Dili
One of the Peace Corps staff once equated the word ‘Malai’ to be equivalent to ‘Beyoncé’ and I find the comparison the most accurate there is. If you saw Beyoncé walking down the street in full performance (western) costume you would run into your house to tell your friends to come outside to see Beyoncé. It is an experience they don’t have often and excites them every time. There is no ill will when shouting Malai, just that it is new and exciting and something they don’t experience often. As I am not a celebrity at home it is taking some adjusting to be so famous here. It is not a bad adjustment, but an adjustment nonetheless.
Another Adjustment would be the amount of dust. Having arrived in October, it is the very end of the dry season; Rainy season will start in a month or two. I imagine that the heavy rains settle the dust and turn everything into a treacherous mud-scape but for now a thin layer of finely ground dirt covers everything. Whenever a large car drives by a huge cloud of dust follows in its wake. It covers the grass, the plants, the concrete of houses, everything. I cannot wait to see the country when the rain washes it away and returns greenery to the land.
Timor is different yet the same. They have all the same things we do; they just look different. I think a lot of times when people think of less developed countries they imagine tribes in the forest. They think of a snapshot back in time- a time where people did clothes by hand, used animals for transportation, and had close family bonds. I know when I came here I expected to step back in time to my imagined snapshot of what it would be. What I think most people don’t realize, and what I certainly didn’t realize, was the intersectionality that occurs in these countries. Every local still does their laundry by hand in buckets, and every local doing their laundry by hand has a modern smartphone with data. Animals run across the street; weather it be stray dogs, cats, or chickens for sale, animals are still present in every day life, but they don’t use animals for transport anymore because of the invention of cars. There are some nice cars here and some less nice ones. I’ve seen people being transported in the back of a dump truck. Animals simply aren’t as efficient. A lot of locals use plastic items these days as well. While Americans might view it as a more primitive country, we have to realize that they have the exact same things that we do. They have just integrated them into their culture differently. They even have public transportation. Now let me tell you about public transportation here.
The microlets are everything public transportation should be. For the people, by the people. Freedom of expression. Affordable. Friendly. Microlets are the ‘bus system’ that run throughout the city of Dili. They are small vans- think of the classic VW van but make it about half the size and twice as many people- with a door on the left and two bench seats running the length. Above the short padded seat backs are windows that stretch to the roof and wrap around the back side of the van. Sitting in the back is where you can get the best views of the city. The driver up front, on the other hand, has almost no window space; A solid foot of the windshield is the only visually uncultured area, max. They are manual and most of them barely run. They constantly threaten to stall.
The walls and ceilings of microlets are always upholstered. Most common are bright colors on a faux leather, but I have also seen the material rich people used to upholster dining room chairs in the early 1900s. It is thick and heavily embroidered with swirling patterns. The upholstery curves up the walls to blanket most of the ceiling and leaves only an oval shaped cutout in the middle bare for a loosely wired electric light. Exposed wires can be seen connecting it to further inside the inner workings of the van. The seats are always made of a faux leather in good condition with a backrest that rises about a foot. Above the backrest are windows of a decent size that run the length of the van and wrap around to the back where they form a giant pane of glass overlooking the cars behind you. The only ventilations are slots in the windows to vent in the dusty air from outside. Crowded would be an understatement of a descriptor. The drivers and the passengers do their best to fit as many people on as possible. People pack in like sardines, sit up front with the driver, and hang out the open side door when it gets crowded. I even saw a chicken on one once. Everyone is friendly and used to the close nature. My friend described them as a sauna on wheels. No matter where you go, as long as it is within the confines of the city, the ride is 25 cents.
Each microlet is fully customized. To the max are spoilers, front grill plates, lug nut studs, aerodynamic fins, body molding over the wheels, extra mirrors. Bright colors decorate the body modifications, blending it into the already existing murals of pop culture and edgy art. Windshield stickers with names are plastered over the front shields. They aren’t the fancy kind of sticker that you can see out of one way: they just block the sight line and cut the field of view in half. Stenciled words liter the back of the vans. Each microlet also has a high tech sound system. Every single ride I’ve been on has had incredibly loud music with a bass so boosted you can feel it in the metal of the van and in your bones. A lot of them have rainbow lights on the outside that are synced with the music and come on at night. For a system of public transport, these things are decked out to high hell and customized over a lifetime of use. Microlets are by far one of my most favorite things here in Timor so Far.
