Chapter 3 ~ Christmas

We’d decided that we wouldn’t do all of the traditional things that we usually do for Christmas
(Decorate the tree, Large Christmas dinner with too much to eat and drink etc.) as we were so far away from our family and friends, and so new to Timor. It was time to step out of the comfort zone and do something different. After discussions with Lisa and Bruce, we decided that it was to be a Bar-B-Que and Blender Bender. The idea being to invite some people over, ask them to bring what they wanted to eat, and something to mix in the blender for drinks. Sounded really simple to me! What do you think?

We organised a large Bar-B-Que with the appropriate coconut shell fuel, several blenders and Lisa and Alofa organised some salads to round out the meal, by 2:00pm we were all set for the onslaught of guests. Hmm………………………….

Bruce turned up and so did Bony Magoo (a fellow volunteer), they said that they had invited some other people who would turn up later. I had made some Drambuie and had bought a case of beer and the girls were making cocktails with rum, fresh fruit and coconut milk. So we were well stocked for drinks, which was probably just as well. Alofa and I had bought some fish for the Bar-B-Que, I had made a trifle for desert and Bruce brought some sausages and a chocolate cake. So we were all set. We lazed around in the afternoon sun swapping stories and lies. As the evening approached I lit the fire. Bruce and Bony went “across the street” to visit some friends, and came back with some additional guests. The more the merrier, and when Hugh turned up with Melly, it seemed that we had the basis of a reasonable party. I cooked our fish and the sausages and was worried that we may have to perform the seven loaves and five fishes trick. However, when dinner was served we had more than enough and having eaten too much we all retired to the balcony to tell stories.

A young Timorese man named Eli started talking; he said that Alofa reminded him of his  Grandmother, that she was a “strong person” too and that she was from Goa in India, which was a Portuguese settlement. He explained how a number of people came from Goa and sailed to Timor (That would have been a long sail). Someone asked if his Grandmother was still alive and he explained that he had lost his Grandparents as well as his mother during the time of the  ndonesian withdrawal from Timor (1999) He talked about what happened during that time and told us a harrowing tale about how he lost his mother, and how he had been found as a baby, still clinging to his dead mother. There was a silence as he spoke, which told us, that none of us really knew how to react to his life story. Bony suggested that the Australian and New Zealand Government’s needed to apologise to the people of Timor-Leste for their lack of action during the crisis. This statement allowed us to get over the emotional silence and discuss the subject in a logical/political manner. However, those tales of loss still hung in the night, and you realised that the ghosts of Timor were an everyday reality to the people of Timor-Leste.

The conversation had moved on to a more political discussion, which is an area of conversation, which all volunteers should learn to avoid like the black plague. In order to divert the discussion, someone asked Eli, what he thought would happen in the up-coming elections. He said that the “young people” were not happy with what had been accomplished so far and that the current situation in Timor was not what the struggle for independence was supposed to deliver. He feared that the elections would lead to blood-shed.

There was a kind of “Che Guevara idealism” in the way he spoke, and it was clear in his mind that the revolution was not finished yet.

I felt the night draw in and get colder, and reflected on what had been said, what we had been eaten and what we had drunk and decided that this was Christmas after all, and that the decorations were those that we had made to the truth, the food and drink remained the same – we had consumed too much of all three.