How I got to Timor-Leste

HOW I GOT TO TIMOR-LESTE

Here, I sit in my house in Oecusse looking out of over the water of the Timor Sea. This morning I walked out to my back yard to snorkel in a moderately good reef 100 meters offshore. Yes, I live on the beach. Though, I only get to do my snorkelling and swimming on the weekends when I’m in the “beach” house. During the week I’m in the “mountain” house where I’m managing the construction of 11 water systems over the next three months.

I guess I ran off pretty quickly to Timor-Leste, so I better explain. About a month ago, I mentioned to some of you that I may have been going to only tell you later that I wasn’t. How I ended up in Timor-Leste (commonly known as East Timor in English) goes something like this. A few weeks before I graduated from UCLA with my Master’s I had been notified that I had been chosen for a position with a French NGO to manage the implementation of rural water systems in Timor-Leste, but with a catch, the position was pending financial approval. I was told that financial approval was probable. However, just days before my graduation I was informed that funding had not been approved by USAID and its contractor CDM. Upon hearing this, I graduated, went to Wisconsin for my brother Joe’s wedding and then spent a week at my uncle’s cabin in Canada before setting to finding another job.

Friday, June 25, I received an email saying that CDM had approved funding for the position, and the NGO wanted to know if I was still interested in going to Timor-Leste. Initially, I was hesitant. My joblessness had caused me to plan a bicycle trip with a couple of UCLA friends from Vancouver, Canada down to Los Angeles, by way of the Pacific Coast. I was quite excited for this adventure. Eventually I decided that I couldn’t pass up a job in this tough market. (I had been applying to jobs for a month, and this one was the first that I had heard back from).

Being that the NGO is based in France and I was in the U.S. the time difference sure didn’t expedite the hiring process. I was needed ASAP as the project was short handed. Since, I received notice of the job Friday afternoon; it was already the weekend in France, which halted communication until Monday. To make things more difficult, I was flying to Los Angeles on Monday. Upon landing, I found out that I had a flight leaving two days later, Wednesday, for Asia. Foolishly, I agreed, but suggested that a more direct flight would be better. Thankfully on Tuesday, I was put on a more direct flight leaving Thursday, July 1 to Singapore by way of Tokyo, and then to Dili, Timor-Leste’s capital. I set about frantically getting all the items I needed, closing accounts, and visiting friends (I didn’t get to see nearly as many as I would have liked).

On Thursday, three days after arriving in Los Angeles, and six day after finding out that I had the job, I was on my way to Timor-Leste. After 21 hours of flying and 9 hours of layover, I arrived in Dili, greeted by a heat and humidity that slapped me in the face. The plan slammed down hard on the short runway, and slammed on its brakes and then hit the brakes even harder to keep us from going into the sea.

The airport was small, just receiving 3 commercial flights on a busy day. The majority of aircraft had United Nations insignia blazoned on their sides, hinting to their strong presence in maintaining government stability and legitimacy. Timor-Leste only achieved independence from Indonesia by vote in the late 1990s or early 2000s. The Indonesian forces didn’t go quietly, destroying much of the public infrastructure in the country as they left.

My departure had been so rushed that I knew nothing about how I was going to get a visa, who was going to pick me up, even what language I should be learning (even the guidebooks aren’t clear on this). The situation was such short notice that when I checked in with Singapore Airlines in Los Angeles, they didn’t even show in their system that I was a passenger on my Singapore to Dili flight with their subsidiary, SilkAir. The man had never even heard of the airline company with whom my ticket was purchased, Austasia Airlines. He just checked my bag through to Dili, and told me to make sure that I talked with someone in Singapore so that I could take the same flight as my bag. At least, I knew my luggage was going to make it.

We deplaned onto the tarmac and walked through a group of Timorese soldiers heading in a different direction. As I was waiting to get my visa, a girl tapped me on the shoulder. She was Marie Anne, another new hire to work in Oecussi with me. She, unlike me, knew a little bit about the situation and even knew that I was coming on the same flight as her (I was ignorant to her coming at all). She was armed with a picture of me. We went to the visa office to get our $30 visas. The baggage claim and customs were housed in a small house structure (it looked like an old Pizza Hut with the tall roof). The baggage belt was no more than 50 feet long.

Outside of the baggage claim my friend David was there to meet Marie Anne and me. Oddly enough, somebody I know is working in the same country, for the same NGO, on the same project, but just on another site, as me. David was a Peace Corps volunteer in Honduras. When I started he had already completed one year of service. I found out he was working on the job by a random mention of his name during my interview. With this I arrived in Dili and stayed in the NGO’s rented house.

I arrived in Dili, Timor-Leste on a Saturday. The boat leaving for the province in which I was to be stationed, Oecussi, was not leaving until Monday night. My two days in Dili were miserable. I was jet-lagged beyond belief. I guess an eight hour time difference and nearly a day and a half of transit time really took a toll on me. Also, the high heat and humidity, which I wasn’t used to and my asthma acting up as it always does until my immune system gets accustomed to a new place, gave me pounding headaches and a poor disposition.

Dili does not feel like a capital city. The streets are quiet. Taxis drive slowly, but definitely not orderly. There are no McDonalds, KFC, or other franchises. There are few restaurants. Even government buildings feel absent. In most of the developing countries that I’ve travelled in, the capital cities are pockets of globalization, chaos, and modernization (for better or worse).

Dili is relatively expensive given the extremely low standard of living being that items have to be shipped to what seems like the end of the earth. The place feels completely devoid of wealth, except for the expats. The country has parity in impoverishment. Seeing poverty across the entire population and none of the extravagant wealth of a few reminds of what a Romanian friend once told me, “Even though we [Romanians in general] are poor, the concentrated wealth in the hands of a few at least signified that our country had wealth and one day we would get it.” I was surprised by his optimism but couldn’t deny seeing where he may be right.

Monday, July 5^th, I took the ferry from Dili to Ocuessi. The ferry leaves twice a week from Dili at 5:00 and arriving in Ocuessi twelve or more hours later. The ferry can be delayed a bit if the tide is too low when it arrives, as the boat can only dock when the tide is fairly high. The ferry, a pretty good sized boat donated by the German People five years ago, is the only boat on the route so if it breaks down, transportation from Oecussi to Dili can be stopped for weeks. Oecussi, is an interesting Timorese province in that it is not contiguous with the rest of the country. Instead it lies on the Indonesian side of the Island of Timor. The airport, if it can be called that, has been closed since independence and is only used by the UN. It is quite difficult for the Timorese to travel through Indonesia as the countries are not on good terms. The ferry is the only option. The cost is a high, $14. The boat is filled, to the brim, I’m not sure if to an unsafe level or not, but all the people lying on the top deck, in the halls, and the floor of the main seating area, certainly gives that impression. We, due to a friendship between one of my co-workers and the Capitan, were able to get one of the six cabins. Surprisingly, I slept almost the entire trip in air-conditioned comfort.