Geez, it’s a small world!

I’m in Dili now. I just got out of a taxi. Before I got into the cab, I asked (in Tetum), “How much?” (I know how to say this now). And then the driver said something I didn’t understand, but I didn’t hear any numbers, so I knew that he didn’t tell me the price. So then, I said “$1?” (in Tetum – I know how to say this now, too), but in saying this, I must have inadvertently answered his question, which I now assumed was, “How much do you want to pay me?”, because he then said, “OK”, in English. And I got in.

The rest of the journey went in silence, until he asked me (in Tetum) if he should turn right. I didn’t actually understand what he said, I just knew he asked me this, because we were coming up to the corner where we needed to turn right and he motioned with his hand. I said “Yes”.

So, he obviously thought I could speak fluent Tetun. Anyway, then he started making conversation, just as we were approaching my destination. He said something like, “Senora, [unidentifiable Tetum]... Australian?” I said, “Yes”, assuming he was asking me if I was Australian.

Then he said, “Hau [which I know means “I”]... [unidentifiable Tetun] Ulladulla ... [unidentifiable Tetun]”.

Then I thought, “My gosh! He sounds like he’s been to Ulladulla!!”

So I said, “Ulladulla?”

And he said, “Yes” !!!

Now, I’m assuming that he said, “I’ve been to Ulladulla”, but I could be wrong. That would be a really small world if he had. But I also just looked up the Tetum phrasebook to see if there were any Tetum words that sound like “Ulladulla” and the closest thing I can come up with is: “ular iha kabun”, which probably isn’t what he said, because, besides not sounding anything like “Ulladulla”, it also means “intestinal worms”, so I’m almost positive now, that he WAS saying: “I’ve been to Ulladulla”!!!

Wow! What a small world!

I’m getting good at...

• Catching mozzies with one hand.
• Making tomato sauce from scratch.
• Drinking way-too-sweet coffee.
• Squat-toiletting.

In Oecusse: Walking from my house to town in the morning

Stranger: “Bon dia!” (Good morning)
Me: “Bon dia!”
Stranger: “Bon dia!”
Me: “Bon dia!”
Stranger: “Bon dia!”
Me: “Bon dia!”
Stranger: “Bon dia!”
Me: “Bon dia!”
Stranger: “Bon dia!”
Me: “Bon dia!”
Stranger: “Bon dia!”
Me: “Bon dia!”
Stranger: “Bon dia!”
Me: “Bon dia!”
Stranger: “Bon dia!”
Me: “Bon dia!”
Stranger: “Bon dia!”
Me: “Bon dia!”
Stranger: “Bon dia!”
Me: “Bon dia!”
Stranger: “Bon dia!”
Me: “Bon dia!”
Stranger: “Bon dia!”
Me: “Bon dia!”
Stranger: “Bon dia!”
Me: “Bon dia!”
Stranger: “Bon dia!”
Me: “Bon dia!”
Stranger: “Bon dia!”
Me: “Bon dia!”
Stranger: “Bon dia!”
Me: “Bon dia!”

Walking from town to my house in the afternoon

Stranger: “Botardi!” (Good afternoon)
Me: “Botardi!”
Stranger: “Botardi!”
Me: “Botardi!”
Stranger: “Botardi!”
Me: “Botardi!”
Stranger: “Botardi!”
Me: “Botardi!”
Stranger: “Botardi!”
Me: “Botardi!”
Stranger: “Botardi!”
Me: “Botardi!”
Stranger: “Botardi!”
Me: “Botardi!”
Stranger: “Botardi!”
Me: “Botardi!”
Stranger: “Botardi!”
Me: “Botardi!”
Stranger: “Botardi!”
Me: “Botardi!”
Stranger: “Botardi!”
Me: “Botardi!”
Stranger: “Botardi!”
Me: “Botardi!”
Stranger: “Botardi!”
Me: “Botardi!”
Stranger: “Botardi!”
Me: “Botardi!”
Stranger: “Botardi!”
Me: “Botardi!”
Stranger: “Botardi!”
Me: “Botardi!”

