a bit about each other and she bought me a glass of wine – I was drunk after the first sip and I giggled my way through the next couple of hours.

Once she’d found out what we were trying to do she emailed two of her friends – one of them texted her back straight away and said he might be able to help!! He had arrived within half an hour and we were introduced to Captain Jean-Michel.

He worked in the port and promised to see what yachts were in the harbour the next day and let us know!

(…how completely flippin’ awesome is that I thought?)

He also sent Bridget (my new best friend) the email address of the director of a container shipping company operating out of Dili who might occasionally take passengers.

Later in the Evening I was introduced to a musician named Etsonu – his band performed after the choir and in two days time there was a big event happening here to commentate the journalist Max Stahl – the President would be coming and it might very well be possible for us to do a couple of songs, a chance to sing ‘With my Hammer’ in East Timor…

As I lay in my hot we bed that night thinking back over the day I felt really hopeful – it had been a brilliant start!

Day 9

Time to hit the port. We set off late which is rubbish because the day doesn’t get any cooler the longer you wait…The coolest part of the day is from 4.00 until 7.00 in the morning but that’s a good time to sleep, and then it’s important to spend a couple of hours faffing around…eating breakfast, stoking cats…looking at your device for ‘important reasons’.

To be fair to us we did actually do something useful… with Tracey’s help we sent an email to the director of the container company (ANL) – he was a regular at Sunday breakfast but he hadn’t been there this week. We really felt like we were reaching the people who could help us…

We finally set off at 10.30 with the pavement hot enough to fry eggs on.

The port in Dili stretches a good couple of miles and there are three different buildings spread out along its length. As we left Rosa asked the one question designed to have me clenching my teeth in just the way the dentist tells me I shouldn’t…

‘How far is it mum?’ A seemingly innocuous question but it’s loaded, you would have to hear the time and see the look that goes with it – I answered the question she was really asking with steam coming out of my ears …‘it’s a really long way, we don’t know how long it will take, and yes we do all need to go!’

We had hardly been walking ten minutes when we got a text from the Captain we had met last night.

‘There is a French boat in the port’

I asked him if he had any contact details and within five minutes I had the French captains phone number!

We texted ‘Charly’ – trying to sound slightly cool, knowledgable, interesting but not too much hassle… we had arrived at the entrance gates of our first port building – the security guards pointed us towards Reception where three or four people gathered to help us.

This wasn’t the right building for the harbour master – apparently that was back inside the compound we had passed ten minutes ago…

We decided we would carry on and look in the harbour first to see if we could see any sailing boats. We could see one pretty large yacht with a French flag…was that Charly’s boat?

We spoke to every port official we could find that day but we couldn’t speak to the harbour master – he wasn’t there. We would have to come back tomorrow, and as we were leaving a text pinged in:

‘Australia is not our next destination..

We are planning to go back to Indonesia’…

The French boat was not our boat but things were happening.

We were done for the day in terms of what we could usefully do to find a boat so Tracey met us at the entrance to one of the port buildings and we headed to the Santa Cruz Cemetery.

In 1991 a massacre took place in the cemetery as mourners came to celebrate the life of Sebastião Gomes. who had been murdered by the occupying Indonesian army.

There were three western journalists there that day and one of them managed to film the gunning down, clubbing and stabbing with bayonets over 250 unarmed young people, many of them killed as they tried to run away through the graveyard.

One of the journalists was Amy Goodman who had interviewed Theo and I in the US for her ‘Democracy Now’ radio show when the band had toured America in 2000 – she was incredibly courageous that day in the cemetery, along with Allan Nairn trying to stand between the students and the soldiers.

Max Stahl was the other journalist and he managed to film what was happening and buried the footage in the cemetery so he could came back when it was safe. He gave it to an Australian journalist who smuggled it out of the country and shared it with the world.

It was a definitive moment in the fight for independence – the footage was utterly shocking. It showed young people climbing over the fallen bodies of their friends in their desperation to get away from the bullets. The world saw what the East Timorese people were going through.

The cemetery was bright, colourful and full – I stopped to stand up some of the fallen over pots of plastic flowers on the graves of three children who had died during the 24 years of occupation. This was a place for tears and I didn’t stop mine…

We saw both Sebastião’s grave and a memorial for Max, recognised for his courage and humanity. I didn’t really understand the full meaning of the description:

‘Sometimes dignity can change the world’

…but I liked the sentiment. I knew Max’s footage had been used near the end of our ‘With my Hammer’ film – and being here, where it happened was powerful and the heat faded as the thing most intensely occupying my thoughts.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=OSiGwOIarRI

That evening there was another networking opportunity at the Indonesian Cultural Centre.

It struck me as incredible how mortal enemies can become colleagues in such a short space of time.

A friend of Tracey’s had the opening night of his art exhibition and the New Zealand and Indonesian  ambassadors were due to make speeches – our job was to work our way around the room, loving the art and telling anyone who would listen about our journey to East Timor and our need for a boat or a propellor plane to get us to Darwin.

After an hour I was introduced to Dan. Dan had spent four months living in Timor waiting for a boat and he did eventually got one with a man sailing solo in South East Asia. The two of them had set off on a short practice journey to a local island and then the sea had  gotten really rough – their three hour journey had taken 28 hours and Dan had been convinced they were going to die!

When they eventually limped back to port they parted ways only to be reunited a few months later when they tried again with some additional crew.

It took them six days to get to Darwin.

Every time someone tells me about their sailing experiences (…with the exception of you Jim!) I am filled with another layer of horror – still, not the time to think about now! Reflect on it afterwards.

We met some lovely people that night but our trip was no further advanced – time to go back and eat more beans on toast!

Day 10

ANL had written back to us when I looked the next morning – the director had asked one of his team to look into it for us!!

Container ships were big and they only took two days – much better…

There was another container shipping company in Dili and we decided we needed to go and walk into their offices as well.

The company were called Bollore and between them, ANL and Swires (the company Theo had applied for us to to be crew for) we would have checked in with (almost) every container ship going in or out of the country.

If we managed to see the harbour master as well we would have the sea covered.

We set off marginally earlier today and I managed to answer Rosa’s question about how far we would be walking today with a slightly lighter tone…

‘The harbour master is not here, maybe come back after lunch.’

Disappointing but the port was on the way back from Bollore so we could pop in then. We went to the coconut carts for a quick refresh and two men came scuttling out of the back door looking so shifty it was comical – ‘please sir, come with me.’

We were ushered in the back way into an office and there he was – the Harbour Master!

He was like the Timor version of Mr Benn. Slow, measured and thoughtful. He understood our request, he was pleased we were offering money and he had the air if someone who could make things happen, ordinary and magical at the same time 🙂

We swooped numbers and he told us that we needed to speak to another Harbour Master as well who worked at this port and that we should come back tomorrow…

Twenty grim (heat related) minutes later we were ushered into the lovely air conditioned offices of Bollore and met a kind and intelligent man called Zeco – he also understood our desire not to fly – he was interested in our journey and in the opportunity having passengers on container ships could afford the company but there was nothing he could do for us now.

We left and started back – there was another email from the ANL container ship team – they were sending an email I had written to the captains if two container ships…getting closer.

We had confirmation that evening that the event celebrating Max’s life would like us to play our song and could we come to a sound check that evening – that felt so amazing…and we learned that tomorrow was the 48th anniversary of the invasion of East Timor in 1975.

Tomorrow we would contact Airnorth and see whether there was a chance of going on the propellor plane to Darwin if everything else fell through!