When I first heard that there was a band of “ninjas” terrorizing folks in Timor-Leste, I have to admit I chuckled a little. But laughs aside, there is something odd going on. Obviously we’re not talking about real ninjas, but just guys with masks who have been dubbed ninjas by the media.

The first I saw of this was a little more than a week ago. Diario Nacional reported that Operational Police Commander Mateus Fernandes had yet to receive any complaints from residents in Bobonaro and Covalima, where stories were emanating that ninjas were threatening to kill the locals.

However, Fernandes did say he had received a report on the ninjas from the police commanders of Bobonaro and Covalima and that those commanders would take the “necessary action” to deal with the troublemakers.

That same day, the Timor Post quoted Fernandes as saying that the police had thwarted the operations of the aforementioned ninjas.

About this time, parliament called for the Timorese national police force (PNTL) and the armed forces (F-FDTL) to go on a manhunt and find the ninjas. Given how sketchy the details were, this seemed odd.

Then, Aitahan Matak from resistance organization CPD-RDTL came out and denied any involvement in the ninja saga. Clear so far?

More recently, our fearless police commander Longuinhos Monteiro vowed to set up security posts in dangerous areas, reported RTTL.

The police chief went so far as to say that any ninjas foolish enough to take on the L-man and his boys would end up deep-sixed at Santa Cruz Cemetery. So that’s the country’s top policeman completely ignoring any rule of law and announcing he will kill wrongdoers, rather than do anything as offbeat as, I don’t know, arresting them?

There is speculation that this is all a ploy to put armed cops in the districts in the run-up to municipal elections. Longuinhos and Xanana are buds, after all. Would the head of the ruling coalition go this far to secure a favourable result? I have no idea, but he did let an indicted murderer walk free last year.

It’s still not clear exactly what the ninjas have done or why they’ve done it. Longuinhos also came out and said that some of the ninjas managed to escape to Dili. They are certainly living up to their stealthy reputation. To further confuse the matter, RTTL on Friday reported that Ramos-Horta had commended the police for their efforts in capturing the ninjas. So have they been caught? Who knows for sure.

What’s next? A Shinobi-like assault on the president’s home? Or maybe a showdown of shurikens versus bullets. I know who my money’s on.

Addendum: I’m told these ninjas have been around since 2002 and they are, in fact, CPD-RDTL’s boys. Now I’m even more intrigued. Looking forward to getting back to Dili.

When I first started learning Bahasa Indonesia, someone told me that it would be best to learn the basics before diving into any kind of intensive course. That was good advice because it is easy enough to get a hold of basic Bahasa Indonesia by yourself. This way, you save a lot of time and money because you don’t have to plough through beginner classes.

I used two main resources to learn things like numbers, pronunciation, simple phrases and so on. First of all, I downloaded all the lessons from LearnToSpeakIndonesian.com. There isn’t much material, but these lessons were a good introduction to Bahasa Indonesia.

Even better than those lessons were all the free lessons I downloaded from LearningIndonesia.com. There are about 50 or so free lessons you can download from that website. Each lesson is about five to 10 minutes long and the “hosts” are an American man and an Indonesian woman. They’re both easy to understand and I picked up a lot from these lessons.

Once you have finished all the free lessons, there are more lessons that you can download for $11.75. I downloaded a couple of these and they were useful for the extra vocab and the listening exercises they contained.

I’m now about four months into learning Bahasa Indonesia and I’m more than halfway through my intensive course at UKSW. Everything has gone fine so far. I graduated from the four-week Upper Intermediate level with a high distinction and scored 91% overall, which I was really pleased with.

I now have a couple more weeks of classroom time. We started UKSW’s Level 4 today. I feel like a bit of a jerk because after the class, I asked if I could go in a class by myself because I only have two weeks, whereas the others have three. I just wanted to go through things a bit quicker really.

Anyway, I recently bought a couple of Indonesian novels from the Gramedia book store in Semarang. It makes for a refreshing change to have something to read that isn’t some kind of text book or a newspaper.

I find myself reading the Nyata tabloid quite a lot because the language used in it is far simpler when compared with regular newspapers. But there’s only so much fun I can have reading about Indonesian celebrities.

The first book I bought is called Orang Miskin Dilarang Sekolah, or A Poor Person Forbidden from Going to School. It’s by Wiwid Prasyeto. A lot of the books in Gramedia were either translations or else they looked like the book equivalent of chick flicks. This one seemed to have a more serious edge to it.

The second book I bought is Sebuah Memoar Cinta, or A Love Memoir. I’m about halfway through it and have found the language manageable enough. What I find most interesting is the way the author describes things like the sky or the weather, often as a metaphor for her own emotions.

I don’t know if either of the books I bought are considered good reads, so to speak, but they suit my needs perfectly.

How many Timorese police officers does it take to change a lightbulb? None, because they’re all too busy beating the snot out of civilians.

This video was shot on Atauro island in November during Timor-Leste’s first international sport-fishing competition. The competition was ironically part of the drive by Ramos-Horta et al to promote Timor-Leste as a country of peace, somewhere everyone should want to visit. Atauro island is about 25 kilometres off the coast of Dili. Timorese police officers beat this man down allegedly just because he held up a sign saying “Fishing Group from Maunroni Village”.

There must be more to why they set upon this man, surely. Right? This can’t have happened because he held up a sign. Right?! Regardless, no matter what the story is behind this attack, nothing can ever justify such behaviour by members of Timor-Leste’s joke of a police force.

