Et Le Navire Va: June 6 – Darwin, the first day in Dili, and the Ambassador

First let me say I’ve been taking a ton of pictures and videos, but I don’t have the time or the energy to upload anymore than a few right now, so you’ll have to wait. I know; people around the world must be holding their collective breath right now. Simmer down my millions of fans, you’ll see the wonders I hold eventually.
Darwin was a pretty beautiful place, but also pretty boring. It’s the capital of the Northern Territory of Australia – basically the only city in the north. It’s closer to five other capital cities than it is to its own, including where we are now, Dili, and the entire space between it and Sydney is pretty much desert. We walked around a beautiful park, and then around a lot of the city. Our hostel happened to be located in the entertainment district. First of all, Australia is ridiculously expensive, more so than the USA. Secondly, there didn’t seem to be a whole lot to do. In just a couple of hours I felt like I had seen the entire town of probably just over 100,000 people. It didn’t help that we had to get up at 3:45 (though because PVA did and I was in the same room, I got up at 2:45), and that we were with PVA, because Grant and I couldn’t really go to the bar to throw back some drinks or anything. Plus it seemed like everyone in the city was either a backpacker in their early 20s or a pensioner, as they call it there. If I am in Australia again, I would definitely like to go up there again, but because it’s supposed to be close to some beautiful nature, not for the city itself.
The flight to Dili took just over an hour. For some reason, Darwin Airport makes you go through a second security after you have already been in the terminal for international flights, meaning I had to throw my coffee away. I got a decent sleep last night – went to bed around 8 PM – but am still pretty exhausted. We have been going nonstop since we got to Dili today, and it has been HOT. I guess I should get used to this for Cameroon though. We have been working with this awesome Timorese guy named Jaoa Bano but goes but John. He is going to be our translator for the entire trip, so we got lucky. While he was translating some documents, Grant and I walked around this great memorial park along the harbor that they had just dedicated. East Timor got its independence (again) in 2002. They got it the first time in the 1970s from Portugal, but Indonesia didn’t wait too long before coming in and taking over to “stop communists,” something the United States was all to happy to let happen. Finally in 1999 they got independence again, but didn’t really have the ability to manage it, so the United Nations took over until 2002. The only problem since has been a couple of armed civil conflicts in the country in 2005 and 2006, but things have been pretty quiet for the last six years. There are a lot of people from the United Nations, NGOs, and the Australian military around here. The funny thing is, almost the entire police force is from the United Nations, but they all wear different uniforms. They may all have the UNPOL logos, but each one has different colors and the different flag on the shoulder – Brazil, China, Malaysia, etc.
This is a really interesting place. There are huge trees with mangoes and papaya and bananas everywhere (most aren’t really in season), but also a lot of poverty. There are stray dogs, cooking fires, and people selling food and knick-knacks everywhere. Everyone rides a motorcycle, but they all always wear their helmets because they take your bike if you don’t. There are no traffic lights or seemingly any rules to the road, which is fun when you want to cross the street. People pretty much have to get all of their water from plastic water bottles because tap water isn’t clean enough to drink (which is a big pain in the ass when it’s so hot out). There are two ATMs… in the entire country. Plus here’s the kicker, they use American paper money, but have their own coins up to $0.50. Great because we didn’t have to exchange anything, but also a shock when I paid for water in American money and got a Timorese 50 cent piece back.
John has been teaching me to say a few things so I don’t feel like such a jackass walking around. Here’s what I’ve learned so far, (and by the way, these are not spelled correctly, just how they sounded with him saying it). In Timor there are more than 35 regional dialects, plus the national language Tetum, and a bunch of Portuguese and Indonesian words mixed in, so what people actually speak is a bit of a conglomeration.
Lesensay – Excuse me
How belay photo? - Can I take your photo? (and How is I)
Lie – NoObrigado – Thank you (definite leftover from Portugal) Folin hira – How much money? Basically these have been the things I wanted to know so I wasn’t just walking around taking peoples’ pictures without asking or not using common courtesy like saying excuse me and thank you.
Grant and I keep getting stared at while we’re walking around. I think part of it has to do with his beard, but most of it has to do with how tall I am. The Timorese are a small people, I would guess John is only about 5’5”. While we’ve been walking around, John has been telling me what people have said while we were walking by. Most of it are “look how tall that guy is” and “imagine if he kicked us, what would happen.” I feel like I’m going to be hearing things along the same line a lot.

We just got back from meeting US ambassador to Timor-Leste Judith Fergin. I’m really grateful that she could make the time to meet three random guys from University of Denver and our translator, I’m sure she’s a really busy woman. She was also incredibly knowledgeable about not only the current state of affairs for pretty much everything in the country, but the history as well (and you know how I love history). She told us a lot about the development of Timor-Leste, put us in contact with people that could help us with our research, and even gave me the name and contact info for her assistant who had just gotten back from a foreign service tour in Cameroon! We then came back and had some fried rice dishes for dinner at a little place by our hotel. Between the three of us including meals and drinks it came to $8. All in all, I would say this was a very successful first day to our trip. I’m going to keep these blog posts coming as long as I have internet and the time/energy to write them, maybe someday you’ll even make the journey to Dili!

The first is in Darwin with Bear Cub