Border Patrol, Visa Vis or Mission: Mandy’s Working Visa Part IV

When I last left you, no doubt clinging to the edge of your seats with the suspense of it all, I was awaiting the return of my visa from the Indonesian embassy.  Well, I didn’t get my passport back on Monday or Tuesday or Wednesday or Thursday.  No, it wasn’t the Indonesians it was because I was too slack to pick it up myself and Jimi was actually doing the job he’s paid to do and that doesn’t always include visa runs for teachers who are too lazy to get their bum on their scooter seat and ride a few blocks.

Still, there was no rush.  My paperwork from East Timor still hadn’t come through – despite my boss ringing That Woman and questioning her “pushing through” skills.  So I did what was guaranteed to make the universe take a hand in pushing said paperwork through – I made extensive plans for Saturday; Pilates in the morning, followed by a couple of hours rest before a run up a hill, followed by a quick shower and a barbecue on the beach.  Worked a treat because I’d barely stepped into the school on Friday morning when my boss said, “Paperwork’s done!”

That Woman was to arrive any minute with the required pages.  Jimi furnished my passport and I texted Adeline, another teacher who needed to go to the border the next day because her paperwork was about to expire.  To be fair the East Timorese do give you a month to get from Dili to the border – a physical distance of about 100km that takes about three hours to drive . . . but we aren’t on that road just yet.

One way to get to the border is by bus.  Mikrolets regularly drive the route.  So too does a bigger bus from Timor Travel.  Jimi booked me and Adeline on the latter for the forward journey.  For the return journey we were to attempt to ‘bargain’ a spot on the bus coming back.  Right.  I could see me doing that . . . though I wasn’t entirely convinced that being able to say, “Good morning good afternoon, good evening and how much?” in Tetun was really going to be useful in that situation.  Adeline, on the other hand, is from The Philippines and speaks Bahasa or Indonesian.  Right then.  We agreed to meet at the school at 7am the next day.  Thunderbirds, were, if not entirely go, at least prepared for the getting there.

At 6am the next morning, seconds before my talking alarm bleated, “It’s time to get up.  It’s time to get up” (Seriously it does this until I turn it off.)  my phone rang. 

“We’re going to drive,” Adeline told me.  “We need to change the tire.  No rush.  We’ll be at the school by 8 or 9.”

Right then.  Can’t argue with that . . . especially the “no rush” part.  I reset my alarm and went back to sleep. 

Our driver was Vicente who works at the school.  Given what I’ve witnessed on the roads I should have been alarmed at having a Timorese driver, but he had previously worked as a driver to Western tourists and was remarkably skilled in pot hole dodging.

So we set out.  The pictures do not do the road justice.  The coastal road is apparently better than the inland route and let me just advise anyone ever attempting to get to the border from Dili:  Do not take the inland route!!!

The pot holes  on the coastal road were not only deep, some stretched across the road so Vicente was forced to drive on the shoulder while dodging oncoming vehicles, children, chickens, dogs, pigs (and some really, really cute piglets) and even a monkey.  Adeline brought a picnic and we stopped for coffee at a restaurant because poor Vicente had been co-opted into driving before he’d even had his coffee.  How did the guy navigate through Dili traffic without a morning caffeine hit?  It makes the feat so much more admirable.

The coastline is beautiful.  The sea is that amazing aqua; the terrain to the left is hillier and so workers are building retaining walls to halt the flow of any nature that might seek to slide down the hill. Apparently they’re a little bit late because the aim was to fix it so there weren’t landslides but since the rain season has already begun and they seem to have completed only a limited section they may be re-doing some of it.  Still, I have to say the rock walls are exquisite. 

We drove ever onwards.  At the longest bridge in Timor Vicente commented that the buses can’t go across it because “bridge is broken”.  Mini buses were parked, their passengers apparently walking or having walked to the other side to connect with another mini bus that would take them onwards to the border.  It might have been intelligent to question why, if the bridge was broken were we dodging the barriers to drive across said bridge; or at the very least to ask exactly how the bridge was broken and so assess its sturdiness for our crossing.  I didn’t.  I just looked at the scenery hoping a local would know what was safe and what wasn’t.  Besides I’m a terrible in-transit traveller; I like to get where I’m going. 

