Some countries have UFOs that periodically visit and kidnap people on long stretches of boring road, depositing them back with a fascinating (or otherwise) story to tell. Other countries have crop circles that appear as if burnt into the flora by alien spaceships. Timor has its own version of these inexplicable events. Oddly enough for Timor, where there is much that seemingly cannot be explained, the origin of their geometric shapes is not only unknown, but visible to all.
Let me begin at the beginning . . .
It began one sunny morning when I was going for a ride on my scooter. Suddenly, it appeared before me, a square . . . or rather, the lack of a square. Yes, part of the road was indeed missing. And not a pot-hole kind of missing. This was no accident of erosion. This was a neatly cut square, complete with a witch’s hat in the middle, just to let you know that perhaps you should go round rather than through. Is there hidden irony in having to go round a square? Besides only the truly brave would go through the squares – there’s at least a two-three inch drop, except where vehicles (probably some big-arse UN four-wheel drive finally doing something useful) have conveniently tramped a little ramp.
One square might have been excusable, and perhaps, not even note-worthy. The thing of it is, that over the last few weeks, squares of road have been disappearing at an alarming rate. A friend suggested that since the squares they are digging up are perfectly fine pieces of road, they are shipping them out to the districts where the roads aren’t so good. As ludicrous as that might sound, I almost believed him.
The squares started small. They’re now bigger, extending beyond the original square shape into rectangles; rhombi that stretch the length of what might, in a developed country, pass for a couple of blocks. And they’re dusty; so much so that the locals are forced to bucket water onto the dirt in an effort to keep the air-borne dust kicked up by passing vehicles to a minimum. Since the rainy season I haven’t seen many people watering the roads. There hasn’t been the need that there is in the dry season. The sceptic in me considers that perhaps the squares are compensation for a longer than usual we season. Perhaps the locals are getting withdrawal symptoms from not having to water their roads. Perhaps the missing squares are a government initiative to feed their road-wetting addiction. Far-fetched? Well it is Timor, so I’ll reserve judgement on that.
What I can tell you is this: Little armies of Timorese are out making digging up squares of road that as far as I can tell, don’t include any of the potholes that we Malae motorists would dearly love them to fill. At the moment, though, this isn’t a filling exercise. It’s a hole-making exercise. It’s as if the powers that be are unaware of all the holes that currently exist. Or perhaps it’s geometric discrimination; perhaps the holes are too round. Clearly square holes are what is currently required.
Since there are elections this year, this may just be the lone employment scheme that they’ve hurriedly cobbled together for the benefit of the voting public (who apparently don’t drive and are therefore not inconvenienced by the traffic jams that the appearance of the squares has created).
Whatever the logic – or lack thereof – the streets of Dili are being indiscriminatingly eaten away by big, yellow square-making machines and the men that operate them.
Stay tuned for Part II where hopefully another army of men come and fill in the squares – let’s just hope that don’t try and fill them with anything round.
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