Roosters ringing out at dawn

Since arriving in Timor, I’ve been making lots of comparisons between my current experience and my time in Bangladesh. I can’t help it. I just keep seeing things that are either very similar or totally different, or even just Timorese things that make me think of Bangladeshi things.

One morning in Dili, I got up to use the bathroom. It was dawn. All was quiet, except for a chorus of roosters crowing across the city – some right outside my window; some far off in the distance - each one singing the same song, but with its own individual voice and intonation.

“Sounds like the call to prayer in Bangladesh,” I thought.

Corn-on-the-cob

Wade and I went to a local market in Dili. I call it the “Hali Lara” market, because that’s what I was told it was called. But no one else seems to know what I’m talking about when I say that name. I’ve double-checked it with the person who originally told me the name. She confirmed that it was correct. I wonder if she’s playing a joke.

The Hali Lara market (if that is its real name), is set at the foot of the Dili mountains, and is instantly recognisable by the presence of several gigantic banyan fig trees out the front, with their foreboding, veiny trunks that could house a small family, their aerial roots hanging down from the branches like giant windchimes. The market has a lively array of items available, including colourful spices; vegetables arranged in little pyramids of tomatoes, mounds of ginger, baskets of rice; cheap Chinese kitchen gadgets and, surprisingly, second hand clothing.

The first thing that struck me as we began weaving our way through the stalls was just how many people didn’t seem to care that we were there. No one was yelling at us to try to get us to buy something, no one was holding things up in our faces saying, “Yes? You want to buy?”, no one was coaxing us into their shop, saying, “Please come in!”. We were just free to browse wherever we liked and everyone just went about their own business.

It was as if we were invisible!

I said to myself, “This has got to be the most relaxing market experience I’ve ever had”.

We slowly wandered towards the food stalls. We bought a packet of peanuts. We didn’t even have to bargain. It was all so relaxed.

We came across a man selling barbequed corn-on-the-cob-on-a-stick. Since I hadn’t had lunch, I thought, “Yeah, I’ll have one of those”.

I chose the one I wanted, gave the man his money and started walking again. I looked down at my corn-on-the-cob-on-a-stick and took a bite. Suddenly I felt like my invisibility cloak had just been yanked from my person. Eyes were staring at me. People were pointing. When I smiled at them, they smiled back, even bigger. When I smiled back at them bigger, they started cracking up laughing and exclaiming things in a language I couldn’t understand.

We kept walking. Everywhere we went, people were looking, pointing, laughing, nudging their neighbours. Busy people walking past would look up as they passed me, and then do a double-take, looking at the corn, and then back at me, then at the corn again, and then break into a smile. Before too long, news of the “malae” (foreigner) with the corn-on-the-cob-on-a-stick was spreading like wildfire, proceeding my every turn, where the locals around the corner were waiting for me with anticipation.

I started to get paranoid, wondering if I was doing something wrong. Maybe it wasn’t actually corn, but some strange animal poo. But then why would a man be barbecuing it and putting it on a stick and then smearing butter all over it?

Although it was a little different to the corn-on-the-cob I’ve had before (ie it was excessively crunchy – not a lot of moisture in the kernels), I still maintained that it was, indeed, edible.

Perhaps I had something in my teeth?

No, Wade confirmed that this wasn’t the problem.

It was a mystery.

For the rest of our market experience we were met with curious, yet friendly, pointing and laughing gestures.

I surmised that they were gestures of approval, rather than ridicule.

I took out the trusty Tetum phrasebook. I looked up “tasty” and found, “kapas los” (this food tastes good). I tried out the phrase on a few people. It was returned with vigorous head-nodding and more smiling.

By the time I’d eaten half of it, my jaws were beginning to ache. But I couldn’t bring myself to throw it in the bin, especially with everyone watching. We walked out to the street and hailed a taxi. The driver gave me and my corn a friendly smile as we got in, and we went home.

It all began with a trip to the Emergency Room...

