Formasaun Favela Foun Komesa Iha Estuáriu Mota Comoro

   Dili Junho 04 2023

Iha sidade Dili, wain hira meiudia tempu Rai-Manas-Rai-Rahun (RMRR), ita hateke vizinho sorin-sorin hetan deit maka tembok uma oan sira sena malu; fatin ida atu ba hodi dada is netik maka Tasi Ibun. Tasi Ibun sira ne'e hanesan espasu puúbliku gratuita ema hotu hakarak ba tanba núdar sidadaun iha sidade, ita iha direitu ba espasu públiku. Maibé Tasi Ibun sira ne'e komesa okupa hotu ona; okupasaun espasu públiku sira ne'e ninia karáter atu ba iha formasaun favela Tasi Ibun nian.

Hanesan hare iha linha kosteira parte Embasada Japaun - Embasada Korea nian oin. NGO/grupu ativista ambientál sira halo sira nia initiatívu monta roda at oan sira hodi kria fatin tu'ur. Intesaun hirak ne'e kapas tebes, maibé komesa atrai ona atividade komersial não formal sira. Kalan ida iha fulan rua liu ba, hau liu ba husu Alin ida lere hela du'ut. Nia dehan hamos hodi fa'an kafé iha neba. Kondisaun ikus nian hatudu katak roda oan sira ne'e komesa kulafur ona, nakales ona, keleuk ona, ema soe foer arabiru, ema faan nu, faan doce, kareta-motor para konforme tuir idak-idak nia fiar.   

Fatin foun ida atu sai tan nune mos. Area Estuária mota Comoro nian. Fatin ne'e uluk ita akompanha hakmatek tebes ba animal sira. Liu-liu manu sira tanba iha neba sei iha ai hún barak no lá dun iha movimentu populasaun barak. Fatin ne'e mos kapas tebes ba ema sira atu hare loron tun iha tempu lorokoraik. Kompara Tasi Ibun sira seluk, hela ida ne'e deit maka ita sei hare rai luan oituan tanba seidauk iha desenvolvimentu makas.

Iha tinan hira ikus ne'e asesibilidafe ba parte neba, Estuário Mota Comoro komesa loke diak ona ba públiku. Estrada halo konesaun diak entre husi Pantai Kelapa - Ponte Komoro 1 no 2. Iha tinan kotuk Diresaun Nasional Transporte Terestres (DNTT) deside fo tan lisensa rute foun transporte públiku (mikrolet) numero 13. Ida ne'e loke tan movimentu diak ba populasaun sira nebe hela iha area neba. Visitante barak mos komesa ba ona pasiar iha area refere. Initiativu projetu seluk nebe iha impaktu signifikante tebes maka projetu rehabilitasaun ba konstrusaun baragem Mota Comoro parte tasi ibun nian. Projetu ida ne'e hadiak baragem too iha tasi. Projetu ida ne’e mos ateru diak tebes tasi ibun parte leste husi moru protesaun. Iha Mota Ain nian ne’e komesa ateru diak tebes hodi nune kareta-motor-lao mos asesu barak diak tebes hanesan hatudu iha imagem.

Fatin kapas tebes ona. Maibe komesa iha sinál-sinál sira nebe maka hau espilika kona ba Tasi Ibun area sentru nian. Ema komesa hatuur uma oan ida. Uma oan kuaze ho karater semi permanente tanba konstrui ho sumenti, no no hari besi rin sira. Tanba tasi ibun iha neba ne’e luan kapas no estratégiku, ita espera katak fulan ida mai tan, komesa Ramayo ona.

Area Estuário Mota Comoro wain hira lá kontrole maka sei kria favela seluk ida tan fali iha Dili laran. Desenvolvimentu Aerportu nebe maka lao hela dadauk sei atrai tan kriasaun favela. Sei iha Projetu asesibilidade foun ida tan, maka hanaran Ponte Asesu Kampung Marinir. Projetu ida ne’e sei halo fatin ne asesével liu tan nune sei halo movimentu barak. Maibe antes atu halo konstrusaun ba ponte foun refere, favela sei okupa tan Estrada nining sira too iha tasi ibun.  Nia konsekwensia maka estadu tengki hasai tan osan hodi kompensa fali povu sira nebe maka tuir lolos agora dadauk ne’e it abele prevene.

Tanba ne’e sekarik autoridada ruma maka lê hela karik, halo hela buat ruma ba. Primeiru maka prevene atu favela mosu iha neba. Nune aban bain rua Tasi Ibun ne’e reserve ba Espasu Públiku. Segundu maka prevene ema halo favela foun para wain hira projetu Ponte Foun ba asesu ba Kampung Marinir mai, Estadu lá presiza hasai tan osan hodi kompensa ema sira nebe se karik Afetadu.