Dili is also the location of the nicest pool hall I’ve ever been to in my entire life. It was very fancy. I love the capital Dili. Based on the small dose of culture I can confidently say that their way of life is more vibrant than ours. Vibrant colors work to fight off the dust brown that threatens to overtake the town. Capitalism, contract law, and regulation do not bind the souls of these people. They simply live. I have never seen an example of people living more freely than I have here. Locals go to the beaches to collect crabs and seaweed to sell at market. Young boys pick coconuts to sell on the side of the road. Everyone here has a moped and drives like Italians.
Gleno
One of the main differences from America and Timor-Leste are the animals. Animals roam freely everywhere you look- from the chickens to the cows to the horses to the puppy dogs and pigs. Well, the pigs are locked up. Everything else roams free. Walking to school today I passed two horses grazing in an open communal field and said hello to the cow tethered by the door, stepping over a tiny puppy as I made my way to the folding chair on the porch. A large rooster emerged from the doorway and made its way back into the yard. People’s animals roam freely with no threat of theft or ill will. In a town this size everyone knows each other and trusts each other: a direct contrast to growing up in American cities. It means outsiders stand out. As I walked home from teacher training yesterday an entire family ran out shouting “Malai! Malai!” (foreigner). They were the type of people who believed talking louder equates to better understanding on the part of the bewildered. Explaining, the best I could, that I did not yet speak Tetun I hurried away to the safety of my new home- right next door. Out of sight out of mind I suppose since the shouting stopped when they could no longer see me.
The air smells like earth. The first rain has washed over Timor since the start of the dry season. All of the dust that coated every surface has has been returned to dirt and the scent is inescapable. Soil so fresh that you imagine the earthworms working double time to make it all happen. Walking home I avoid the new puddles and lock eyes with a tethered cow. The plants will be incredibly happy in the following days for the rush of water. The downpour lasted only 20 minutes- thundering, sheets of rain, and then nothing. The roar of water outside was almost defeaning inside the walls of the training center. I will soon find out how loud it is on a tin roof as rainy season begins. My room is fortunately safe and dry, with the cinderblock walls and metal/plywood door sheltered under the over hangining tin. The thin tin roof sits five inches above the four concrete/cement walls allowing a gap for light to filter through. Because the tin overhangs the room you cannot see the sky through the gap.
A bed takes up most of the floor, queen size with a white bug net draped from the cieling. A small table sits under the window next to it. One of the walls is painted a bright yellow, the same as the rest of the house, as it used to be one of the outside walls. My room was definitely an addition at some point. The rest of the walls are unpainted and specked with naturally occuring divents in the cement. The front porch acts as a hallway leading to the front door. Inside the main room of the house are vibrant green painted walls, pink support beams of concrete, and a plain yet sturdy tin roof above. All the houses here are either made of cinder blocks or tin sheets roughly screwed together. Inside many of the nicer houses are the most beautiful tiles I have ever seen. The only tiles that are close in quality are the ones at Hearst Castle in California. They are intricately decorated with patterns and vibrant colors that will not fade throughout the year. Resistant to dirt and stains they make a perfect flooring for these houses. Every house has a different style, color, and pattern.
In the main room sits an old L-shaped couch, a few chairs (two wooden the rest plastic) and an elaborate wooden cabinet that houses the most modern box TV I have ever seen. It looks as if it was made in the early to late 2000’s. It’s connected to a giant dish in the front yard mainly made of mesh, and only ever plays Indian drama TV translated into Indonesian (The entire family is obsessed). The walls host a collection of framed photos, a square clock, and a variety of electrical wiring clearly added after the house was built yet integradted modestly. The other rooms of the house are quartered off from the main room with pink airy curtains that are slightly see through from ware and lead to more cinderblock rooms with cement floors. The kitchen area is officailly outside the house, with a tin wall that does not quite meet the tin roof by a foot or two. The bathroom shelters are also connected to the main house in this manner. Then entire yard is surronded by high tin walls for privacy. For the next two months this is home, with my new friends.
