It is still hard to understand how little there were visible signs of upcoming misfortune in second-last week of April. Even if there were some tension in the air, I still wouldn’t ever have anticipated what was coming, as I have reported earlier.
These photos are from 21 and 22 April, my last day at the UNDP office as well as the farewell party and the departure from the airport. At that time, it was still more or less business as usual. There are more related pictures here. Thanks again everybody who came to the party or airport, and to all other people I got to know during my 3.5 year stay in Dili. Hope to see you soon somewhere in the world!What is happening in Timor-Leste?
I’ve tried to locate the best sources to follow the development of the situation. Here’s what I’ve found so far:
Other blogs
There are also some friends of mine who have been in East Timor and are keeping blogs:
Navelfluff (Robin’s blog, multilingual)
My Own Development Odyssey (Miwako’s blog, in Japanese)
Life at SIFA (Yukiko’s blog, in Japanese)
Since I am no longer in Dili, I was going to end writing this blog and start a new one with a more accurate tile. However, the title words have got a whole new meaning now, so I continue with that for time being. Although I have made a couple of posts about recent violence in Dili, I didn’t comment the events frequently or extensively. It is very difficult to believe what I clearly see. Despite the reports, I remained confident that the situation would normalise soon until last Thursday when we received the shocking news that, against the agreement reached, the F-FDTL soldiers shot dead ten disarmed national police officers who were marching peacefully under UN protection (the photograph is from UNOTIL press release / Lusa). I cannot believe this happened literally in front of the building I was still working in only one month ago. I've been in touch with many friends in Dili, but at the moment most of the expats there are busy being relocated to Darwin, and those few who are staying must be even busier. Most worrying is the situation of the Timorese friends, most of whom are supposed to stay at home or wherever it is safest in country. From the little I’ve heard, they are all alive at least.
Timor-Leste has probably got more media coverage in the Finnish media in past four days than in past four years combined. Yesterday, I was watching evening news where they showed picture material from Dili. There I sat, with a devastating feeling of watching my home burning in the television. And I also experienced the inexplicable and irrational 'I should be there now' sentiment. Had the report gone on any longer, I would probably have started to cry.
The very latest information I have is that President Xanana is leading the national effort for a peaceful end, and the international forces have got increased mandate to calm the ongoing looting and anarchy. I can only hope for the best.
REPÚBLICA DEMOCRÁTICA DE TIMOR-LESTE
GABINETE DO PRIMEIRO-MINISTROPRESS RELEASE
High Level Commission starts the hearings with the ex-military
The High Level Commission will start in the next few days the hearings for the ex-military that of the “petitioners” group. The ex-military that will be heard by the members of the commission belong to a group of 51 people that is in Maliana.
At the same time, contacts are being maintained with the other ex-military that are in the districts of Aileu, Oe-Cusse and Ermera. O Government believes that soon these men and women can be heard in connection to the work that is being developed by the Commission which has representatives from the four sovereign bodies, the Catholic Church and civil society, and whose purpose is to find the truth behind the claims made by the “petitioners” regarding life within the F-FDTL.
Contact is also being maintained between the 20 members that are a part of the F-FDTL and the Timor-Leste National Police and their respective chiefs. The Prime Minister, Mari Alkatiri, hopes that soon, these man can go back to their units. Until now, a harsher action against these men, forcing them to go back, has not yet been considered by the Government.
The Minister for Labour and Social Reinsertion, Arsénio Bano, delivered yesterday five tonnes of food the for the people that fled and are now in the Aileu district, and has also maintained contacts with the group of about 350 ex-military “petitioners” in order to debate over ways on how the proceed on the humanitarian and financial support that the Government intends to give to the ex-military, so as to integrate them in civil life.
Díli, May 11 2006
Now the international media has reported at least two deaths. I truly hope that the situation calms down and no further casualties will occur. According to my private sources, unlike the international media even in Finnish news today have reported, the aforementioned dismissed soldiers are not part of the violence, but some other groups have taken advantage of the demonstrations to spread instability. This sounds very much like the 4th December 2002, when the peaceful student demonstrations escalated to widespread destruction. The picture here is from 2002.My flat is rather empty at the moment, since my shipment from Dili won't arrive until some time, and there are also many items still waiting to be bought. I had some simple chair stored in the attic, but the locks had been recently changed. Hence, I needed to get the new keys. One may think that would be solved rather easily, if one didn’t know how the house management and maintenance of apartment buildings is organised here: both of these tasks have been outsourced – to different companies, of course.
