I find the convent, there are two Portuguese women with "Medic?s do Mundo" T-shirts. I had noticed them in their car before, with the same logo on the doors. They give me the keys and show me the room. Amidst a tropical garden out of a film, in a small pavilion with a verandah cladded in spotless white tiles, the room is small and nice, a bed in the middle with a bright green mosquito net over it, two windows with louvres on both sides. Not clean but who cares. I unload, make my bed with the provided sheets and realise I don't know the charge.
I end up having coffee with the two Portuguese medics and the head of the convent, la madre. She is Timorese, speaks some English but her Italian is fluent due to her two and a half years in Rome. The prospect of speaking Italian unleashes the usual stream of beautiful words, I'm glad to understand the main idea and don't encourage her further. The conversation at the table is dominated by one of the Portuguese, she is giving us the account of the horrible journey she had to Timor and has to take in a couple of days back. Dili, Darwin, Singapore, Djakarta, Madrid, Lisbon. The other Portuguese is bored; la madre is nodding knowingly. I look around the room at the paintings of a weird looking Christ and inscriptions in Portuguese in very irregular letters, some photos and a very strangely civilised atmosphere - a white tablecloth, the chinaware, the fresh pastrys baked by the nuns, the high wooden chairs. Hard to believe about the surroundings outside. Getting the idea why the catholic church is so important in those poor countries, it actually offers a sense of normality and civilisation.
I start worrying about the way I'll get back to Com on the next day. I walk back to the police station and pass an ex-school, when its starts to rain. I dive into that school, it's being guarded by two Korean soldiers, we talk a bit and they have their pictures taken with me. Each of them with me separately, then both together without me, then all the three of us, clicked by one of the ever-present Timorese.
This school is actually full of rice and beans and trucks are being loaded at the back door. All in USAID bags. It's ok for me to walk in there, inside there is a Western face among the Timorese, looking rather familiar. I ask him whether he speaks English and he says "Of course I speak English!" with a feeling and a rather familiar accent. He is in charge of the distribution of all the food aid and comes, according to him, from Yugoslavia. I play along and ask which new country, Croatia, or the like, he says "you name it - all my grandparents are from four different ex-Yugoslav countries, I could have any of those passports. But I feel Yugoslavian. What a stupid thing they did to my country!" His name is Goran and he thanks me for the compliment, that this seems to be the only institution doing something: "yes, at least we're moving things a bit". He's a veteran - according to him this is an easy mission. Chechnya is hard, where you have to sit in a basement the whole time, Bosnia was hard, with 4000 shells falling daily out of the sky for two years. This is like a holiday to him and he looks like it - sandals, shorts, tan. And no, there isn't a vehicle going to Com tomorrow, he's sorry to say. And even so - this is not a taxi company he says and winks. Then suddenly he has to go somewhere, jumps onto a truck and dissappears, leaving me with that Urco-feeling - again somebody from a torn country trying to help others.
I make it eventually to the police station and see the other Kiwi there, he isn't really busy (Windows Solitaire) so we have a long chat about Timor and all. Eventually I ask him whether there is a vehicle going to Com tomorrow, he says "Well, all the three landrovers will be back by tomorrow morning, and we definitely have to have a patrol to Com. It might as well be tomorrow. Come in at about 8 am and you'll be right." Sounds good to me.
It's getting dark, I leave the camera and backpack at my room and try to organise dinner. I go to restaurant number 2, as recommended by the Newzealander and order fried noodles for a change. There are six or seven Timorese, sitting there and chatting, one of them speaks good English, helps with the menu and sits with his beer at my table. We talk for about two hours, mainly me asking questions about life in Los Palos and Timor and about the local language. Everyone seems to be bi- or tri-lingual in Los Palos - they speak Titun, the official Timorese tongue, Fataluku, the local language and - "of course" - Bahasa Indonesi. I write down the numbers from one to ten in Titun and Fataluku, and they are different, with some minor similarities. I thought those lingos would be like dialects but they look like separate languages.
I presume wrongly that this guy is the owner of the establishment, but no, he is a schoolteacher, teaches economics and English at the local high school, Mr. Jae?nto. He tells me about Tutuala, the by now mystical village at the end of the world, 3 hours away on a bad road, untouched by the militias, very beautiful, high above the sea. A friend of his has a motorbike and will take me there for some money one of the next days.
After having finished dinner a long time ago, Mr. Jae?nto walks back with me, shows me his home in a dark street and I promise that if eventually I return to Los Palos I'll call on him for the Tutuala ride.
Just across the street from my sleeping quarters there is restaurant nr.3 of Los Palos, I decide to have a beer, sitting on the curb and watching the locals. That is no good for the owner, she makes me sit in her restaurant, out of sight of the street, and she is not having any of my protests.
Back at the convent there is activity on the veranda - some African guys doing their evening things - heating up water for a shower, listening to a short-wave radio - a play on the BBC world service, and an Indian guy cooking in the kitchen. All of them are employed by the UN, two are from Uganda, one from Niger but lives in London. The Indian is an electrician, the rest military or police. We chat a while, one of the Ugandan guys starts telling me that the problem of Timor is the stale water everywhere and the mosquitos resulting from that. "We have to educate those people to have the water running" he confesses. I nod and after a silence decide to call it a day.
The bathroom with a sink is occupied, I go to brush my teeth using the kitchen sink. The Ugandan guy comes running across the verandah shouting "no, please, don't brush teeth here, we have limited facilities here, brush in bathroom, please", then he sees it's occupied and says "oh, brush from outside please", showing me the garden and blocking the kitchen sink with his body. I wonder from which side they brush in the sterile enviroment called Uganda and brush from the outside myself. When coming back I see this guy wiping the tiles in front of his own room with a rag.I walk across the wet spot and hide in my room.
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