It's Saturday now. After taking a late lunch, I decided to knock off work early. It really was out of pure exhaustion. I took a serious afternoon nap, and woke up only after a bolt of lightening hit so close to the house that the clap of thunder made it sound as if my roof was being blown off. Then it started to rain. A good thing too, because I was down to only one or two more baths in the ol' rain barrel. Which brings me to Christmas...
O Silent Night
Under the influence of the Portuguese, East Timor gave up most of their animalistic beliefs and became a predominately Christian society. This remained true through 24 years of control by the predominately Muslim but religiously tolerant Indonesian government. So the East Timorese take Christmas pretty seriously.
The first signs of Christmas came in the form of singing emanating from the churches. It seems as if almost every church has an orphanage and the orphans began practicing their hymns and carols about a week early. The next was the erection of the Nativity scenes. In this country where shelter is supposedly such a problem, folks have managed to construct hugely elaborate nativity scenes all over town, sometimes two or three to a block. The nativity scenes are full size mangers or caves constructed from bamboo, tin, plastic sheeting (mostly from UNHCR and the Red Cross), and just about anything else they can find. They then add Christmas lights, painted wood cut-outs of Joseph, Mary and the baby Jesus, cows and sheep made of paper, lighted stars, wise men, you name it.
Some of them were so nice that the people who built them just decided to move in after a while (probably because they used up most of the materials that should have been keeping the rain out of their own homes). It is just as well, because as the big day approached, more and more folks would gather around the structures. They would begin to gather at sunset and if someone had a guitar they would play and sing songs. Later the younger ones would move out into the streets, break out the cassette players and dance until the wee hours of the morning. Christmas Eve everyone came out of the nativity scenes, put on their best duds, and wandered down to the destroyed governor's house for a midnight mass that started at 10:00pm.
My Christmas was not so wild. I was still in Dili Christmas Eve, so I spent the evening with a few other IRC folks at the canteen in the UNTAET compound wolfing down meat pies and mashed potatoes. That was about it. I spent the rest of the evening with a good book.
Christmas day we packed one of the trucks up with food and headed East in search of the perfect beach. We passed through a number of villages before the road started to rise up away from the water. We found a spot where we were able to hack our way back down to the water. It took awhile, but when we finally made it out of the jungle and onto the sand, we knew we had found our spot. The beach was unmarked and had been so for quite some time. The only sign of civilization was an abandoned shack and a traditional carved boat tethered to a tree and guarded by an army of red ants.
At one end of the cove there was a small jetty of rock with a single tree at the highest point. I spent most of the day laying on the beach, floating in the boat (or at least attempting to float in the boat - it was none too steady and had a good size hole in the front), or climbing around the rocks of the jetty and watching the crabs. We had chips, salsa, and tuna from Australia for snacks. It was such a nice spot we decided to come back for New Years.