This video has surfaced fresh off the back of a Timorese police officer allegedly shooting to death a 25-year-old Timorese man during a fracas at a wedding in Dili. There are a few things that struck me about this video. Firstly, watch the imbecilic way the police officers try to subdue the man. How on earth can police officers like that be entrusted with guns?

Secondly, there are UNPOL officers in the background. They do nothing while the Timorese police officers swarm around one man. Come on, UNPOL. Haven’t you been training these guys? We keep getting press releases about how successful the police handover has been thus far, and yet incidents like this keep cropping up.

At 1.15, am I right in thinking that one of the officers hits the man with the butt of a rifle?! The victim was armed with a piece of cardboard! Have any of these co-called protecters of the nation been punished, sent on indefinite leave or fired? Of course not.

I’ve seen for myself the way police in Dili deal do “crowd control”. It’s appalling. They use batons, fists and feet. How else can you label them except as animals? They are aggressive, thoughtless and reckless. Are you proud of your paramilitary force, Longuinhos?

If there’s one thing Indonesia certainly does have, it’s a thriving music scene, even more so than Thailand from what I can see. I listen to as much Indonesian music as I can, especially when the music videos are played on television because they usually put the lyrics up karaoke style.

It’s like the law that every song in Indonesia has to be about love in some shape or form, which is fine by me because it means lyrics are reasonably easy to understand.

The first Indonesian song I got into was Puspa by ST12, which is a tune everyone in Timor-Leste adores. More recently, ST12 did this track called Biarkan Jatuh Cinta, which I rather like.

My favourite band at the moment is this Tatu-esque pop duo called The Virgin. They’ve been getting lots of attention recently. They must be a marketer’s dream. One is billed as the “tomboy”, while the other is the “girly” girl. Mulan Jameela did a great song with Mita from The Virgin called Cinta Mati.

Everyone’s favourite adulterer Krisdayanti still hogs headlines and airtime, but I find it difficult to enjoy listening to any of her music because she seems like an attention-seeking *****. I cannot imagine how the separation with her husband has affected the pair’s children. I’m sure Raul Lemmos, KD’s new partner, also has a wife in Jakarta. Actually, I’ve lost track of this bizarre love-web.

The children only have to switch on a television to be confronted by music videos by both their mother and father cashing in and singing about the separation. What dignity! One of Kris’s more ironic songs is Aku Wanita Biasa, or I’m an Ordinary Woman. Obviously.

At the other end of the musical spectrum you get groups like String with this not-so-instant classic called Honey Bunny Sweety. String are kind of like the Spice Girls all over again. Some imaginative A+R guy has taken five girls who can’t sing, can’t dance and can’t follow choreography, and he’s made them into a pop group. It’s a work of genius because the ringtones sell like fresh durian.

I’ve yet to really get much beyond the pop and indie scenes. I’m sure that given how big the country is and how thriving Jakarta is that there are producers making electronic music. Maybe someone can point me in the right direction.

Last September I decided that I wanted to learn Bahasa Indonesia. This is the first time in my that I’ve really tried to master a language. I learnt French and German for a few years when I was younger, but at that age I didn’t care much for anything I was taught in school. After the three or four years I spent in Thailand I picked up enough Thai that I could hold simple conversations, but I didn’t delve too deep into it, which was always one of my regrets.

Living in Timor-Leste, I was, at first, keen to learn Tetum. I bought the language book everyone seems to have and I ploughed through the first half-dozen chapters, but after that I became lazy and always found other things, mostly work, to do instead.

With this cloud of shame looming over me, I took up the challenge of learning Bahasa Indonesia, partly because it’s spoken in Timor-Leste, but most of all because I’m aiming to gradually move myself into Indonesia, part of which includes hopefully doing my masters in Southeast Asian studies later this year.

As far as the language goes, I started in September by downloading free material from a couple of websites. This helped me pick up the basics by myself. Work took a backseat for a few weeks as I spent much of my time going through various exercises.

At the end of October I went to the IALF Language Centre in Bali and did a couple of weeks’ one-on-one tuition. It was expensive, but gave me a better understanding of how the verbs work. At the end of it they gave me a certificate and said I’d passed their Level 3, although it isn’t accredited. IALF also does regular classes, two hours a day over four weeks.

I got a lot of material for IALF, which I carried on using after I’d finished studying there. I also bought myself a couple of books, including Bahasa Indonesia: Book Two by Yohanni Johns, which is particularly useful.

I started buying newspapers and watching a lot of television. The channels in Indonesia show Western movies with Bahasa Indonesia subtitles every day. So I’ve been reading my books and watching films and listening to Indonesian music.

With the basics nailed, I’m now in Salatiga, Java, doing a six-week intensive course at Satya Wacana Universitas Kristen’s Language Training Center. The course is accredited by the Australian National University (ANU) and it seems to be regarded as one of the best around for Indonesian language.

I took a placement test and was put on the Level 3 (of six) course, which is equivalent to ANU’s 2A. We get about 72 contact hours over four weeks and there are quizzes, tests and a field assignment. We just finished the first week and it was hardcore.

Most of the other participants here are ANU students. They’re all about 18 or 19, I think, so I feel a bit old (I’m 27). Most of them know each other and they’re all pretty lively.

I’m not so interested in the course’s cultural activities or the social side of being here. The only reason I’m on this course is to improve my language skills. Saying that, I’m enjoying the learning process and find myself itching to get to class every morning.

The course is rather expensive compared to others (AU$2,685), but the fee includes accommodation with an Indonesian family and all my meals. I don’t have to pay for anything really expect 2,000 rupiah each way to school and back by angkota.

The house I’m staying in is modern, I have my own room, the family are great and I’m very well fed. I will be here until February 13, but I’m still contactable by email if needed.