07 July 2007 - Slowly a picture emerges

In drips and drabs....

Slowly, slowly the vote counting is drawing to a close. It seems as if FRETILIN might have secured the greatest number of votes but without an outright majority, it may be forced to go into the position as the opposition as a coalition led by Xanana Gusmaoa's CNRT, snatches power. CNRT is promising to modernise Timor Leste with its posters filled with gleaming 1st world skyscrapers and an airport whose facade rivals that of JFK!!! The voters have drifted away from the ruling party - the party who emerged from the resistance movement but who has been unable to show the necessary ability to start Timor Leste down the path of development. Therein lies a salutary notice for similar regimes around the globe - most notably my own. Eventually the people will require some return on their investment of faith in you....

But so too the political landscape in Timor Leste shifts yet again with implications for the Labour ministry's Youth Employment Action Plan.. No doubt the Secretary of State for Youth and Sport whom I met will have vacated his office by Monday - he is too prominent a FRETILIN person to remain in the position. Hopefully his successor will build on what is good and that has been put in place over the past 2 years rather than undoing everything and taking another dilatory 2 years to start any sort of implementation. The Minister of Labour is probably another too prominent member of FRETILIN to leave in place. More's the pity because his has been a very active ministry - one that has been prepared to work - even through the crisis periods.

And so if this project with the MAGs takes off, if, when the funding is approved, new political relationships will have to be forged, a new vision jointly created and new opportunities exploited to help Timor Leste on the road to peace and development.....

06 July 2007 - Some perculiar signs

Scratching my head....

I thought you might also ponder about the significance of these signs....

03 July 2007 - An air of anticipation

An air of anticipation......

The past several days have been taken up with counting the votes in what were relatively peaceful parliamentary elections here in Timor-Leste. The watchful eyes of the observer missions - including a 19-member strong delegation from South Africa - have criss-crossed the rugged mountain terrain from Lautem to Maubisse, from Ermera to Los Palos, from Maliana to Baucau.

So now there is an air of anticipation of the result. What will happen? Will the (current) ruling party, FRETILIN, retain its hold? Or will it be squeezed out by a coalition of the smaller opposition parties (as happened in the Cape Town municipal elections)? Or will the voters have given a resounding victory to the challenging CNRT party?
And would that truly mean a change?Or will it be just so much political musical chairs? If that happens, the president and the prime minister will have swopped jobs - both of them founder members of FRETILIN (albeit more recently both have become disillusioned with the party and have started their own political parties).....

01 July 2007 How Timor Leste got its shape

How Timor Leste got its shape

I heard it said that there was once a crocodile who had lived for many hundreds of years in a swamp and whose great dream was to grow and reach a phenomenal size. But not only was he a small crocodile, he also lived in a very confined space. Only his dream was large.

A swamp, of course, is the worst possible place to live. Shallow, stagnant water, hemmed in by strange, ill-defined banks, and above all lacking in food to tempt a crocodile.For all these reasons, the crocodile was sick and tired of the swamp. But he had nowhere else to live.Over the years - thousands of years it would seem - it was the crocodile's love of talking that kept him going. Whenever he was awake, he would talk and talk... he would ask himself questions and then, as if he were somebody else, would answer them.Even so, when you talk to yourself like this for centuries, you begin to run out of topics of conversation.

Not only this, but the crocodile was also getting hungry, first because there weren't enough fish or other creatures in the swamp to provide him with suitable meals, and second because although they were tasty, tender animals to be caught, like goats, piglets and dogs, they all lived a long way of. "I'm sick of living on so little, in a place like this!," he would exclaim in exasperation. "Be patient, be patient...", replied his imaginary companion. "But a crocodile can't live on patience!," he would grumble.

There is of course a limit to everything, including resistance to hunger. The crocodile's body grew weak and his spirits sank. He eyes became dull and he could hardly lift his head or open his mouth. "I must get out of here and look for food further afield..." With an effort he climbed the bank and made his way through the mud and across the sand. The sun was high in the sky, scorching the ground. There was no refuge anywhere. The crocodile became weaker and weaker until he remained where he was, roasting alive.

At that moment a lively young lad happened to pass by, humming to himself. "What's the matter, Crocodile? You're in a bad way! Have you broken your legs? Did something fall on you?"
"No, I haven't broken anything. I'm all in one piece. It's just that although I'm small, I can't carry my own body any more. I'm too weak even to find a way out of this sweltering heat." The lad replied: "f that's all it is, I can help you." And with that he went up to the crocodile, picked him up and carried him to the edge of the swamp.

