What's up Dili?

So, what’s up in Dili, Timor Leste?

You may or may not recall the revolution that came to a head here in the late 90’s-early 2000s when Timor Leste gained it’s independence from Indonesia.  It probably didn’t outshine the O.J trial or the Monica and Bill show at the time.  It seems that when Indonesia finally got its freedom from the Dutch, they assumed that Timor Leste would want to go along.  But, they didn’t

Way, way back the Portuguese controlled the eastern part of this island and so, the island is now some 90% Catholic compared with the rest of Indonesia which is 85-90% Muslim. They still speak Portuguese here, as well as a language called Tetum and some Indonesian and some English, but they strongly identify with their Portuguese roots.   Kind of funny, I think.  Inflating one colonial power’s roots to rebel against another’s but there you are.

Timor means “East” in Indonesian.  Leste means “East” in Portuguese.  So, we’re in East East today.  The Tetum word for the country is Timor Lorosae.  Which also means East-East. Linguistic creativity is limited.

So, the country has 200,000 people, or 2 million depending on who you ask.  I’ve asked several locals and haven’t gotten the same answer twice.  Wikipedia says they have nearly 1.2 million people. From what I’ve gathered, there has been a downturn in the population after the UN pulled out of its peacekeeping and development projects.  All the accompanying people have moved on as well. It’s a pretty quiet place.

Young children swim naked on the beach after school.  They really have a blast. Men row or wade out into the surf and pull in some fish, haul them up to the beach road and sell them strung off coconut leaves by the side of the road. Those that they can’t sell they roast over a fire at the market down the street.  A poor man’s carry out. Mom’s and children fan off the flies in the evening sun.

One of the first things you notice on the road on arrival is the taxis.  They’re yellow, just like many places in the world, but the similarities end there.  They are garish and amateurishly decorated with day-glo green painted wheels and all manner of external accessories. Spoilers seem popular, as do parking mirrors affixed to the roof.  Most comical are the decals/sunshades, like “Suck on it” and “F(*k  it” and “Awesome”.  Very few have working A/C and all through the town they troll looking for customers with a toot of the horn and a yell out the open window.

Met a man in a bar who is involved with helping this young government set up its medication procurement and logistics.  Figuring out why they have a 15 years’ supply of medication that is going to expire in 2 years’ time.  Figuring out how best to ensure the population is getting true medication and not just some knock-off because it was cheaper or because the supplier was a friend of somebody.  Figuring out how to convince the people in charge that the real issue is patient health and not just a well stocked supply cupboard.  He says, “I often go into meetings  and let people know that I make decisions based on three words.”  and he writes them on the whiteboard, “Will, ‘Patients’ ‘Die’? and I’m often looked at with a perplexed look.  What do patients have to do with anything?”

He’s done this sort of work for several countries in this neck of the woods and tries to guide governments toward the decisions that make the best sense for the general health of the population.  He has come to accept a rather disheartening conclusion that “It is the right of any sovereign nation to kill its people in any way it sees fit.”  This was a couple beers into the night, but a rather sobering thought.

Made the rounds of the local hospital.  Met one of three psychiatrists in the country.  One of them is leaving next month to return to Portugal.  So, if there are 1.2 million people, he’s one in a million. He did some training in PNG and Australia, but he’s fiercely proud of his Timorese heritage.  

“Send them all.  If any person needs me here, I’ll see them?"

There is a psychiatric nurse in each of the districts and they all consult with him if they have problems. Most of the GPs like many in the world are too uncomfortable seeing psychiatric patients.

He tells me they don’t see much in the way of behavior disorders in children, perhaps they’re the ones out swimming naked in the surf. But, later he said he’d received complaints from teachers and asked for referrals, but hadn’t seen any yet.  Mostly when he sees children, they have autism or developmental problems.  He doesn’t find there are eating disorders here either.  We’re all too hungry.

Depression is a problem, as are marriage problems.  Schizophrenia rates have been rising in his office. Some patients have had problems for years, but only now have come forward.  Curiously this coincides with the newly instituted government policy where patients with severe mental illness receive an allowance for care.  They can only get the money if they are certified by a psychiatrist, and so they all come to him to get their paper signed.  

He offers them treatment, but “they just want the money.”  The families take the patient back home and do what they’ve done with them for the past 10 years, which is shackle them to a wall or keep them in a cage to keep them out of trouble. It is sad, but one consolation is that family support is something many in the US don’t have, so homelessness and victimization of the mentally ill is less.