Midnight. Darwin airport. Four hours until I had to be back at the airport for the 6.30am flight to Dili. I had a choice to make: four hours in a hotel room trying to sleep or the emergency room?
It wasn’t so much an “emergency”, as a: I’ve got the beginnings of an illness that if I don’t act fast, I may regret it when I get off the plane in a country where I don’t know the language or the health care situation. I’ll spare you the gory details, but I’d spent most of the flight from Sydney to Darwin in the toilet.
The emergency room was busy. There were lots of sick-looking people sitting in uncomfortable-looking chairs. Some were groaning. Most were quietly watching a television mounted high in the middle of the room. RPA was on, which I thought a bit unseemly for an emergency room. I approached the nurse who was sitting behind a large glassed-off reception desk. I was feeling somewhat guilty that I wasn’t exactly an “emergency” patient, but I explained my situation and she processed me without emotion. I happened to notice a brochure sitting on the counter. It said:

While you’re waiting, we’re saving lives.

I took a seat and prepared for a long night of bad television and a stiff neck.

After only about an hour, my name was called. “Wow!” I thought, “That wasn’t too bad after all. They must have taken sympathy on me because I’ve got a plane to catch.”. I did wonder what the other patients must be thinking though... “This girl waltzes in before us, and she doesn’t even look sick!”. I almost thought to speak up and say, “Oh, no! These people were before me,” but my bloodshot-eyed stupor took away all compassion.

The doctor was friendly enough, until she informed me that she was only taking my “obs”. She poked and prodded, wrote some notes and then directed me promptly back to the infomercials. As I resumed my seat, I thought I noticed a snigger from an old lady in a wheelchair.

By this time it was about 2.00 am. I had to be at the airport in 2½ hours. All I could think about was bed. Also by this time, I seemed to be feeling a bit better, which really made me feel guilty about being in the emergency room. I seriously contemplated walking out, getting in a cab and going back to the hotel to sleep. I’m not sure if it was my own resolution that did it, or the fact that I was mesmerised by the “Sambarobics” (the latest Latino weight-loss craze that everybody’s doing!) on the TV, but I decided to wait it out.

There is one distinct difference between waiting in an emergency room and other doctors’ surgeries: drunk people. They make the wait so much more entertaining. Watching the antics of one young man in particular - I can say with utmost certainty – was the only thing that kept me from falling asleep in my plastic chair. He appeared to have a broken nose, and he was in the (real) emergency section. He came storming out from behind the reception area, swearing and saying he wasn’t going to wait around anymore because everyone was taking too long. He walked out. The ambulance officers didn’t try to stop him. Neither did the nurses. After about five minutes, he walked back in, blood pissing everywhere. “I blew my nose!” he said, “I know you told me not to, but there was so much f...ing blood up there, I had to get it out. I promise I won’t do it again. Can you let me back in?”

“Sure,” said the nurse opening the door, unamused.

While you’re waiting, we’re dealing with dickheads.

The other thing to do in the emergency room is to get to know the system. It didn’t take me long to work out what was going on. First, there’s the “small door” for “obs”, which takes about two minutes for people to come in and out of. It's basically there to get people's hopes up. Then there’s the “big doors”. When people get called into the “big doors”, they are there for a bit longer, but when they come out, they go through the “automatic doors” and go home. It was about 3.30 – I had just finished kissing my sleep goodbye - when I was finally called into the “big doors”. I was led to a hospital bed, told to sit on the chair next to it and that: “There’s no doctor at the moment, but we’re fast tracking you and you’ll see the first doctor available”.

Fast tracking me? Huh?

I waited, sitting on the chair, looking longingly at the bed next to me.

In all, I saw the doctor for approximately five minutes. She was nice enough. I got the drugs.
What I didn’t realise until my third day of building intimate relationships with the toilets of Dili, was that she gave me the wrong ones.

I had my first little Dili adventure in the local farmasia (chemist), my Tetum phrase book in hand. After (unsuccessfully) describing my symptoms to the girls behind the counter, a friendly man helped to explain them in Chinese to the Chinese doctor, who had come out to see what all the commotion was about. Within minutes, everyone in the shop knew all about my medical condition, but I had the (right) medicine. The doctor sent me on my way, but not before she had tut-tutted at the sight of my original medicine bottle, saying: “These no work!”.