Singing, coffee and happiness

Dear all, I have so much that I could write that I feel I have to choose…And because I am sunburned and tired but very happy and thankful too after a weekend away with Ba Futuru (the NGO where I do volunteer work), I choose to write something about this part of my current life in Dili, Timor Leste. Every Monday and Wednesday, at 13.30 I walk 2 minutes to the big road, cross it and stand in front of the Headquarters of the Timorese Military forces until a microlet stops which means that somewhere in there, according to the driver, is a little space where you can squeeze in, even though sometimes at first it really does not look like that to the outsider…after driving for about 20 minutes surrounded by a number of decibel that cannot be healthy for you on the long run, I get out and walk into Ba Futuru and am greeted by a number of voices saying “Mana Sara, Boatardi, Diak ka lae?” At 14.00 we start with drama class: first warming up (and that while it is already quite hot enough I would say). After that we sit together and discuss the themes that the participants picked for their Peace Promotion Tour (November). We split up in two groups and each takes a theme for that week (for example Domestic Violence and Unemployment) and has a brainstorm about what kind of story they could make for that (often, although not always, based on their own experiences). Here it is important that the theater piece presents [1] a problem, [2] a solution that informs the public about their rights/possibilities/duties and [3] a message related to that possible solution. And then, based on the plot we thought out, participants start improvising and staff provides ideas and feedback, or reminds them not to turn their back to ‘the public’ and in this way, slowly, a short theater play unfolds itself. It continues developing when we join the two groups and act for each other and give each other feedback. Time almost always flies and before we know it, it is already 17.15 and time to get into a microlet, together with some of the participants who have to go the same way, so that around 17.45 I walk into my street, while the sunlight turns into late afternoon gold and people all over the place make their way home. This is what we normally do…but because the good things in life are (mostly) the things that happen outside daily routine I want to focus on two activities I did with the people of Ba Futuru in the last month. The first was a Sunday in the beginning of September, there was a kids’ bike tour from the city to the Cristo Rei beach and Ba Futuru, together with other organizations, was there to entertain the kids once they got there. We had two guitars and body paint and this did not only serve to entertain the kids but also ourselves. It was a morning full of laughter, singing, painting and jokes. The children were not the only ones eager to get their arms ‘tattooed’ or their face painted, here is one of the staff receiving a new face while onlookers watch the process fascinated.

Two children waiting on their turn

One of the participants, very skilled in ‘tribal’ tattoos :)

I did not get one, my skin is already interesting enough here…

When I got home I was wondering how it is possible that you can have such a wonderful time with people who you barely know and whose language you barely speak. This weekend there was a kind of camp for the participants in Ermera, the coffee district of Timor Leste, to the west of Dili. I had not gone west of Dili yet so I was very excited to get the chance to come along. We left Friday morning. In Timor Leste, when around 30 people go on a trip you hire a lorry, you pack all the bags in it and then you pile the people on top of them. Add two guitars, a djembe, a lot of songs and very high spirits and you get Ba Futuru! The sun burns, the road is bumpy and the dust swirls around you but that barely matters. I found out I preferred standing over sitting because then you actually also get to see something and your legs get some movement. This picture is nevertheless taken from a seated position somewhere halfway the truck.

After four hours of traveling and one leaky tire we got off somewhere quite in the middle of nowhere and continued afoot for about an hour more. One of the characteristics for Ba Futuru, for me, is that the guitar playing and singing never stop, not even while hiking. It is impressive how everyone here seems to know how to play guitar and how the list of songs, either Tetun, or Brazilian, or classics like ‘No Woman No Cry’ translated to Tetun, is never ending.

The special thing, no, actually one of the special things, of this weekend was that the activities took place in the hometown of one of the staff members who invited two of his cousins to come along. All three know the area very well. This allowed us to walk little forest paths where barely anybody else goes and end up one a very peaceful place on this earth, were a car is an extremely rare visitor, where there is no electricity, where the water comes from a little brook, where you are received by a sweat old couple of grandparents and their chickens and dogs, where you can make use of their ‘bathroom’, and where you get fresh vegetables out of their garden, where at night (once everyone is finally asleep) you only hear birds and crickets and where you get to see sunsets like this

It was truly one of the most beautiful campsites I have ever seen and I repeatedly, at different points of the day, just stood at the spot where the previous picture was taken, gazing about me, wondering what the hell I did in a previous life to deserve a view like this  If you look well you might see that there is a river which flows in direction of the sea. A few minutes after this picture, the water of the river lighted up with the sun. It was amazing…too amazing to catch in something like a picture… We had two to three people per tent. The participants were divided in four groups and each organized their own food so the campsite was full of cracking campfires, cooking pots and people walking from one fire to the other to borrow a spoon, to talk to a friend, or to join in with a song. At night it was really quite chilly, something impossible to imagine here in Dili. Even though I had managed to convince myself to take my fleece, which seemed ridiculous, I was still cold at night. Saturday we hiked through the coffee fields. I had imagined coffee fields to be something very organized but it was not. Although at some spots coffee plants have been planted in rows, like the picture below, in most places coffee plants just grow in the wild and people pass by them to harvest coffee. At the end of the season they cut the plants short to be able to reach the coffee next year, because the plants can get quite high. The coffee picking season was now over so all the plants were reduced to trunks with some leaves. I fell in love though with the trees that provide the shade for the coffee…there are so majestically tall! So beautiful with their white bark and flat top!

This part of Timor Leste was the first to be colonized by the Portuguese who had coffee farms here. It has something astonishingly familiar and at the same time bewilderingly unrealistic to walk into such a typical 1940’s style Portuguese house in the middle of the Timorese forest!

What also took me by surprise was that the participants were very excited to get to see the statue of the greatest Portuguese ‘pacificator’ and first governor in Timor Leste…Personally I could not get myself to be very enthusiastic about that man with his moustache who was apparently very successful in taking other people’s land, but I guess for the participants it is part of their history… And no-one can say that they are not proud of being Timorese, if they walk around the whole day like this:

The walk was hot, offered stunning views, and was quite a challenge for some among us walking on flip-flops. But we managed! At the end we were to do some animation at the local school. Sadly a huge deluge broke lose so we were confined to the tiny dark classroom with barely any tables and where soon the water was flowing past our ankles. But I think the children enjoyed the drawing and there was, of course…music!

When we got to the campsite e-ve-ry-thing was wet. Some people stated that you could fish in their tents…I was amazed by the fact that nobody got grumpy (which prevented me from doing so, even though I had been planning to). It was cold, wet, there were barely any dry clothes to be had and there was the perspective of a cold and wet night but nevertheless people sang, laughed and joked and squatted around their little smoking fires with their cooking pots. Later we made a big fire which enabled us to dry our (plastic) sleeping mats, and some clothes, and to get a bit warm. The campfire was the best place to be and so I stayed there, together with some others, as long as possible, until the perspective that three hours would be doable compelled me to try to get some sleep. I just want to share with you that we had guitars, but to build a drum set on location is also no problem at all, in case you might think so:

It was a very beautiful weekend and I think that has to do with various things. Firstly, I am proud to announce that it was very close to a Tetun-only weekend during which I used English only as a last resort. Secondly, I think that the almost constant presence of live music, of people who sing and play together because they enjoy doing so creates a special atmosphere to which I am susceptible. Thirdly, it was just really nice to get to know a little bit more of Timor Leste’s countryside. And last, but definitely not the least, the feeling of being accepted into this group of people to whom some weeks ago I was a stranger: to give and receive hugs, to walk together, to be hot and sweaty and cold and wet together, to eat together, to sing together and to laugh together, we sang and we laughed a lot… Sara