Eventually we arrived at the border town of Batugade.  The border itself is a little ways along, but it’s here that if you’ve the opportunity and the mind to seize it, you can make the border process a whole lot easier.  It’s never what you know, always who you know, or even who happens to be travelling in your back seat with you.  We didn’t know the Indonesian immigration official; never even learnt his first name.  What we did know was that he wanted to go to the border and that we had the space to accommodate him.  It actually didn’t occur to us how useful he might be.

See, when you cross from East Timor into Indonesia, you have to do so on foot.  You can only take your car if you’ve purchased a $25 permit from the Indonesia Embassy in Dili.  Otherwise, vehicles are strictly prohibited. . . unless . . . unless . . .

We arrived at the East Timor border, parked and disembarked.  Adeline called the Immigration Director to tell him we’d arrived at what I can describe as a donger, a couple of toilet blocks and an undercover area in a big car park – without the cars.  The Director assured Adeline that his people were there.  We filled in our ‘departing country’ forms, had our passports examined and we were off to the next checkpoint.

Adeline gave the Timorese officials a bottle of coke, we collected our Indonesian immigration official and headed onwards.  At the Indonesian border, Adeline and I proffered our passports.  The guards peered into the car, noticed our ‘cargo’, smiled and waved us through.  Even Vicente and Annika (a young friend of Adeline’s who was with us for the adventure) got waved through – with no visa and no passport!  

The Indonesian side was much like the Timorese side.  Basically we went to arrivals where we had to fill in our “arrivals” card.  The officials were very prompt with our processing.  They queried the fact that we hadn’t put the address of where we were staying in Indonesian but were easily placated with the comment “working visa” and a wave of said documentation.  They pointed us to a window at the other end of the building.  The officials there examined our documentation and sent us around the corner to another building where we were given “departure cards”.  We filled these in and submitted them at the last window in the building.  We’d done a circumnavigation, if not of West Timor itself, at least of their immigration building.  Then we got back in the car and headed East.

Back on the East Timor side our documentation was checked, our names and passport numbers noted down in a big ledger.  Then we went back to the building where we first started.  The guard there very politely told us, that we were at the “departures” window.  “Arrivals” was around the other side.  We trotted round the donger and found the “arrivals” window shut.  Within seconds it opened and the guard from barely seconds ago smiled. 

We handed over our working visa documentation, fifty dollars each and our passports.  They stamped and signed and stapled and then we were done.   

After a couple of photos we loaded back into the car and were off, driving past the travellers waiting for their chance to negotiate a seat on the Timor Travel bus back to Dili.

Bright Sparks

Despite being a developing country with many things yet to meet maturity or a striking resemblance to what happens and exists in ‘first world’ countries, there is one thing that clearly mimics the more ‘developed’ countries – politics.  Both sides – the politicians and the voters – behave remarkably like those you might meet anywhere in Australia, the UK, the USA:  the politicians make unsustainable promises and the constituents laugh at them.  And so it is in Timor-Leste.

There are two elections here next year, one for the Presidency and one for the general government.  Consequently, the promises are running thick and farcical. We have been promised reliable electricity by 28^th November. 

Mention that date to almost anyone and you’ll invite deep guffaws, not just polite chuckles but real gut busting laughter.  It seems so improbable, particularly now when the power is so erratic.  But let me be honest here too.  As a soft western, it is somewhat beyond my brain’s capacity to really accept that the power is actually as erratic as it is.  I am so attuned to being able to turn on a light and have it beam at me, to press a button and invite detectives, comedians, movie stars into my lounge room, that despite the regularity of the power cuts I may still surprised – and annoyed – by one’s sudden arrival.

The possibility of reliable electricity is partially lost on someone who is still struggling to accept that it doesn’t currently exist. Yes, yes, I know, despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary.  What can I say?  We crave what we want to exist and refuse to even acknowledge experiences that prove our view contrary.

