Shortly after returning to East Timor, I left (on my birthday none the less) because of the situation. If you don't know what I am talking about, Google News on Timor. Right. That's about all I have to say.

But Timor, thanks to goodness, is slowly returning to normal. For those who don't know what happened, right before I left (28 April) some rioting broke out in Dili outside the government's offices. The fear, building on the trauma this country has been through, promted a mass exodus into the hills for many Dili residents. Coming back, shops are open again, and though we have eliminated any resemblence to traffic jams in the streets, it is possible to find a taxi. Though they have jacked up the rates again (urg ... more walking for me!). The land is drying out ... while I was gone the seasons did, without a doubt, really change, and my home street is dry and dusty. It's a huge improvement from the pig-wallowing mud-hole that it normally is.

The only thing that spolied my happy return was the cheerful greeting of my landlord who tells me, "You've gotten fat!" to which I did my best to re-muster my cultural sensitivity, and wincingly smile, "Thanks."

It turned out to be an awesome day - who knew? Between meeting a friendly UN Media officer who had traveled from Kupang, West Timor to work in East Timor in 1999, to the incredibly easy border crossing, inclusive of coconut-water rice and curry meal with the bus driver, reading a science-fiction novel for a few hours while sitting on the beach in the no-man's land between the borders with two border patrolmen as personal guards, then chatting up custom's officials about the best type of 4WD to drive around the foho (mountains). A perfect vacation. Even better - though I did not meet the love of my life apparently I fulfilled that role for someone else. Marriage proposal # ... well, I can't remember ... -- an Indonesian inspections officer (quite handsome, I might add) was terribly disappointed when I spun the usual fib of married with two kids, and, most gentlemanly-like, suggested that if I had not been married he would have been more than pleased to spare me from singlehood. It was kind of cute. He didn't even inspect my bag.

Within an hour I begin getting texts from friends in Dili querying, basically, whether or not I dead. In point of fact, I was actually down with another regular case of the stomach flu and would have rather been less than conscious. Thursday afternoon we left Same a bit early to avoid the storm and make a quick stop past Ainaro to talk to the radio, but upon reaching Ainaro receive word from Dili again that the cyclone warning has moved to early Friday morning and also moved towards Ainaro. As most media people do, we like to share the bad news, so we went to the radio station but found it deserted. We then stopped by the police station to see if anyone knew the radio volunteer's houses, and then did the mad-dash bouncing through the dark, rainy streets of Ainaro directed by one friendly officer, who spends most of the trip asking who the malae is, where she is from, and whether or not she can speak Tetun. I mumble the answers, far more interested in finding a safe, dry spot to curl up in and nurse my aching innards. Upon finding the radio staff, my co-worker relates the weather reports from Darwin and suggests that people should be warned about how to stay safe in heavy winds. The radio, however, was not open and hadn't been functioning due to irregular power. Shrugging his shoulders, he says that people will just spread the news and they don't need a media announcement. The police officer, listening intently, chimes in that he will let the church know and anyone else he can find of our weather news. We go back to rest before dashing to Dili the next morning, all slightly worried that the warning would never get spread - not by word of mouth in the midst of a heavy downpour.

In Dili the next day, we find out that the rumors of 'anin bo'ot' [storm, lit: big winds] and the possible rough seas [tasi sai], have been translated by a large portion of the population in all of Timor to: TSUNAMI!! Luckily there was no mass panic, despite many NGOs canceling work for 2-3 days, and when the rain stopped life went back to normal. That evening, though, I went to a salon to get the mop on my head trimmed a bit. In the midst of the Indonesian-style head massage, I hear the lady next to me recounting the panic in her neighborhood:

"Everyone was talking about big winds! We were all so scared and we brought the children inside but then later we were scared because people started talking about tsunami! We just thought it was rumors and no one knew if it was just lots of rain or if we should go to the hills, but then our cousins in Ainaro called and said that they knew there was a big 'anin bo'ot' coming, it was really big and the seas would rise and it could have been a tsunami! They said they were sure because the Americans had told the police there! Everyone was scared so we ran to our uncle's house that is inland with big walls."

Sitting silently next to her I wondered if I should say anything, but instead I made a mental note never to down the coverage (if not the accuracy) of word of mouth. What I really should have said was:

"Damn Americans. Should never believe a word they say anyways."

Old:

And new:

In these last rays, Joao told me that there were histories of this mountain, but only the old mountain folk knew them and no one had bothered to go and ask. But he said there was one malae who knew these stories too. She came in 1975, interested in Timorese culture, specifically in spiritual objects likun. She had a daughter who goes to University in another country. She left after 1975 because of the Indonesian time, but then came back, and then later left Maliana to go to Loe Laku, and was followed by many Timorese who went with her to form a city on the west side of the mountain. In that city, he said, she was a special malae, not like most malaes. She chews the mama malus, and gets really red teeth like the old women of Timor. While most people cannot hold likun, she can. When I asked why, Joao laughed and then leaned in. He said she was learned in the likun, and as she was interested in Timorese culture she would ask people to bring their clothes and tais (traditional Timorese weaving) to her house, but that if they came at night they could not come in - they would just leave it on the veranda. But some people did see her at night, and when they did, she was transformed into a snake, and all the people who saw her died.

That night I stared up at the mountain and hoped that I would one day meet this malae with red teeth, but that I would make sure to go in the day ... just in case.

"When light rain comes down during a hot day - this is when monkeys get married!"