He’s a very spiritual man.  There are a stack of New Testament bibles on his desk and there may have been talk about asking for forgiveness when I walked up to his office.  There are only 7 psychiatric meds available in the country, all of them antiquated. And it will be some time before there are any more, so there would be an urge to turn to the spiritual, I suppose.

There may be some hope.  Plans are on the drawing board for a new acute care psychiatry wing. My colleague though has yet to be consulted for any input.  

A Funny Way to Run and Airline

Off to Dili.

Caught a 5 AM flight via Bali.  Flight time changed to 5:45 am the day before.  I am aware from others that flight departure times may change minute to minute, and it’s an international flight, so I make a plan to arrive at airport by 3. I’m out the door at 2:15 AM.

Arrive at airport before it opens.  Along with hundreds of other like minded individuals. We wait in a fairly orderly queue out front. Apparently, all of Sriwijaya Air’s flights leave at the same time.  At 3AM, they open the doors and we all file in through an initial security checkpoint. This one to check that you’re not bringing in a bomb to the ticket counter.  

Beyond this is the ticket lobby. there is no line. No queue. No corral. Just an open lobby.  And all of us file in and go no where. We promptly fill the lobby. There is no one behind the counter.  It’s just dark.  And still, more travellers file in and crowd and shove and finagle. It is uncertain what happens next.  Maybe it will be like a Who concert.  It is getting tight.  

At 3:20 AM, one worker strolls up to one of 12 counters.  The hundreds of people all shuffle and heave over toward him and we wait again. The first person in line has some sort of problem, so his check-in is slow.  Another worker comes.  Another counter opens.  Another shift in the crowd.  

This goes on every 5 minutes or so for the next 20 minutes.  And with each new counter, there is a new problem, so no one moves very fast.  By now, all of 5 people have checked in.

Then 90 minutes before our flight, in stroll the real professionals.  10 women saunter in.  All coiffed and matching and heeled with a matching bag to boot.  They climb behind the counter and over the luggage belts and replace all the trainees that have been struggling for the last 45 minutes. The line clears in minutes.

We board.  There is no announcement over the PA, instead a woman opens a door and yells, “Denpasar, Bali!” at the top of her lungs and we all get up.  The man at the far end of the jetway is caught be surprise. He's unsure where to send us.  He yells down to the plane crew.  “Where is this plane going?”

It is remarkable.  We all leave on time.

We fly through Bali and arrive there about 90 minutes later.  We all get off the plane.  They bus us to the other end of the long terminal.  We get off.  Those of us going to Dili are told to go to Immigration, so we do.  We stand in a long line. We pay some money and then we stroll back through airport and wind up back at the exact same plane we just left.  Such are things on Sri Wijaya Air.  “Your Flying Partner!”

Browsing for a Vespa

Up and down the main drag to work, day in and day out for the last 2 months, watching the scads of motor scooters knifing through traffic has triggered the call of the open road in me. Okay, open road is an exaggeration, but still something beckons.

I’ve been scoping out scooters new and used, and I’ve found they’re really cheap. Including Vespas, which I’ve dreamed of owning for years. Here they’re two-thirds the price of those back home.

I found myself at the mall where they had a Vespa display, I guess tying-in with an Italian trade association meeting, or whatever. The mall was chock full of italian goods and merchandise.  Gucci, Lamborghini, Fiat, Alfa Romeo.  

While looking at a subdued, grey model, I noticed there was no place for a passenger to put their feet.  Just then an attendant approached me.

“May you help me?”, he asked.

I wrinkled my face. “Um, what?”  He recoiled in fear, but then persevered.  

“Do you have any questions about the bike?”

“Yes. There are two seats, but where does a passenger put their feet?”

He looked perplexed and then reached for a panel under the handlebars.  He opened it and there was clearly room for some flip flops or light running shoes.  

I smiled. “No, no.”  I broke into a 60/40 mix of english/indonesian.  It sounded like this. I pointed to the seats “I sit here.  My wife sits here.  Where does she put her feet?”  

I’m sure it sounded to him like some new-math story problem.  He thought for moment.  Maybe he thought my wife had large feet or big shoes, for he reached for the seat and popped open a rather capacious compartment that could hold a flashy pair of boots, I’m sure. But, it did not answer my questions and he knew it.  

“Are you interested in this bike?”

“Yes.” His eyes grew wide. “But, not today. Maybe soon.”

