Being a lapsed Catholic when I heard that Tuesday 1st of November was a public holiday and knowing that there is a large contingent of Aussie ex-pats in Timor generally and Dili in particular, I immediately thought that “The race that stops a nation” had expanded its holiday reach.
Apparently not. Far from participating in gambling and alcoholic beverage imbibing, the public holidays allow the predominantly Catholic Timorese to celebrate All Saints Day (November 1st) and All Souls Day (November 2nd). Most large businesses close, though many smaller shops, including the supermarkets, some market stalls and of course the pulsa (mobile phone credit) sellers remain operable.
Many people travel to their districts of origin to honour ancestors and family members gone before. Some take the Monday off and in fact class attendees were a bit thin on the ground. Those that stay in Dili visit the cemeteries bringing flowers and candles. Dili is not exactly rife with blooming flora and so flowers are plucked from wherever possible – some plants are stripped bare in raids reminiscent of Valentine’s Day in less religious communities. Some residents resort to fake flowers which are in greater supply.
It’s a respectful time when locals remember those gone before. For many it must be a very emotional time; their loved ones have not always died of natural causes. One of my students told me that her father had had his throat cut. She said it so matter-of-factly. She was sixteen when it happened and as the eldest went back to her village to help with her younger siblings. She works in immigration now, but has never been outside of Timor-Leste. If she scores 3 or above in her IELTS she’ll get a trip to Australia next year. I hope that I have the skills to make it possible for her. She studies hard and despite a difficult life has maintained a playful sense of humour.
Death is common here. Other teachers tell of classes cancelled because someone in the workplace has died. In an unforgiving landscape with limited educational and medical resources it becomes all the more tragic that people have died fighting for what they believed in – whether that be national independence or private political beliefs.
The country needs stability and perhaps All Saints and All Souls days are small reminders of how the sacrifices made can so easily be in vain when those left behind perpetuate intolerance and violence.
While remembering the dead can become a ghoulish re-wounding where the anguish of loss is eternally revived, it can also spark a recognition of who you really are and what is ultimately important in defining you as a person, your family and perhaps even your nation.
And so instead of imbibing or having a flutter on that ‘other event’ at Dili Beach Hotel, I moved house. Living with the locals has been an eye-opening experience. They live in a way to which I am unaccustomed. It’s been challenging and ultimately I am glad to be sharing with an English-speaker, strangely grateful to hear the strains of Star Trek through the walls. It’s given me perspective on those migrants to Australia who cluster with their fellow countrymen and women, speak their own language and follow their own customs. We can look at them, expecting that they can adopt our ways. They can – and they can’t. Being in that situation myself, it is so comforting to hear an Aussie accent (though to be fair they’re not exactly a rarity here); to walk into Dili Beach Hotel to the strains of Cold Chisel or Men at Work or some other quintessentially Australian band. It sparks some recognition deep within my DNA, comforts me and oddly enough even reminds me why I am here and what I am hoping to achieve. Short bursts of home recalibrate me; allow me once again to reconnect to my own roots and therefore my own humanity.
Though some here might frown at the “Aussie bars”, just as some Aussies might tsk tsk at Greek and Italian Clubs or the knots of the Chinese and Sudanese, if rekindling our connections to a mother land grounds us and empowers us to move forward, how can that be a bad thing?
Perhaps, in my strange Australian way I did spend the last two days honouring, if not the dead specifically, at least those who have helped shape Australian culture and thus helped make me who I am and remain necessary contributors to who I am yet to be.
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