There are several theories on the current electricity challenges.  It is generally agreed that the outages are worse than previously.  They’re certainly more prevalent than they have been since my arrival.  To be fair it’s really only been the last three weeks (but since we’re talking politics here, perhaps we should scrub the fairness.)

Let’s start with the theory that I like the most and in the hot, humid darkness pray is true is this:  The outages are a function of the old unreliable system being cut over to the new more reliable system. 

This theory, however, can also induce unbridled laughter. 

Another theory is that the government has run out of money to pay for the diesel to run the generators and therefore needs to effectively ration the diesel and subsequently the electricity.  This is sadly plausible. 

Perhaps the most believable theory is that because it’s getting hotter more people are using air-conditioners and fans and thus draining the electricity stocks and creating the need for outages. 

“After all, that happens in Australia, too,” one malae explained.  Oh how we want to cling to our view of the world, trying to fit what we see within our narrow frame of reference.  Of course this may be true.  The thing that I’d have to believe, though, to consider this the top contender, is that it is getting hotter.  Hotter?  Hotter than three litres of sweat a day hot?  Or maybe the actual temperature is simply another figment of our imaginations brought about by the belief that the rainy season brings higher temperatures – whether it does or not.  Anyway, this theory is a little too ‘western’ for me. 

Another plausible idea, shared with me by an Australian working in the shop that took my Indonesian visa ‘fotos’, is that someone stole the diesel. 

“It’s happened before,” he told me. “Last year, someone stole 100,000 litres.”

Okay, I know what you’re thinking:  that’s a lot of Gerry cans to fit under your jumper.  How did anyone not notice?  And yet . . . it’s this very quality of unbelievability that makes it entirely believable.     

So, will the bright sparks that ‘lead’ the country be able to deliver on their promise?

Possibly not.

They apparently spent over $300 million on Chinese generators that were deemed environmentally unfriendly and had to be sent back.  There’s speculation that the sale was on an ‘as is, no refund’ basis. 

Enter Finland.  Or more specifically, Finnish generators.  Much more environmentally friendly.  And so they arrived on Timor-Leste shores.  There were semi-trailers waiting to transport them into place.  Except this is Timor-Leste and nothing is ever as easy as it might be in a more ‘developed’ country.  The transporters duly loaded a generator onto a semi; they positioned one semi behind to stabilise the effect and crept up the hill . . . or perhaps more descriptively – the sand dune.  Can you see where this is going? (apart from nowhere fast)  Okay, they probably weren’t trying to drive the generator up a sand dune.   Suffice to say, there was a lot of sand around the ‘alleged’ roadway.  It wasn’t even that the lead truck lost traction, but that a cable broke.  The lead truck rolled backwards, into the semi behind and as both semi’s twisted unnaturally, the generator too twisted its way to freedom – and the sand.  It’s still there.  I haven’t seen it.  Unfortunately I still haven’t master ‘brake’ enough to attempt some of the hills in between here and its reported resting place.  But apparently it is there.

The second generator is sitting somewhere off the coast, awaiting a better unloading option.  There are, as I type, Timorese and no doubt western ‘experts’ creating a safer more effective unloading facility elsewhere on the coast.  A crane has arrived. 

So, will the bright sparks that ‘lead’ the country be able to deliver on their promise?

Possibly?  Probably? 

Until the 28^th November deadline has whooshed past I am choosing to believe the latter.

First Tango in Dili

You might think Dili is a little backwater where kulcha doesn’t even find itself drinking at a bar at 2am on a Friday morning.  But you’d be wrong.  We’re right kultral here.  The challenge for the Timorese, the English, the Americans, the Canadians, the Russians, the Chinese, the Japanese and basically anyone not form the Southern continent is that the most prevalent culture here, apart from the Timorese traditions, is Australian. Dili Beach Hotel and One More Bar are dedicated to Australian sport and music.  At the Dili Club you can even buy an “Aussie meat pie”.  Since its owned run by an Australian it’s easy to imagine that even if they aren’t Four ‘n’ Twenties, they might still be a little piece of meaty Oz.  

