In 1962 Pete Seeger recorded a song called Turn Turn Turn. It quoted Ecclesiastes 3:1 and would later be further popularised by the Byrds’. The first line, for those unfamiliar with individual verses of the King James Bible and not necessarily au fait with music trivia is: To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.
Though living in Timor-Leste provides many lessons for we soft-bods of western “civilisations”, one of the more profound is that of what Buddhists call The Suffering of Change. It isn’t just the impromptu street closures or the appearance – or disappearance – of mini-mountains of rocks in the road. Nor is it the lackadaisical way local service providers seem to modify the process you need to follow just after you’ve filled in the paperwork for the process they originally outlined. What is more notable is the ebb and flow of people. Malae come and malae go. In fact, someone once said they attended ten going away parties in their first month. Gabe my housemate, infamously and not so discretely, intimated to the guest of honour at a going away party that another version of her would be along in the not-too-distant future. But it’s true. Not in the sense that individuals are not themselves worthy, but in the sense that her departure would create a space that another malae would readily fill.
And now, months later, it has been Gabe’s turn to gather friends and celebrate the shared experiences and commiserate the impending partings. Gabe’s upcoming departure is a bittersweet moment for me; though I will miss Gabe, he is selling me his dongle, a rare and precious commodity in Timor-Leste, a personal modem.
Gabe had chosen the front side of Jesus, because not only does it have the best beaches this side of Jesus’s backside, it also has the best sunset; perhaps one final piece of poetry from someone who has touched many people in his time in Timor-Leste.
Gabe is an anthropologist. He came here to study local customs. Sad to say he described his research project to me on several occasions, but I am sure I would fail to adequately explain its purpose. I will say that Gabe showed the utmost respect for the Timorese. He was one of the most humanistic people I’ve met. To sit in discussion with him is to be buoyed by the notion that there really are people in the world who not only talk about integrity and compassion and respect, they embody it as well. One thing I personally found touching was that he invited not only his malae friends, but also his Timorese friends to his going away bash. So often here there seems a divide between the seemingly cashed-up malae and the seemingly cash-deficient Timorese. Gabe crossed that divide, bridged it and did so in a way that effortlessly assumed there was actually no real divide to conquer, simply people to befriend.
The sunset was beautiful. The soundtrack was a guitar and a beautifully tuneful Timorese voice singing a song in Tetun. I felt the tug of someone who wants to stay, knowing that they must leave; that push-pull of knowing that your life lies somewhere else but that you belong here too. It’s almost bizarre; it’s not as though life in Timor-Leste is easy. It isn’t. Everything takes as long as it takes; it might be logic, it might be illogical, but ultimately it is what it is and no amount of western wishing will make things move more efficiently or effectively . . . though I’ve heard that a few choice notes in the right hands can make a few things happen more expeditiously. Still, bribery aside, Timor-Leste is a place that seeps into you. There’s raw innocence, unkempt possibility, unforgiving, unrelenting assaults on all the order and ways of being we’ve all been indoctrinated in since conception. Perhaps that’s its charm; the way it challenges and challenges and challenges and just when you think you’ll snap, there’s a breathtaking sunset or even just one of those dazzling Timorese smiles.
And the sunset was beautiful, a magnificent red orb that paused amid the clouds as it descended past the horizon as the earth once more turned, turned, turned.
Gabe is gone now. He left on the morning flight. As I ride along Beach Road towards my class at Banco ANZ, I think of Gabe in Darwin and then Sydney and then off to America. Three days of travelling – from Dili’s heat to Chicago’s winter. To my right, behind the named and unnamed Dili streets, clouds hover over the mountains. That’s nothing new. Each afternoon clouds mist over the mountains. Sometimes they venture towards Dili. There is never rain.
But these clouds are darker than usual, not angry exactly, more brooding. I wonder if today will be the day that marks the beginning of the rainy season. More pressingly, I wonder if I’ll make it to my class dry or be caught in this year’s first downfall. I accelerate and arrive at the bank, sweaty but otherwise dry.
“It looks like rain,” I say as I enter the bank.
“Maybe tomorrow,” one of the bank’s employee’s tells me. “Not today.”
He knows better than me, but I’m not totally convinced. Those clouds . . . those clouds . . . My class is just beginning – we’re doing present continuous - when the first droplets splash onto the footpath outside. Never one to pass up an educational opportunity, I rush to write, “It is raining” on the board and to ask, “What tense?” and “Has it already happened? Or is it happening right now?”
In the beat between my question and their answers, I pause and think, to every season, even in this heavenly place, the earth still turns, turns, turns. Gabe is gone and Timor-Leste has surrendered its tears.
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