So, I had received a letter from the house management company that the new keys can be obtained from the maintenance company. So far so good, I called the maintenance company, who confirmed that they have keys and I can come and get one from their office. Now, here comes the interesting part: the office is located in the other side of the city, and they have introduced special ‘service time’ for the house residents. This service time, which they claim on the house notice board is introduced to provide better service, is one hour once a week. Luckily this hour happened to be on Mondays, so I got the key, and chairs, yesterday.
I also wanted some more comfortable seating and bought a sofa and armchairs today. The furniture shop is located approximately 200 meters from my house, so guess how long it’ll take to deliver the couch? Yes, three days (‘only’, according to the salesman, so it should be with me on Friday); this again thanks to an optimised, efficient logistics system.
Yesterday, I started my first course for long time. It was actually quite a pleasant feeling sitting at the lecture again. I thought I would start disciplined, and arrived to the classroom two minutes before the scheduled starting time. Too bad my time was three minutes behind the one in the lecturer’s watch, so she had already started.
On Sunday, when I was waiting for a bus at the stop, I heard an elderly lady telling a horror story that had greatly disturbed her. She complained that in past six months, the bus had arrived to the stop two minutes before the indicative time presented in the timetable thrice, whereby she had missed the bus and had to wait another 10 minutes for the next one! She went on telling that first two times she had let it go, but after the third time she had called the bus company and complained.
So what is the moral of these incidents? It takes quite some time for simple things to happen, but then they will happen at the exact moment according to a schedule. I’m not quite sure whether I like this feature or not. Or whether it is a feature at all.
Now I've been in Helsinki for one whole day. The temperature here is not for humans. I woke up really early today (time difference?), at 6 o'clock, and the thermometre was showing -20°C outside. Here's a picture taken this morning from my bedroom window - note the white substance covering the ground.Otherwise, I haven't been able to much prepare for the return lately, as the usual backlog at work had to be finished, which practically took all my time past week. However, I did manage to make a hectic souvenir run yesterday at lunch break; I've had more than three years to by whatever Timorese artifacts I would have liked, but not surprisingly, I had left most of it to last moment. Of course I'll have a second chance when I go back to Dili for short visit in a month.
Now that most of the people know I’m leaving soon, I don’t have to buy anything to my fridge any more. I simply have dinner invitations for every night. On Sunday, I was invited by Dona Anita, who for three years has most excellently taken care of my house. It was very nice to meet many of here family members who I hard only heard about before. Here’s a group photo of them.
One thing (among others) I was asked to do was to put more pictures here. I have plenty in my little portable hard disk, but I never seem to get the time and motivation to organise them and pick up the good ones for public display. I think I shall start by recycling the old ones, adding some English notes to them.
However, here is a bit more recent event (January 5). Miwako-san, who is now already safely in Honduras, had to renew the field-security exam (this is something all UN staff on field have to take every three years) for her new assignment, and was reminded that one should never eat from food stalls. Obviously, we had to go and try right away. These photos are from one of the most delicious fish meals I’ve had for long, long time. Right there on the beach under moonlight and stars, freshly served from the food stalls.After careful consideration, I have decided to start a blog that reports interesting and less interesting events, related to my last weeks in Timor-Leste and later to my settling back to Finland. There is a collection of stories and photos, especially from my first two years (2002-04) in Dili, available here, as well as a more recent blog, but these two are written mostly in Finnish. I have been occasionally requested to make something available in a more widely understood language, but as time constraints (and my natural laziness) have limited my ability to update the news even in my mother tongue, the demand has not been met thus far. However, I realise it is now the last chance to start, and after abandoning (for time being) the idea of a blog in Latin, I am pleased to present this ‘service’ – in English.
An other reason to start writing these notes now is that I was reminded by a colleague with background in psychology that the culture shock is likely be much bigger when returning home than when moving overseas. I then remembered we were told in the induction course for development workers (organised by the Finnish Ministry for Foreign Affairs) before I came here that a good way to deal with a culture shock is to keep a diary. I never managed to do that when I came here, even if I had actually purchased a suitable notebook for the purpose. Yet, I survived without suffering from any shocks at all – at least as far as I can remember. Nevertheless, not knowing what terrible shocks might be insidiously on the prowl for me in Finland, I should probably greatly increase my ability to resist them by instituting this diary.