Last week, though, some real culture emerged.  Two women who love the tango have been lamenting the lack of tango dancers in Dili.  Instead of simply bemoaning this fact, they decide if tango dancers did not as yet exist, the most effective solution would be to create them.  To this end, they are offering free tango lessons on Thursday evenings from 7:30 to 8:30 with dancing to follow.

I’m up for new things and since my Thursday evening class finishes at 6:45pm, I could also arrive on time.  So I did.

I have never danced the tango and my impression of it involves two people stalking across a room, a rose and lots of sultry looks.  Though a little crowd had gathered to learn the dance, there wasn’t a rose in sight. 

“This is the Argentinean tango.”

Who knew there were different versions? 

“There are no roses.”

No roses?  Where’s the romance in that?

“There are no steps.”

No steps?  Oh, a dance for the un-co-ordinated.  (I was reminded of the one time that I took a step aerobics class.  The instructor gazed briefly at my ‘prowess’ and said, “hmmm, maybe just focus on the feet.”  The Argentinean tango seems to have been choreographed with someone like me in mind.

What we learnt in this first lesson was ‘the walk’.  The very basics of the dance are walking forwards and backwards, depending on where there is the most space.  This means that either the male or the female can lead.  Yes, the Argentineans are apparently equal-opportunity dancers.

We started simply – just rocking to and fro, getting a feel for our feet and their connection with the floor.  Then we rocked forwards and backwards.  Then we walked.  The ‘walk’ is basically putting one foot in front of the other, (or behind if you’re following).  You don’t stop with your feet together though, your ankles skim past each other.  It takes a little bit of focus.  We finally seemed to get it, at least by ourselves, then we got a partner.  We spent the rest of the hour practising going forward and back with relative strangers.  It’s not as easy as it sounds.  Because there are no steps, you can’t really anticipate what’s coming next and so the person going backwards has to surrender to the person leading.  I suppose that’s the romance of it; the idea that you and your partner are one and flowing simply and easily with the dance.

Perhaps how to ably accomplish that is lesson number two.  Our first night was punctuated not by the sighs and ahs of the lovelorn, but the “oops, sorry”, “er, didn’t mean that”, “oh, er” mutterings of those still trying to master walking without walking into anyone – including their partner.

It was definitely fun and I met some more new people.  I’ll be back next week . . . I’ll keep you posted.

Visa Vis or Mission: Mandy’s Working Visa Part III

As with most countries, you have to leave on your old visa and re-enter on your new visa.  Of the many processes and rules that Timor-Leste hasn’t adopted (e.g. traffic laws), this is not one of them and so the next step in acquiring my working visa is to leave the country.  The quickest and cheapest way is to drive to the border with West Timor or Indonesia.

Though our Visa Consultant assured my boss that we didn’t need an Indonesian visa, another teacher had reached the border only to be denied exit onto Indonesian soil without one.  (Chalk up another motive for any malevolent acts that might befall “that woman”.)  To avoid this angst it’s now Indonesian visas all round.

Fortunately for this process I had access to my very own consultant – Jimi an angel employed to do the school’s administration. 

“Give me your passport,” he told me, “and I’ll fill in the paperwork.  You just give me two passport photos.”

And by passport photos he meant two 3 x 4 pictures of me wearing a white-collared shirt in front of a red background.  These are purchased for $4 from a shop that also sells fridges, washing machines, fans, TVs and stereos.  They also supply the white-collared shirt and, if necessary, a jacket and tie as well.  I accepted the shirt, declined the tie and jacket and photos were taken, processed and handed over in a little plastic pocket.

It was all going extremely smoothly.  I presented Jimi with the photos, he pasted them in position and presented me with the paperwork.  “Sign here and here,” he said, pointing to the relevant lines.  “Date here.”

