The end of a beautiful adventure

And then, despite the hours and hours in the plane, it feels like you are ‘suddenly’ back home. Suddenly there is the whole meal bread and the Dutch cheese you have been dreaming about, the pasta and the pesto, the family and friends, you can walk through the streets unnoticed... And there is the cold rain, the dark which comes just a bit after 4pm, the big anonymous streets and Timor Leste feels very far away, too far away at times. What is left is a head and a heart full of memories, a laptop full of pictures and videos and the eyes that are compelled towards that little island above Australia every time I see a world map.

Before I went, Timor Leste was a name, it was a place constructed out of that what I had read about it and out of the few pictures I had seen. Now that little spot on the map is connected to the people who live there, to the beautiful places I have seen there, to the emotions I have felt there. It is connected to a part of my life, and important part of my life. And so the world map is no longer the same as it was before, because there is this tiny bit of map that now, like other parts of the map, means much more than just a bit of paint. The last week in Timor Leste was full! Full of last-minute interviews, visits, packing, goodbye parties and a constant feeling of being split between sadness about leaving and happiness not only about going home but also as a form of thankfulness for all the important things the time in Timor Leste has given me… At Ba Futuru we had the last show case on the 14th of December and I had my farewell party there

And I listened for the ‘last time’ to the music that always surrounded me at Ba Futuru

And then I left those graffiti walls behind, I said goodbye to the people whom a few months ago had been strangers whose language I did not speak, now it was hard to part from them. But the music I take with me, it does neither need a bag nor a visa. On the 16th I had my birthday and farewell party at the university. To celebrate my birthday with all those people who in such as short period of time had come to feel so much like old friends was something very special. The day was filled by the bitter-sweet feeling that I was so thankful for having them and at the same time so sad about leaving them the next day. It was an afternoon filled with

Cake

Wishes

Singing

Eating, and even dancing!

The next day after a last round of hugs at Ba Futuru and touching goodbye at the airport with at least half of the Women, Peace and Leadership people and other friends I boarded the plane to Jakarta wondering when I would put foot on this soil, breathe in this air, and meet these people again. The only way to keep going forward was to promise myself it would not be long. The days in Jakarta, the hours and hours in the plane, the hours of delay due to bad weather conditions, they all seem like a dream now, the only thing that feels real about them is that they took me very far away from Timor Leste… In Holland I immediately stumbled into an ongoing family get-together and this is the first moment I have found the time and the peace of mind to write my last blog about this adventure… Looking back at the last five months, I feel that they have been an important part and time of my life and that the people I met played an important role in this. I have the feeling that in some future, when someone asks me ‘what brought you to be who you are today?’ that Timor Leste will be one of the ingredients in my answer. Whether I am one of those foreigners who lost her heart to this little half-island, yes, I guess I am…what that will mean for the future…I don’t know…stay tuned…you might find out on this blog in some near or far future!

Alice in Wonderland

After a very full month of November, packed with interesting national holidays, Ba Futuru showcases around Dili, a visit to the island of Atauro, focus group discussions, interviews and the final event of the Women, Peace and Leadership program I was rewarded by the spontaneous visit of my friend Floris who was ‘in the area’ while traveling around the world. Although I am in the very last phase of my fieldwork I decided that I had to show Floris a bit of the country I have come to love over the last few months, and in the process discover some new bits of it myself! As the road to the East is one of my favorites and as I had heard fairytale like stories about the eastern cape and its island Jaco we decided to head in the direction of the rising sun. Those of you who know both of us, know that Floris and I have a shared love for driving and so you should have seen our faces when we found out that the car that my host father had fixed for us looked like this!

And so we hit the road on Sunday, December 2nd. We enjoyed the beautiful coastline, the warm wind, the driving and catching up.

