Leaving Dili With Doors Ajar
On my way out of Hotel Timor, I chat to a chap called Bernardo. He's working on the front desk. He tells me he loves English football and, like many Timorese, plans on going to England in seven or eight months to find work and earn a better life for himself. I want to tell him that life ain't a bed of roses over there for young migrants, but, hell, let him dream a while. This country could use a few decent dreams.
Dili Airport is a sight. The man supposedly working the immigration desk is loitering in the entrance having a fag, and only dashes over to his booth when I inadvertently waltz straight through. He sends me off to pay the 10 USD departure tax (a very irritating habit that seems to have been learned from those 'departure tax' scoundrels, Indonesia) before I am finally allowed through. I can't help but notice he is wearing an England football cap. This is the first customs worker I have ever seen wearing the football paraphenalia of another nation while on active(ish) duty. Bernardo was right. The Timorese really do love English football.
The bag scanner is switched on at the plug when a passenger passes through, before being switched off again to save power. There's only one flight departing today and the customers are arriving in trickles. I got here more than an hour early for the flight. Needn't have bothered. The journey from check-in to departure gate is about 12 metres.
There's another first on the plane back to Bali. This is the only flight I've been on where the cockpit door has accidentally swung open as the pilot makes a turn on descent. It made me laugh - and worry. If the pilot can't be bothred to lock his door properly, I have to suspect that he may not have run through the manifold other safety checks with that much diligence either.
After a depressing five hour wait in Denpasar's rubbish domestic departure lounge (no air-conditioning, metallic seating, and no cafes to speak of), I make my final flight of the trip back to Jakarta. On the plane I read Chapter 15 (St Patrick's Purgatory) of Peter McCarthy's excellent Ireland travelogue, 'McCarthy's Bar.' In it, he's reflecting on a fairly intense three day pilgrimage he has just made to Station Island, just off mainland Donegal, where he endured fasting, sleep deprivation and knackered knees, the result of praying on a cold stone floor. This is what he says...
"When you throw yourself into something like this, your life is so filled with the sheer physical business of it that there's no room left for the worries of everyday life. Other concerns get pushed into the background. You don't even have the stress of going shopping or spending time deciding what to eat, if you're not allowed to eat."
It seems somehow apt in describing what I've just witnessed in parts of rural East Timor. Those people are also somehow living in the now, without care or concern for future or past. It's why, perhaps, they seem so easily able to forgive Indonesia it's many (and very recent) crimes, and why they manage to retain those smiles and that spirit.
I put in my headphones and, miraculously, another incredibly apt thought-for-the-day is delivered, this time by the shuffle button on my MP3 player. Strangely, it's another East Timor related line that comes via Ireland. It's a song called Colony by singer-songwriter Damien Dempsey who I saw perform at WOMAD three years ago. I'm going to quote a fair chunk of the lyrics, just because I love them so much. Here we go...
"I look to the east, I look to the west To the north and the south, and I'm not too impressed; Time after time After crime after crime They raped, robbed, pillaged, enslaved and murdered;
"Well, Jesus Christ was their god and they done it in his name, so he could take the blame if it's not all a game; With bible in one hand and a sword in the other, they came to purify my land of my Gaelic Irish mothers, and fathers and sisters and brothers;
"With our own ancient customs, laws, music, art, way of life and culture, tribal in structure; We had a civilisation when they were still neanderthal nations and we suffer with the Native American, the Indian in Asia, Aboriginal Australia, the African people with their history so deep, and our children still weep, and our lives are still cheap;
"You came from Germany, from France, from England and from Spain, from Belgium, Holland, Portugal, you all done much the same; You took what was not yours, went against your own bible; You broke your own laws just to out do the rival; But did you ever apologize, for the hundreds and millions of lives you destroyed and terrorised, or have you never realized?; Did you never feel shame, for what was done in your country's name, and find out who's to blame, and why they were so inhumane?;
"And still they teach you in your school about those glorious days of rule, how it's your destiny to be, superior to me; But if you've any kind of mind, you'll see that all humankind, are the children of this earth and your hate for them will chew you up and spit you out;
"You'll never kill our will to be free. [repeat to fade]"
And that, it seems, is a fitting way to end my overly lengthy reflections on what has been a magical visit to East Timor. So many firsts - not all of them good - but so many memories, so much learning and, ultimately, a life-affirming shock to my jaded system. Please visit this land. It's very, very special. Avoid the flying rocks in Dili, and the rest really is a breeze.
FYI, the two pictures in this blog have a tenuous link to the content. The first is a picture of sunset taken at Jakarta's Soekarno-Hatta Airport, taken last year. The first is a picture of the view from one of Soekarno-Hatta's very pleasant depature lounges. The airport - like most of the city itself - is fairly ugly and uninspiring. However, inexplicably, its departure lounges are some of the most light, airy and generally refreshing places I've ever had to sit to wait for a plane.