Then he donned his motorcycle helmet and personally delivered the paperwork to the Indonesian Embassy.  Fifteen minutes later he was back.  “You have to take it back,” he said.  “Signed in the wrong colour.”

“The wrong colour?” I asked.

“They want black pen.” . . . .and I had signed in blue.

Since I didn’t start teaching for another three hours, I signed the documents, finished my photocopying, donned my own motorcycle helmet and headed off for the Embassy.

Since I am geographically embarrassed on a daily, sometimes hourly basis, I left armed with strict instructions:  Go along Beach Road.  Turn Right on the main street after the Chinese Embassy, not the little road, the big road.  Then second left.  And there is the Indonesian Embassy.

For once it was easy.  The Chinese Embassy is a monstrosity with a tall brick fence with unwelcoming spikes along the top.  It also has a huge Chinese flag flying above it.  Yep, even I couldn’t miss it.  And so I was soon sitting in the Indonesian Embassy, or more specifically in a waiting area in front of two windows.

The thing that struck me, once I was actually at the window is how it was designed to be demeaning.  Usually such windows are long pieces of glass so that you can stand erect and still communicate.  Not at the Indonesian Embassy.  The “window” was about 20cm high. That was the only daylight between me and the two people processing the paperwork.  It meant that I had to bend over.  It was a sort of bending down to look up arrangement that left me feeling at a distinct disadvantage.  I’m guessing that was the point.

It wasn’t all bad though.  The process was smooth:  They read the paperwork, flipped through my passport, chuckled about something, exchanged a few words in Indonesian, laughed some more, asked for $45, gave me a receipt and told me to come back on Monday afternoon.

Part III almost complete . . . almost . . . .

Visa Vis or Mission: Mandy’s Working Visa Parts I and II

I entered Timor-Leste on a thirty day tourist visa.  You buy one at the airport for thirty US dollars.  Easy peasy.  Apparently it’s easy once you’re here to apply for the working visa required to work legally.  Having gone through part of that process, I wonder what’s required to acquire a working visa prior to coming to Timor.  The soul of your first born perhaps?  Okay, I exaggerate; maybe not their soul, perhaps a few functional organs might seal the deal.

In Timor-Leste you can ameliorate the process by hiring a consultant.  Our consultant’s main aim seemed to be trying to truncate the process with a little grease – and I’m not talking the elbow kind.  The first part of the process involves going to the hospital for a blood test and an x-ray.  Our Visa Consultant told me that actually the hospital tests weren’t necessary and for $100 she could get me the “results” by that afternoon.  “Americans and Canadians,” she confided, “They don’t like needles in foreign hospital.” 

Never mind the Americans and the Canadians, employees of the school where I worked needed to follow the process.  I was pretty sure that the process didn’t involve paper bags or envelops of any kind. 

So I found myself at 8am the next morning navigating the grounds of the Hospital Nationale.  After much wandering, I found the clinic and, as advised, presented my working contract to the clinic doctor.

“Copy of your passport?” he asked.

“I’m sorry?”

“You need to give me a copy of your passport,” he said again.

“I wasn’t told that.”

He shrugged. 

I ground my teeth together . . . .then left to find somewhere I could get a photocopy of my passport.  In case you haven’t already gleaned this, let me reiterate that nothing in Timor is easy.  And so it was that about forty minutes and half a litre of sweat later I found an establishment that declared “fotocopy”.  For twenty-five cents the very pleasant young lady made copies of the required pages of my passport and I retraced my steps to the hospital and triumphantly re-presented my documentation. 

The doctor scribbled on some forms, handed them to me and the process began:

Day One

I was to go to the blood testing lab.

I was to give them the slip of paper from the clinic.

They would give me a piece of paper that I was to bring back to the clinic.

I was to pay a fee to the woman behind the payments window.

She would give me a receipt but no change.  I was to remain silent on the issue of change or give her the exact amount.  I was to take the receipt back to the blood laboratory where I would be relieved of a vial of the strong stuff and given a small square of paper that I needed to present to get my results.  They would be available the next day.