“Okay, mister.  Terima Kasih.”

I can only imagine how a negotiation is going to go.

The Disturbance

I know. I know.  We’re back on religion again.  I just can’t help it.  Peoples’ spiritual rituals are a draw for me.  That, and we seem to go exploring on Sundays.

Sunday in Jakarta, in Indonesia and in the Muslim world was Idul Adha or “Day of Sacrifice” commemorating the Abraham’s almost-sacrifice of his son Ishmael to God.  God told Abraham to sacrifice his son and Abraham being God-fearing, hauled Ishmael down to the altar and was about ready to do the act when he looked down and saw a ram there instead.  God was pleased and Abraham passed the test. There were promises of a great nation coming from his son.

I recalled from Sunday school that it was Abraham’s son, Isaac who was to be sacrificed.  The story is pretty near the same except for the name of the kid.  Biblical scholars out there please correct me, but this seems to be one of the initial points of contention that people have been fighting about for all of recorded time.

I might seriously offend if I delved too far down in this story and discussed the tawdry, soap-opera-ness of the whole Abraham story, so I won’t. But look it up in the Quran, or Torah or Genesis or... like me..., Wikipedia here and here

So, yes... Day of Sacrifice.  It is the second biggest holiday in Muslim Calendar after the end of Ramadan.  The holiday calls for the sacrifice of of a cow or a goat or, sometimes, a sheep.  This is all done at the local mosques.  All of them.

If you can afford, you buy a goat or cow take it down to the mosque where they’ve erected long racks. The animals are pointed toward Mecca, sacrificed and then strung up and cleaned. People can keep a third of the kill for themselves, give a third to families and donate a third to the poor. I’m told the Indonesian mosques have a pretty organized system for meat distribution and it is not a free-for-all holiday as it is in some countries.

I woke on Sunday to a rocking Prayer call.  They must have put up extra speakers in the minarets and called in all the best singers, because the city was absolutely humming all morning instead of just for a few minutes.

Went for a morning run.  Traffic was nil and crowds were all gathering in their sacrificial finery all all the mosques around me.  I’m convinced that, like America, there are the devout folks and the Christmas and Easter folks.  I know this because while running I was stopped by two Muslim women who asked me where the Mosque was.  

First, the sweaty guy in the bright sneakers is probably not the pious town crier rounding up the prayerful, and second,.. don't you hear that music, woman?

So, all the goats and cows that had been growing in numbers throughout the city the past few weeks were sacrificed.  Our maid went to the Mosque, but was “too scared to watch.”  Our driver was a helper and he helped dispatch 22 cows and 48 goats at their mosque alone.

Worldwide, I read that around 100 million animals are killed on this day alone. So, if you woke up and felt something it was a “disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror, and were suddenly silenced.”

Here’s a more serious topic you may enjoy.  Read it here ….Adventures in Wonderland

Three or Four Things

No great theme this week.  Just few amusing anecdotes....

The end of the month was payday for our help.  It was also our first payday for anyone on a salary from us.  So, it took some organization on our part. Figuring regular hours worked, overtime worked, extra allowances and all that extra stuff.

In my figuring, I remembered that our pembantu was due a clothing allowance.  So, I came home and asked her, 

“Bu. A, how would you like your clothing allowance?  Divided up?  All at once? As you need it?

“How about when I started working?”

“Oh, you mean a month ago when you first started working with me?

“Yes.”

“So, you mean I’m late?”

“Yep.”  She smiled.

My family and I are pile people.  Call it horizontal filing.  Call it hording-lite.  Call it sloppy.  Those closest to us have witnessed this.

So, we all came home one day last week to find our piles conspicuously absent.  Magazines and books were on shelves. Papers were stuck in drawers. Everything was close to it’s original place and fairly logically stowed.

“Bu. A!”, I joked as she was leaving for the day.  “Didn’t you like all our piles?”

Her smile beamed at me from down there somewhere around 4’ 11”.  “I don’t like messes. See you tomorrow!”  And she shut the door behind her.

Caught a cab back from lunch last week. Traffic was already starting to build.  I hopped in a taxi that was going my way. In my preschool Bahasa I told the cabbie I wanted to go to my office and gave him the usual landmark that I give all the cab drivers.  

