The Lost Boy

What Timor-Leste has given me

I’ve been in Timor-Leste for a little more than two years and today I’m leaving, flying to Bali then KL then London, going back to school to do a master’s at SOAS.

I remember when I first arrived in Dili. I had no idea what I was getting myself into. I knew nothing about the country and my career as a journalist hadn’t progressed an awful lot during my years in Thailand.

But then I came to Timor-Leste and things just started to click. I grew up, so to speak, and here I am now, looking back on that time, and only just coming to understand what it is about this country that has made me the person I am today.

About four or five months ago, I started feeling frustrated. I was working a lot and not particularly enjoying my time here. I was complaining about working too much, about the lack of nightlife, about being bored and so on.

I’d found myself a Timorese girlfriend and kind of fell into a bizarre relationship that lasted only a few weeks, but it left a dent. Nobody knew about this relationship, even though we had met up in Bali over the Christmas vacation.

Suffice to say, the whole thing was a trainwreck. The point is, though, that this and a number of other factors had left me feeling somewhat glum, so I went to work with the UN in Bangkok for a month and then went to Bangladesh and did a four-week stint there. I also spent a little time in Penang and generally travelled around.

Then I came back to Timor-Leste, feeling refreshed and with girl troubles out of my system, and I finally saw the country in a different light. It was as if I was seeing the place for the first time. I felt incredibly happy just walking around the streets of Dili.

You see, it rains now and then in Dili, and when it does rain, it pours, but the sun still shines and the sky is still blue every day. When I realised this, the days no longer felt like a burden. Yet it wasn’t the weather that changed my perspective — it was the people.

Everywhere you go in Timor-Leste, you invariably come across this lifeforce that you just don’t see anywhere else. It’s in the smiles of the children on their way to school, or the grins of the old folks with red teeth, or the warm greetings of the tough guys on the street corners.

I haven’t experienced this in any other country I’ve visited, and it’s only now that I’m beginning to appreciate it. In my two years in Timor-Leste, I’ve visited each of the 13 districts, from west to east, north to south, and then over to Oecusse. Everywhere it’s the same: Incredible people with lives and stories that make me feel so very inferior.

These are the people who have let me into their lives for moments, flashes, snapshots. Sometimes I’ve written stories about them or taken their photos; other times I’ve just listened for the sake of listening, watched for the sake of watching.

The country itself is amazing. In the past couple of weeks I’ve been through five or six districts and just been in awe of the endless, morphing scenery, through forests and tiny villagers, past deserted beaches and empty plains, up into the clouds and back down to the feet of mountains. The backdrop changes with each corner turned.

Perhaps there isn’t much to do in Timor-Leste, in the conventional sense at least, but I cannot recommend the country enough to other people who read this.

That’s what this nation has given me.

I’ve learnt a great deal over the past couple of years and I’ve tried to apply this to my work. I hope that my stories have improved since I arrived. When I look back, I’m really not happy with the first handful of stories I wrote. I can’t take them back and neither can I change this. But I’ve tried my best to raise the bar for myself, and I think I’ve done that.

I’m sure some folks will disagree with me, but that’s fine. Criticism comes with the territory. But the work opportunities I’ve had in Timor-Leste, from training youths all round the country to writing stories about subjects I had no appreciation of while I was in Thailand, have been invaluable.

Also, being in this country has given me a fantastic insight into the whole UN-NGO-post-conflict-development thing, something you have to see and feel to really understand.

And what have I given to Timor-Leste? Honestly, I don’t know. Not a whole lot. I’m not an aid worker. I don’t work in development. I don’t save lives or feed the starving or treat the sick. All I do is write stories, but honestly, I wouldn’t want to do anything else.

Sure, I’m still antisocial and I’ve made minimal effort to mingle in expat circles around town, but I came, I saw and I wouldn’t change the experience for the world.

Farewell, Timor-Leste. See you in 12 months.