Before Sunrise

Trip to Dili, Timor-Leste, 26 – 30 November 2005

My maiden voyage to the newest country on the planet. For work, of course. Nevertheless exciting. (Trivia: Did you know Timor really means “East” in Bahasa Indonesia? That makes East Timor literally “East East” – a tautology, in other words. Timor-Leste is no better: Leste also means “East” in Portuguese. My favourite remains the little-known Timor Lorosae, which in the pseudo-magical native tongue of Tetum, poetically heralds the birth of “Timor Sunrise”.)

Impressions: My experience calls to mind Hotel Rwanda (horrendously overrated film, by the way). For four days, I live in a hotel also unimaginatively named after the country: Hotel Timor, which also happens to be the only half-decent business hotel in the entire city. Just like the movie. From my room window, I can see dusty asphalt roads pockmarked with potholes perpetually filled with muddy rainwater. White SUV/Land Cruiser types with the thick black neutralist letters UN emblazoned on their doors make up the bulk of the Dili traffic. Behind those doors I would inevitably find an American/ Western European/ but probably Australian treehugger in his or her thick black neutralist sunglasses and well-worned khakis behind the wheel. The Timorese themselves are out in force on the streets. Mostly young ones. (“They can’t find work. But actually, they don’t really like to work either,” my know-it-all driver Jose informs me.)

On my first day, I take a ride around town to feel Dili out. The city is a sad story waiting to be told. Many buildings in the city center are hollowed out from the destruction of the civil war. Overgrown with vegetation, roofs are absent where roofs are supposed to be. So this is dilapidated. Suddenly we halt and a hearst passes us in the opposite lane. (“We respect the dead here. Even the President would stop his vehicle as a mark of respect.” This Jose dude is amazing.) We drive up Monte Bisi (sp?) On the gentle slopes of the hill, young teenagers are hacking down emaciated saplings from an already arid landscape. (“People are so poor they steal from the trees. They are stealing the wood to sell in the city.”) Up on the hill, a lone Timorese man sits contemplatively on a makeshift lookout point – two fallen logs neatly straddle a nook in the ridge edge, while an ancient acacia tree gives kind shade from the scorching sun.

Yet in this picture of seeming desolation, Dili is the deserving capital of Timor Lorosae – the sunrise that is brought forth by the children of the country. Jose, for one, suffers from an extraordinarily infectious hope. Hope that there is hope for his country. He shares his thoughts with me one night over a couple of beers by the beach. His manner is modest and understated, yet full of conviction. He is not alone either – there are many who share in his belief in magic. (“Have you ever wondered why Xanana (the President) never got caught? They say that whenever his enemies surrounded him, the clouds would gather and a storm would appear out of nowhere.” I point out that Xanana Gusmao was indeed captured at one point during the war. “Ah. You see, he let himself be caught. That was when he realized that the symbolic war was more important than the war itself.” We can only envy the unassailable logic of the hopeful.)