He looked me up and down over his left shoulder and in a flash I’m sure he surmised that I was foreign and clearly linguistically challenged, and that the both of us were going to be frustrated by the trip.  And just like that, he unlocked the door and said “Saya tidak tahu”  (I don’t know it)

I was swimming in sudden rejection.  Is this cabbie breaking up with me?  I thought the locked doors were a commitment!  To have and to hold from the meter drop until I reach my destination!  “Wait!, I have a map!”  I implored.

He shrugged, “Saya tidak tahu”, he repeated and nudged his car over to the curb and stopped.

I took the hint. I stumbled out onto the sidewalk. He sped off. I laughed and was engulfed in thick cloud of diesel exhaust as an old bus rolled by.

It was an early soccer practice morning, so Z was up and out the door by quarter to 6 in the morning.  I came down to find all the power was out in the downstairs part of the house.  I found a text message on my phone.  

“Hey, sorry for the mess.  The electric is off downstairs.  I put bread in toaster and the power went off.”

What is with this country and the poor quality toasters?  See previous entry here.  This toaster was 5 weeks old!  

I flipped breaker. Retried toaster. Poof.  Out went the lights. No smoke.  No sparks.

I flipped the breaker.  Moved toaster. Tried again. Poof.

I flipped breaker. Tried again.  This time pushing down plunger slowly.  Poof.  Same result.

Well dang!  I guess one should not scrimp on the quality of one’s toasters in this country.

Came home in the evening and wondered if perhaps it was the wiring in the house that was bad instead.  Found a hair dryer and plugged it in.  It worked fine.  So, I tried the toaster again. Maybe, the wiring was okay, but just tired in the morning.  Poof!  

“Dad, you cut off the internet!”  

I flipped the breaker and then peered into the toaster and discovered that toasters are where geckos go to sleep during the day.  There peering up at me with now sunken eyes was a well and truly 6 time-electrocuted, 3-inch long gecko.  Eww!

“Ahhh! I’m a murderer!” cried my daughter.  

What does one due with a gecko in your toaster?  Can we just scrape it off and go about our breakfasts?  2 of 3 of us voted “no” and so I guess we’ll go find another toaster and maybe a nice toaster cozy to keep out the wildlife.

Imperfect People Meet Perfectly

Easily offended? This deals with religion and observations about one church service last week. Though not meant to offend, it may not be suitable for all audiences.

It started with a Facebook post that we received from friends announcing that Nadia Bolz-Weber was coming Jakarta and would be participating in a church service.  That’s the advert up top.

She’s a Lutheran minister who’s written a book and has done some speaking. My daughter  was inspired by speech she heard a few years ago at the Superdome in New Orleans and both she and Mrs. S.A.M. wanted to go.  

It was at a church on the northwest side of town.  Maybe a 40 minute drive from our house. Our driver took us. First things first.  Our driver had a very poor knowledge of the area, so I used Google maps and that got us in the general area. But, he wasn’t too trusting of the new technology when Google told us to make a U-turn.  He pulled over to ask a group of Ojeks or motorcycle taxis for directions. They told us to keep going straight for another mile or two.  They were right.  

Smugly, our driver said, “I think we should trust the Ojeks more than Google” and just laughed.

We arrived at the church which was in the basement of a large office building.

The first curious thing was the dress of the staff.  Maybe they were ushers? Greeters?  Guards? Pit crew? Regardless, they were dressed in Automobile racing shirts with sponsor patches sewn all over.  Ferrari, UPS. Shell, Pirelli.  Maybe 15 or 20 folks all dressed in bright red and white.  Very friendly.  Offered us coffee and tea.  

They also guarded the entry doors.  We could here practicing going.  Singing and music.  Just like those entrances at amusment parks, the doors opened at precisely 10:45 and we all filed in.  Z wanted a place near the front so we sat about 7 rows back.  It was a good size room. And by the time the service began it was full.

The first thing that struck us was the music.  Pop music thumping out of a sizable sound system.  Not even christian rock.  Just pop music. Z knew all the words.  

The next thing were the lights beaming and sweeping multi-colored from all four corners of the room.  

Then there was the huge, wall-sized movie screen at the front of the room showing, curiously,  motorcycle moto-cross movies. Right there larger than life.  It fit right in with the music and maybe the racing uniforms of the pit crew outside.

We sat down, and I surveyed more closely.  I saw a pole sticking up where the lectern might be in a normal lutheran church and I joked with my family that it was a stripper pole.  And then I looked again.  My eye wandered down the tall, brass pole to the black base with purple LED lights bordering the edges. On the front was emblazoned a pink and purple flower and the name “Hannah” scripted underneath.  It was indeed a stripper pole. Or maybe a Pole-pit.