Then I was to go to the x-ray building and present the second slip of paper from the clinic.

They gave me another slip of paper which I was to take back to the clinic.

I would pay another fee and receive another receipt.

Then I could return to the x-ray building for zapping and would also receive another small piece of paper that entitled me to my results.  They would be available the next day.

Day Two

I was to take my slips of paper to the respective laboratories and receive one slip of paper from the blood lab and an x-ray in a brown envelope from the x-ray lab.  I was to take these to the clinic for examination by the doctor. 

Day Three

I was to return the next day with a third and final payment and would receive a signed certificate.

I duly completed this process.  It wasn’t quite as arduous as it sounds, though it was mildly annoying having to return to the hospital on a daily basis – it was at the far end of town and a $2 or $3 taxi fare depending on the driver.

The signed certificate, x-ray and blood test results were given to the visa consultant who was to then organise an interview with the Department of Works.  To give you an idea of how things can work, or not work depending on how you look at it, I completed the three-day process in my first two weeks in Dili, that is, by 25^th September. 

It wasn’t until last Wednesday, 16^th November that we got the call:  I was to present at the Department of Works at 9am the next morning. 

My boss came too – fortunately.  While he took a call I tried to get the receptionist to log my presence and point us in the direction of my interview.

“When did they call you?” she asked.

“I’m sorry?”

“When did they call you?” she asked.

“Yesterday,” I said, wondering how the timing of their phone call was relevant.

She began flicking through a book and shaking her head.  “No, not here,” she told me.

Around this time my boss finished his call and joined the party.  “We were called yesterday.  We’ve been here before.  Some of your colleagues take English at our school.”

She didn’t even feign mild interest. 

“Can I speak with your manager?”

“Ah, here,” she said.  “Go through.”

We were funnelled into an office with a rather impressive, if faux, ornate door handle.  The man behind the desk indicated for us to sit.  He did not look happy.

“You didn’t come when we called.”

“We were called yesterday.  We came today.” 

“No.  You were called a month ago.”

My boss turned to me, a red slowly rise up his neck.  “I’ll strangle that woman (clearing meaning the Visa Consultant),” he growled through gritted teeth, then turned back to the grumpy official.  “I can assure you that we have come every time you’ve called us.  We want to do everything possible to work with you.”

“I almost cancelled the paperwork.”

“There’s obviously been some misunderstanding.  I’ll call my contact.”

He dialled “that woman” and handed the phone over. 

Begrudgingly the grumpy official took the phone.  “Hello,” he said.  “Hello?”  He handed the phone back.  “No one there,” he said.  Then added, “Never mind.  We continue.”

And we did. 

“What is your highest level of education?” he asked me.

“A Master of Medical Science.”

“In education?”

“Medical science.”

“What work did you do in Australia?”

“My work has always involved English, writing and presenting in English.”

“How long have you been teaching?”

Since eight weeks didn’t sound terribly convincing, I imagined all the times I’d taught anything in Australia.  In particular I imagined teaching peewees karate and confidently replied, “About five years.”

“Five years?”

“Yes.”

“In Australia?”

“Yes.”

“In schools?”

I visualised me tutoring university students in invertebrate zoology and said, “At university”; my work on the Link and Learn Project and said, “at high school”; my copywriting workshops for business owners, “adults” and my Korean university student, “and privately”.  Hhhmmm, I was almost impressing myself.

He turned to my boss.  “Do you have fire extinguishers?”

“Yes, we have three.”

“First-aid kit?”

“Yes.  Your people have come into our school and inspected it.  We have a security certificate.”

It continued with the not-so-grumpy official asking about staffing levels, including how many Timorese teachers we employed – or why we didn’t.  We don’t because they don’t have the skills.  However, we are training some local teachers and next June will choose the two most competent to join the teaching pool at the school.

“Okay.”

The no-longer-grumpy official passed me the papers and a pen.  “Sign.”

I did.

“It will be okay,” he said.  “Two weeks.”

We thanked him and left.  We’d hit the halfway point in Mission – Mandy’s working visa.