A day in the life...

Another day in the life of C-line (please save the yawns for at least after the first line of this article)…

Today I woke up bewildered and groggy (as usual) to the pleasant sounds of the Doctor cooking breakfast banging an array of pots and pans in the process, sounding similar to a tone deaf orchestra. If only she had been cooking for me, (although at 5:30 in the morning I believe I would have been very ungrateful), no, instead she was cooking for herself and the dog, Benji who lives next door and seems to be constantly pointed up the wrong way. Now Benji, on this particular day, seemed a little more aroused than usual and so tracked down a hole which belonged to another random drifting dog. After just a few minutes of the ‘front paws in the air position’, Benji was edging to dismantle but was stuck, glued to the other dog in a very uncompromising position. Just having gotten up at this stage, I found it a little early to be watching two dogs looking very embarrassed and confused, bums stuck together, resembling quite closely to ‘cat and dog’ the cartoon. Finally, little kids on passing thought it was a hilarious scene to be intercepting and through rocks at the dogs which caused havoc, as well as a loud popping noise…Ahh….Dismantled.

I went to my first death a couple of weeks ago. I was told (fetched, would be more appropriate) by my local warung (café) owner, Maun Cau, that it was the chief from Timor Telecom who had died and that I was required to pay my dues to him. I spend most of my days at Timor Telecom so as to use the computer there. This is because my office, which is the District Health Service Department often has long lapses in no electricity, which means everyone sits around the office smoking cigarettes and complaining about the lack of resources and infrastructure, which limits their ability to work (not much different to when there is electricity...) And even when there is electricity, it’s a battle to get on to the one and only computer for 8 people and once you’re on, the gossip women click their tongues together and start a good hearty session of, which man is buying which woman in Gleno today.

So, to get back to the story, I felt a pang of sadness knowing that the chief of T.T. had conked out and that I wouldn’t be seeing his cheery face at the back of the office, playing computer games. So I set off with my box of candles (as a token to the family of the deceased) and walked the km or so through pitch-black dirt roads, making sure that a stumble through a large puddle was had, before arriving to the appropriate house. Upon arriving, I was shuffled across to the open casket room by Maun Cau and made to join the praying choir. As I peaked through the room, not wanting to get to close to the coffin, the praying stopped for a short pause and a sudden wailing leaped out of a woman who had thrown herself onto the dead man’s body followed by howling from many participants in the crowd. It was almost as if a rehearsal had been had before the wake where a sing song of wailing and bawling family members had practiced the weep together. The woman extended over the dead person’s body wailed in an in tune rhythm, as if stuck in a trance, followed by the rest of the family. It all lasted approximately 10 minutes and by this time I was thoroughly squashed inside the room, with no escape route to save me. The intensity soon got to me when the two little sons originating from the chief, were screeching, ‘who’s going to pay for my clothes now?’. Under these circumstances the right and appropriate thing to do is to cry and be mournful but of course, me not liking to abide by the norm, only bursts of repressed giggles could be ushered by my mouth and therefore I left the room as quickly as possible.

Sitting outside in the ‘waiting room’ seemed a lot happier. Men were smoking, gambling, drinking, being merry while inside, mostly all the women were howling, loud enough to wake the spirits in far proximity. The dead person’s ambulance arrived shortly after, which was off to get the coffin from Dili. On its departure, it managed to get stuck in a ditch and so 20 or so men came out to pull the ambulance out of its troubles. Of course, this was impossible for them to do, (thank god, as they were pulling from the front and would have certainly gotten squashed if the ambulance had made it out) and so the idea of using another car rather than man force was created. I new at this point that my dues had been payed and so I went back to the room to say, …well, good bye I guess to the dead man. This time I went right up close to the coffin expecting to see a familiar face staring out at me, but in fact it wasn’t the chief from T.T. but instead the chief from the bank whom I had never met before and wasn’t to keen to meet him on his death bed. Thanks Maun Cau, I bet the reason he bought me was so that I could pay for the candles!