Nightlife in Dili bustling after independence
Pandaya, The Jakarta Post, Dili
It is 9 p.m. in Dili. Cafes and restaurants that have mushroomed along the streets in the heart of the city, where the beach-view presidential palace stands, are packed with hundreds of expatriates hanging around late into the night.
Internet cafes owned by Australia's Telstra which has been given an exclusive contract by the UN Transitional Administration of East Timor (UNTAET) for mobile and fixed line services, have sprung up over the past couple of years. These places, too, are a favorite meeting place.
Don't ask if you can go to a discotheque, or other night entertainment spots peculiar to a metropolitan city. You may have to wait for another year or two when the capitalists are convinced it is safe and profitable to invest in such facilities.
The bustling nightlife in the capital, Dili, has become something of a novelty for the townsfolk. Women and men walk in the street at night, joking and laughing all the way.
Welcome to independent East Timor.
"During the Indonesian troops occupation, the city was dead quiet after dusk," said Mathias, a taxi driver in his late 20s, who still cruises the streets well after midnight.
"In the Indonesian colonial times, people would be risking their lives if they dared to venture out on the streets after 7 p.m. Soldiers would stop them, ask them questions they could not answer and they would be tortured," he said.
For the East Timorese people, the freedom from fear of military harassment has become the most celebrated part of the just-proclaimed independence.
Now Dili is alive 24-hours a day. Safe and breezy.
Shops open until 9 p.m. and traditional markets until dusk.
UN vehicles of all sizes, from motorcycles and vans to heavy trucks, rumble in the streets. They are conspicuous for their large "UN" lettering. In fact the omnipresent vehicles and the staff's hectic activity makes Dili look like a UN city.
In the past, it was the military trucks carrying fiery-looking soldiers patrolling the streets of Dili that dominated the scene.
"Gone are those dreadful days," proclaimed Antonio Soares, a college student who used to take part in anti-Indonesia demonstrations on his campus.
The thrill of taking to the streets and getting chased by security officers was an experience that he swore would never forget.
After the territory became independent on May 20, the Timorese have been pondering the past and see beyond with a clearer mind.
Unlike all those stereotypes that the media have helped create, the East Timorese people are quite forgiving and pragmatic.
Asked if the independence has changed his perception about Indonesians, Mathias the taxi driver quickly replied, "It's only people in the military who are evil. The common (Indonesian) people are good, friendly. I befriended many of them."
Emilia de Andrade, a teacher at Santo Yosef elementary school tearfully remembered her Indonesian fellow teachers who had to leave for good after the fateful 1999 referendum.
She said not only did she miss her Indonesian friends that she described as "incomparably loving and warm" but also all the public services that the Indonesian government rendered, particularly in the education sector.
"We are happy we are an independent state at last. And despite all the violence against East Timor, Indonesia had done a lot for our good. Unlike Portugal who colonized us for 450 years, Indonesia built us schools, roads ... everything."
The bustling life in Dili has been largely thanks to the presence of the UN forces there since 1999 when the world body sent in peacekeeping troops and established UNTAET.
Now that UNTAET has transferred power to the East Timor government, it is beginning to pull its staff out of the territory. It will reduce its staff from 850 to 300 and the peacekeeping troops from 8,000 to 5,000.
After then, will East Timor and Dili be quiet again? Many are afraid the departure of the free-spending international staff and their families will leave Dili broke and cheerless.
But not Yuliana, a woman in her 30s who lost her fledging video game and gambling business in the 1999 riot. Now, she works as a waitress at a hotel which has just been rebuilt. (The hotel was burnt to the ground during the riot.)
"UNTAET leaving? No problem. There are many NGOs with foreign staff that need our service," she said.
Yuliana plans to rebuild her big house near the Kamoro airport as a guest house. Although she is cash-strapped at the moment, her business spirits are high.
"I am looking for a partner to start a massage parlor," she said. "Do you happen to know people interested in becoming masseurs?"