The nice thing about there being only one road to the East is that, after driving it two times I kind of knew the way and had Floris sometimes wondering how the hell I knew I had to turn right in the middle of this marketplace that did not even look like cars were supposed to drive through it! It is nice to have the feeling that you ‘know the way’ after four months in a new country. On the way we met two very nice Ecuadorians from the Galapagos Islands who had been left stranded in the middle of nowhere by public transport and who wanted to go to the same place. In the end we turned out to be a very good group: we had a car and they had snorkeling gear! Apart from that we just also had a very good time together, sharing stories, songs, knowledge, laughter and the little eco-resort at the far east point of Timor-Leste which we had completely for ourselves!

The little resort is run by a cooperative from the people from the village of Tutuala which lies high in the hills overlooking the ocean. From there it was a hell of a 4WD track down during which I was very happy that I could let Floris do the driving! Once you get down you get into a sleepy atmosphere were the bamboo huts stand waiting, the sea plays with the white sand, the gecko’s make their characteristic sounds, and you sit down to whatever is served, it will taste good anyways. In the evening we made a campfire on the beach and I had brought my guitar… In the end the bamboo huts were a bit too warm and I ended up sleeping in the car, waking up early enough to see the sunrise above Jaco island and the fishermen returning with the catch of the day, part of which was enjoyed by my travel companions later that day.

What fascinated me about the beach were the shells. Normally I am a compulsive shell-gatherer but this time I had to keep myself back, because all the shells were inhabited! By little bright red crabs! I had so much fun looking at all those shells walking over the sand and stones. If you would sit, they would all crawl around you, as soon as you would get up or move you would be met by an orchestra of shells hitting the stone they had been walking on because the crabs would have pulled back in the shell making it to fall and roll over. Immediately afterwards they would resume their ways…

After a slow breakfast we asked one of the fishermen to bring us to Jaco island through the incredibly blue and crystal clear water. For someone whose favorite color is turquoise this was kind of the place to be. I could not get enough of all the colors of blue, of the white sand, the silky water and the mountains on the mainland of Timor Leste. It was so quiet, so peaceful, so beautiful. It was one of the most beautiful landscapes I have ever seen.

But that was before I had seen what was under the surface of the water. I have of course no pictures for you of the wonderland I encountered there, but even if I would have had a camera capable of making pictures under water, it would by no means have been able to capture what I saw. I don’t know how to describe it, just all these colors, all these fish in different colors, shapes, and sized among the smoothly waving corals in that blue water. I felt like Alice in Wonderland, I was flying over that wonderland, hanging in the water, letting myself be taken by the current and then swimming back, completely oblivious of anything else existing in the world…I could suddenly imagine that you could get addicted to diving, to spending time in this wonderland where your body has no weight, were there is no noise but your own breathing, where you are carried by this crystal clear liquid that involves you, among all those colors. What do you need drugs for if you can have this! And when we thought the day could not get any better we got to see about 50 to 100 dolphins swimming, jumping and feeding on the tunas we had just seen swimming around at about 50 meters from us and turtles popping their heads up here and there once in a while. We spent two days on the island but the first day was absolutely unbeatable!

On Wednesday morning we drove up to Tutuala again where we enjoyed the views from high above, on the balcony of a Portuguese colonial villa. Those guys knew how to choose their spots!

On the way back we also stopped at the wetlands a few kilometers into the countryside, which are still reasonably accessible as the rainy season seems to be hesitant to arrive this year. Despite the high possibility of meeting crocodiles here we actually only saw herds of grazing buffalos and we did not dare to venture very far in, afraid to lose a lot of time if we would get stuck in the mud…

And so we drove back the long road full of holes, craters, beautiful sceneries, views of Timorese traditional sacred houses, buffalos, waiving children shouting ‘Malae!’, motorbikes, trucks, sun, see and warm wind.

Now that Floris has left and I have exactly one week left in Timor-Leste it finally really downed on me that I am actually really almost leaving!!! Before me lies a week with some last interviews, many goodbyes, many ‘last things’, and a birthday/goodbye party next Sunday among people whom I did not yet know five months ago and whom nevertheless it will be very hard to say goodbye to!