Then came the smoke machines.  The room got hazier and hazier.  I briefly feared we’d be put to sleep and our kidneys harvested, but Mrs. S.A.M elbowed me at this suggestion  The lights, though got flashier.  On the screen a big countdown clock started ticking down the seconds until the service began.

Promptly at 11, the church leader came out and it was then that we realized that the entire service was going to be in Indonesian.  This, I don’t think. had dawned on us for some reason.  But, there we were. Listening for words we knew like.. Jesus, and amen.   

Let me tell you, though, too that there is no Indonesian word for pole-dancing.  I know this because in his all Indonesian announcements I heard two more familiar phrases...  “Nadia Bolz-Weber from Denver” and “pole dancing by Hannah”

And, on cue,  out curtsied Hannah into the spotlight dressed in a stylized tank top, purple sparkly shorts and skirt and heels.  She stepped across the stage and mounted her pole as the music began.  She gave a brief, but athletic twirl up and down and around and around.  I took video.  I was not the only one.  Cameramen beamed the show larger than life onto the screen behind her. It ended with applause.

Music was next with 8 piece rock band and and 5 vocalists.  It was karaoke style. Words were on screen and you could follow along with the bouncing ball.  Jesus is King, Jesus is the savior...   Lights were flashing.  It was rocking!

Then came pastor J.  He said a few words. Led us in prayer and then brought out Hannah again. I thought for sure this was how the offering was going to go down, but Pastor J kept it classy and just let her do her routine.  And it was really athletic and beautiful and probably would be even outside of a church.  

Pastor Nadia did the sermon.  A talk about the Good Samaritan parable. It was translated, so that broke up the flow.  And, though good, she was clearly upstaged by Hannah.  I think even she was stunned by the dancer as she remarked on this a couple times.

Then we were done.  Some sort of introductions were made of benefactors and band members and sound technicians and then the music started thumping and we filed out for snacks and photos.  There were interviews and cameras and all sorts of stuff.  You can see them here.

Hannah and her friends. Skim fast.... there are hundreds.

The church bills itself as “where imperfect people are perfectly welcomed.”  During the Indonesian parts of the service I found my mind wandering.  Is this what religion had come to?  Trying to attract by being at the extremes.  One side being ultra-conservative and the other side throwing up pole dancers and smoke and movies. I’m an admittedly Christmas and Easter church goer, so I’ve little room to talk, but I wonder if there is a the middle ground?

We rode home in silence. All wondering about the utterly surreal experience we’d just witnessed.  I was quietly thanking my lucky stars that I hadn’t invited our driver to listen in while he waited. On the way there, I thought about it.   A devout muslim, he would have been scarred beyond repair and probably quit his job.

I think next Sunday we’ll try and tone it down a bit.  Maybe check out a human sacrifice.

Pole dancing?   Jesus...

Check out more on Indonesia here at ....Adventures in Wonderland

Maryam

This is a movie review.

The ambassador does very good job of bringing locals and Americans together.  I mean, I guess that is their job, interceding between two countries.  But, the Ambassador here does well in doing this on a personal level. Promoting activities between American staff and our locally employed staff. He is very involved in team building. He participated in the award for the local Karaoke competition. He promises to compete next year.

An Indonesian won the Venice Film Festival award for his film “Maryam.”  This is a first, and a big deal among Indonesians.  

To showcase, the ambassador screened the film over lunch this week and had the director,Sidi Saleh, come in and talk about his film. It was well-attended by all.  

“Maryam” is about a Muslim, Indonesian, pregnant house girl who has to take care of an autistic young Catholic man over a Christmas weekend and what happens to them both when he forces her to take him to church on Christmas Eve.  

There are so many conflicts contained with in.   Rich v poor. Higher Class v lower class. Muslim v Catholic. Autistic v “Normal”.

One would think it difficult to touch on so much in just 17 minutes, but this flick manages to delineate them all with a gentle humor and grace and scant dialogue.  I mean, one of the characters is autistic played by a true autistic gentleman.

I wish I could send you somewhere to watch it, but it is not yet on Netflix or Amazon or any other outlet that I can find.  I know.  What’s the use of reviewing a movie you cannot find.  My apologies.

Do keep an eye out for it though, at a theatre or film fest near you.  “Maryam” directed by Sidi Saleh.  If you can find it, you will enjoy.