What the lad failed to notice as he carried him, however, was that the crocodile had perked up considerably: his eyes brightened and he opened his mouth and ran his tongue round his saw-like teeth.
"This lad must be tastier than anything I've ever eaten," thought the crocodile, and imagined stunning the lad with a lash from his tail and then gobbling him up.
"Don't be so ungrateful," replied the other voice inside himself.
"But the need justifies the end"
"That may be, but remember it is also shameful to betray a friend. And this is the first friend you've ever had."
"So you expect me to do nothing and starve to death?"
"The lad rescued you when you needed him. Now, if you want to survive, it's up to you to look for food."
"That's true.."
So when the lad placed him on the wet ground, the crocodile smiled, rolled his eyes, shook his tail and said:"Thank you. You're the first friend I've ever had. I can't give you anything in return, but if you never been further than this swamp we see all around us, and would like one day to travel abroad, to cross the sea, come and see me..."
"I'd like that very much, because it's my dream to see what lies out there across the sea"
"Dream? Did you say dream? I too have a dream," replied the crocodile. They went their separate ways, the lad little suspecting that the crocodile had been tempted to eat him. Which was just as well.

Time passed, and one day the lad returned. He hardly recognised the crocodile: his burns has disappeared and he looked plump and well fed. "Listen, Crocodile, my dream hasn't gone away. I can't stand it anymore."
"A promise is a promise. I've been finding so much food that I'd almost forgotten my dream. You did well to come and remind me of it, Lad. Do you want to set off right now, across the sea?"
"That's the only thing I want, Crocodile."
"Then me too. Let's be off."
They were both delighted with the arrangement.

The lad settled himself on the crocodile's back, as if in a canoe, and they set off out to sea.It was all so big and so beautiful! What astonished them most was the open space, the size of the vista that stretched away before and above them, endlessly. Day and night, night and day, they never rested. They saw islands big and small, with trees and mountains and clouds. They could not say which was more beautiful, the days or the nights, the islands or the stars. They went on and on, always following the sun, until the crocodile finally grew tired. "Listen, lad. I can't go on. My dream is over."
"Mine will never be over.."

The lad was still speaking when the crocodile suddenly grew and grew on size until, still keeping its original shape, he turned into an island covered with hills, woods and rivers.And that is why Timor is the shape of a crocodile.

Taken from Fernando Sylvan's Cantolenda Maubere.

http://www.uc.pt/timor/croc2.htm

29 June 2007 - The lull....

The lull....

Things are relatively quiet on the election front. The past 2 days have been declared "quiet days" free of any electioneering so I am not sure whether that means it's the lull before the storm, or that people need 2 days to render them docile enough to vote.

I went out of Dili today. We took the coastal road to the little town of Tibar - probably the distance of Sea Point from the city centre of Cape Town. Heading west this time - if we carried on we would eventually get to the Indonesian border. I was amazed again by the beauty of the coastline and the beaches. Judge for yourself....
I think I will come back here on Sunday for a dip in the ocean away from the other internationals.

30 June 2007 - A bubble economy....

A bubble economy....

Life in Dili, economically anyway, is a little skewed.

A can of Coke costs about US$0.60 (ZAR4.20) in the supermarket and US$1.50 (ZAR10,50) in a restaurant/cafe. I've paid US$6.50 (ZAR42.00) for a kebab wrap at the Turkish restaurant I gushed on about before and US10.00 (ZAR70.00) for breakfast at the 4-star Hotel Timor. Two nights ago a small pizza at an Australian-owned bar cost me US$6.00 (ZAR42) while a large would have set me back US$12.00 (ZAR85)!! It made me wish for Debonairs' variety. On the other hand I have also been able to get a fish curry on seafood fried rice for about US$4.00 (ZAR28.00).

Electronic goods are either on par or even slightly more expensive than what I would pay back home. Although the variety is wider here I suspect.

DVDs are cheap. At US$1.00 - 1.50 (ZAR 7.00-10.00) each, I have augmented my collection considerably. Everything from the latest box-office releases to some classics and a whole bunch of art movies are on offer. It's also a good way to while away the time after hours when you are stuck in your airconditioned container behind a high fence and army patrols on the street.

However, accomodation costs are just laughable. My driver admitted to paying about US$30 (ZAR210) a month in rent for his house. I'm paying US$30.00 (ZAR210) per day!!! For my little cubicle!! Do the math over 28 days.....

But that is a function of the artificial UN economy at play at the moment. Because of the number of internationals on this little island, waving UN dollars, the cost of everything has gone up. Last time I was here I looked sufficiently Timorese that I could pay the local rate for lunch (US$1.20) ... until I opened my mouth... Then the price trebled.

The unofficial minimum wage is around US$85 per month; the receptionist at the Hotel is paid US$4.00 per day so earns around US$100-115 per month. If she takes a taxi cab to and from work every day, half of her wage would go to pay for transport.

28 June 2007 - Some more pix