My reaction was to look at her and say "uhh, huh", but all the staff agreed: when it rains during a hot day, the monkeys will get married and then they will have a festa and dance all night.

Sometimes I just love Timor ...

The normally brilliant sea had turned a grey reflection of the unending sky of clouds. It wasn't a day of thunderstorms, but a day of straight, dull rain that runs in rivulets through the broken streets. Sometimes the old women we passed carried banana leaves over their tightly wound buns to ward of the rain, or in the less-rural kids walked to school carrying flowered pink umbrellas or plastic bags over their shoulders as ponchos. By one roadside stand selling soaked firewood, a girl no more than ten squatted by the road picking at the grass, an open umbrella tossed carelessly beside her, ignoring the dribble that ran through her hair and launched off her little nose.

Manatuto was a town of a couple long, holed streets, an unusual amount of young chickens, and long days of sun and light wind that pass as if they were not today, but yesterday. Our accommodations were in a fantastic Portuguese-style concrete house. The cockroach-free rooms are accompanied by the amazing amenities of a western toilet and shower-head, both of which are broken but their very existence gives the entire wash room the look of urbanity. I sleep well, waking only once at 4 am to the sound of a pig yodeling to the stars, but quickly am lulled back to slumber as soft post-rain winds flap at the red-flowed green curtains.

The next day, I stroll down to the market in search of paun - the small Portuguese bread that is my staple diet in the districts - and make the acquaintance of the woman who makes the bread too sweet, but seems sweet herself so I eat it and can't complain. In the midday, the silence and the pig squeals are occasionally accompanied by the low hum of a generator churning out power for a motorcycle repair shop or the laundry machine in a wealthy-woman's house. The days roll by with the quiet talk of project proposals and brochures, to the steady beat of thigh and neck-swatting due to the thick cloud of mosquitoes. In the afternoons, when the sun is too hot to even bother trying to nap, I sit on the porch and watch the stilted prancing of the baby chicks as they cross back and forth across the road in search of their mother or food (and that answers that question).

In the local restaurant one evening, where I am having my usual noodle soup to ward of the fear of fish and rice, we (my coworker and I) meet two Peace Corps workers. Over dinner, I can't figure out if I have lost touch with other malae society, or they have. That night the rains return with the heavy tapping on the tin roof, as if to say goodbye, and the next day after lunch we clamber back into the car and make the return trip past the steep red hills, now fleshed with dark green and reflecting the sunlight of their healthy wax-coated leaves, tumbling down to the sea that has now turned the turquoise of tourist photos.

So I do know I should write more, but I have no time now and I shouldn't be in the office anyways on a Sunday - so here is a random photo from our guesthouse in Aileu. And happy new years to everyone and happy winter holidays of whatever sort were celebrated.

This is the beach at Tutuala:

This is the beach when you are up close. There are no people. There is no trash. They believe this place to be the spiritual center of Timor. Damn, it's sure as heck the spiritual center of something:

Hermit crab. In case you can't tell the proportions from the picture, it's damn BIG:

Our friendly fisherman / guide. At sunset. Yes, it looked that cool when I was there.

Not at Tutuala -- at home. Home with a dog named Malu who is one of four puppies now inhabiting our porch. Cute, no?

Hindu statue behind the radio station in Viqueque. Geez, from the looks of these pictures, I do travel quite a bit.

The television tower and palm trees at sunset in Viqueque. Now, with that picture, next week I'm off to Hawaii for a ... vacation. Ironic.

In other random news, for those who care, I have been invited to the house of my favorite resurant woman (Nelsin of FM41) in Kupang. I am so damn flattered, I can't even express it here. :-D

See, when I came back from vacation the little things about Timor that had come to bug me stopped bugging me. The honking of taxi drivers is once again an amusing diversion, and the street kids hawking their wares just kids, and not frustrations of the highest order. My neighbors with their screaming kids are no longer an infringement on my long-sought solitary existence, but kind people who will ask me where I am going each day with unfeigned interest and will sit around on my porch gossiping about life and giving gardening tips.

But the real difference is not in the time spent on vacation, but the returning of the ability to smile. People talk of 'energy' here: the energy you give off and the way that your energy interacts with the world. I am not one to speak in such terms, the concretist that I am, but in this case it has a remarkable applicabiity. Since coming back from some time i could actually call my own, I have been able to smile without reserve at random people walking down the street - and surpirse surprise they invariably smile back. By the time I left I was so tired as to think of Timor as unfriendly - but nothing could be further from the truth. Indeed, before I had time to leave and to get some rest - the only person, I swear, that was unfriendly in Timor was me.

Anyways, on heading back here I have realized how much I actually missed it -- even though I never though I would. I miss my neighbors, and the kids in the yard, and the dogs who have slowly learned to become friendly. I missed being able to have chats with every taxi diver I meet, and eating at resturants where the staff all know my name and welcome me with a booming laugh and a 'hellloo, mana bo'ot!' each time I enter. Vacation also teaches you how much you miss the places where you live your everday life ...

Ok, I'm done waxing on. But I hope the next person who comes here understands that there is nothing wrong with taking a vacation. The world world will thank you for it - and not the least yourself.

The River Kwai (yup, the same one from the movie which I have, I'm afraid to admit, never seen):

Kids in a waterfall:

Head of a Buddha covered by roots. It probably has a more sophisticated name than that but I don't know it:

Another pretty ruined temple:

And one last pretty standing temple:

Ok, that's all for now. Maybe I'll be better at updating when I get back from the districts.

Peace.