Well the dirt is finally coming out. I always wondered when it would hit the fan. The next couple of days should be interesting.

Then I will start marking some of those press and opinion pieces, some written by politically motivated drones who don’t know shite from clay.

Facts matter … opinions don’t.

While doing my bit for gastronomic research (ie sampling a burger at the new Terrace Cafe) I got talking to an expat employee who works in the Ministry of Agriculture building. They were pretty much fully functioning back at work so my inquisitiveness got the better of me and I asked if I could come over and see what had happened.

It seems it was a bit of a mixed bag. Some offices completely cleaned out, others partially. The office where I had been invited seemed to be functioning but it was pointed out that a number of desks usually had computers on them. They had cleaned up everything except for one beaten up LCD monitor sitting on a desk. And the stationery etc. storeroom had been trimmed down quite a bit. They thought they were luckier than most.

One of the expat staff was there when looters were walking out with computer gear. He said they only took the newer better gear and left the older stuff. He suspected an inside job. The other feature that has been repeated by others elsewhere is that while the looting is going on, any expat in the vicinity is treated as invisible.

Although the building had been stripped of a lot of computer gear, I did get confirmation that backups of important data were safe and that many expats stored their own important data on laptops which they took with them.

After I left, I went to the Ministry of Education warehouses next door. There are about 4 warehouses about 20 metres wide and 60 metres long. Basically, they have have all been looted and trashed. People are still picking through the remains for printer paper and chalk. Kids are lighting fires in the many tons of paper littering the floors both inside and outside. There were computer parts smashed to bits and torched, a safe lying on its side with door mangled and many tens of thousands of primary school assessment books. And graffiti daubed on the doors.

I later learnt that the Delta coffee warehouse (&/or office) close-by was also looted over the weekend. Many sacks of high quality coffee went along with office gear.

I decided that if if this is what people will do in a country so desperately in need of more widespread education opportunities, then it may well be a long haul out of all this.

As for the burger, I give it a 6 out of 10 but a fail on the soggy chips.

Over the last week, it seems that many of Dili’s expat residents have started returning. I’d say more than 50% of people I know are back.

Some will just pick up the pieces from where they left off and kick on from there. Some others may not be so fortunate. I know some contract professionals at the Ministry of Agriculture who returned to find their offices trashed, files gone, computers gone, obscene graffiti everywhere. One would hope they do have off-site backups. If not, its a complete start from scratch.

Imagine what you would think if you came back home (after being evacuated to Darwin for 10 days) to find your office trashed with nothing left, your children’s school closed indefinitely and your accommodation compulsorily acquired by foreign peacekeepers. I would take all that as a good hint to retire gracefully.

Not that Dili ever was a great place for expat kids, but it would appear it certainly is not now. The two international schools (that I know of) are closed indefinitely.

But I find some perverted irony in the fact that a country like Timor-Leste which is predominantly an agricultural society, should lose its Ministry of Agriculture almost entirely. Some other government departments have pressed on albeit with vastly reduced numbers.

Now you might think that with all this trouble that the electrical supply might be disrupted. Wrong. It feels like the electricity supply has been the best it has ever been since I have been here. It turns out that courtesy of the significant reduction in demand (now down to 30% of normal), the pressure on the diesel generation system makes it easier. And I am told that the supply system is very simple (no sun-stations or high voltage pylons etc.) and any repairs required are generally quite simple jobs involving wire replacement and perhaps re-erecting a pole.

I guess there are always market opportunities when circumstances like these crop up. I have this feeling that with the influx of foreign peacekeepers, the demand for emptying of septic tanks has increased. Twice in the last week, I have seen full tankers sloshing their way down the street.

Note to file : do not cycle behind a full tanker literally sloshing its way down the street – once was enough.

I don’t do politics. For the life of me, I can’t think like a politician so just can’t come to grips with political blustering and double-speak.

I am doing no better here, but at the moment, it would appear all the action is happening in the political arena – or more accurately, not in the arena at all.

Of late, (courtesy of Google News) I have read quite a few “propositions”. I have heard most of them mentioned here but I have little feel at all for which one or ones may be closer to the mark. I have heard this mentioned a number of times here and can concur : “you just can’t use western logic and assumptions to make conclusions about what has or may happen here”.

Lets try some of the “propositions” (in no particular order) :

Recently, I had to explain to an acquaintance that I think it is one thing to say a certain party benefits from a certain course of events but a huge leap to saying they orchestrated it. Similarly, don’t assume malevolent intentions when good old fashioned incompetence and ineptitude is just as valid a factor.

I am collecting some of the press reports which propose some of these theories (and in some cases, present them as fact) and will mark them out of 10 when the air clears.

But I got 8 out of 8 in a football tipping pool last week and while I could claim a high degree of prescience, basically it was a week of good guessing. Oh, I forgot … I had no political agendas guiding my football selections.

More than one person whether it be friend or relative has said to me “why stay? … you must be mad”.

Good question. I am an expat. I am here as a short to medium term foreigner doing their stuff then moving on. While doing this stuff, I have no home to go back to. This is my home. This is where my slippers are ! If I leave, I either stay in a hotel somewhere or bludge off friends or relatives.

I sat around a couple of days ago with a group of mates shooting the breeze and consuming a few lagers. An attempt was made to solve the world’s problems but we failed. Not one person would rather be anywhere else. We regard we are now safe. We all looked at the setting sun and agreed that it was absolutely bloody fantastic.

We also agreed the current situation was an absolute bloody shambles.

I went to a BBQ on the weekend and there certainly was a sense of having been through a very tense period but maybe the worst was over.

That may be true for the expats, who at the end of the day will always have a free flight out of here, but there is certainly a feeling amongst the locals that it is far from finished and that there are quite a few moves to be made yet. On the weekend, the rumour mill was active again and there was an expectation of an “attack” on Dili on Monday.

You don’t need to be Einstein to work out that over 1,000 well-trained, well-equipped and well-fed foreign troops supported by choppers, laser-guided weaponry, APCs and a couple of warships are going to make mincemeat of even a few hundred “rebels”. If they really want a stoush, they will want it up in the hills on their turf.

So a few more people left Dili, the shops are even quieter than last week and nothing happened.