 

*Espera katak artigu ne’e bele fo Inspirasaun  

Japan Kuru

                                      Photo 1. Japan Kuru in Lautem                                        

Dili, 11-02-2023

In Fataluku Language, Lautem native Language, we call it Japan Kuru. It literally means Japanese hole. Kuru means hole. We call it that way for underground holes or upward structures with wall barrier and roof built by WWII Japanese military. From the style of structure tells that it is for the Japanese military hiding place or military shelter. Some Japan Kuru are made from strong concrete. Many of this concrete type are still exist in many places. As far as my own knowledge, most of them can be found on the Northern Coast of Timor-Leste. Particularly along the coast of Manatuto – Baucau – Laga – Lautem. These are the places where Japan Kuru were strategically placed.  

  

You might have heard or even seen the most exposed WWII Japanese shelters like in Venilale, and other places too. Such these locations are usually close to national roadways, and named as national historical and tourism attraction sites. It is usually significant in terms of size, and its utilization in the past. I call it the mainstream touristic sites. Non adventurous tourists would only look for this kind because of easy access, and well known. 

Actually, there are many single or multiple Japan Kuru found sparsely in certain places.  It requires a little local knowledge to discover, or requires a little passionate hunting walk to look out for it. It is sometimes tricky as well.  Some Japan Kuru look similar to Portuguese fortress; it cannot be distinguished.  For example, the first photo, it is a Japan Kuru in Lautem town. The town used to be capital of Portuguese municipal administration. Thus, several Portuguese fortress, public buildings, and roads were built there. Unless you are a local, you don’t know if that is a Japan Kuru, but Portuguese building foundation remnant. It is barely noticeable without preexisting knowledge. It is only known if you are told by local friends. This Japan Kuru has not been exposed to media due to its insignificant size. 

Photo 2. Japan Kuru In Bui ho Mau

Another, in the second photo site is near Laivai Village, located near Bui-Ho Mau community settlement to be exact. I had not known this Japan Kuru by myself, even though I pass by it regularly, until somebody posted it on Facebook. I am quite a curious person. If I had noticed it, I would go and see it. But as I said before that most Japan Kuru sites are located a little bit far from the main road. Not only that some of Japan kuru which located exactly on the shoreline have been buried due to natural sand sedimentation; some have been taken over by nature. In some cases, locals reuse it for cattle cage.  For your reference I provide a map with generic indications on it. If you visit, you need to do more detailed research on site like asking locals to pinpoint the exact location. 

*I hope this gives you an inspiration.

Public Transport Bus: Kupang (Indonesia) – Dili (Timor-Leste)

Dili, 22 January 2023. 

I like riding public transport bus; I say this because I took bus in my college student times. Among others, why I like taking bus is because of social interaction and travel experience. For traveling, I don’t like go by airplane because I will not see new places along the way. I have done long-haul bus trips. The first one was from Bandung, West Indonesia to Bali. A google map shows me 1k KMs distance. The road geometry is not always straight or highway like. The second one was from Kansas, USA – Saint Louis – Chicago – Iowa – back to Kansas; I did also several other intermittent bus trips in other cities in the States. I am more excited sitting on double decker bus. I could observe things along the way, and much closer.    

Unfortunately, we don’t have public transport bus system here in Timor-Leste. I mean modern bus system. We do have bus services serving Dili city to municipalities. But they are more like transportation means than convenience and comfortability. In the year of 2023, the heyday and unstoppable of innovation and technology in transportation, Dili city, the capital of Timor-Leste does not even have urban bus system. Commuters are moved by microlets a kind of mini bus, and private vehicles. I don’t see a good future for this city if there is no bus system serving as mass transport to move people together so that their trips don’t harm their very environment and global.

It is good news to hear that Indonesian government and Timor-Leste government are about to launch a cross border/cross countries bust service. It is not known when the launch will take place but is seemingly imminent. As the picture shows, the bus is medium size, around 20-40 seat busses from the government of Indonesia which will operate between Kupang and Dili. Timor Leste side is also supposed to do the same. But there is no news yet on the preparation.

Even though the buses are medium size; I think they have ideal conditions for convenience and comfortability. I try so say that the busses are going to be serving with better standards than what we are having here in Timor-Leste.  Those are airconditioned, scheduled trips, organized ticketing system, and of course have professional and licensed drivers to drive.

Launch of the bus service will become a great precedence of transport development here in Timor-Leste. As I alluded previously that there is no improved bus system to start with, this initiative would provide a baseline. What I mean baseline is that we can test the initiative to learn from and improve. It is a test for market, and many other aspects. I don’t expect this project to be successful at this stage because I do believe that the firs test must have failures and that is the only way to bring about better public transport services for this country. There must be a start.

*I hope this gives you an inspiration.  

Structural and Systemic Problems Make Young People in Dili Get Wilder

Dili 07 January 2023

It was heartbreaking to watch the video in which a guy jumped off motorbike stabbing a young boy walking at the street. It happened on 06 January 2023 around mid-night. The young boy was stabbed multiple times until he could barely walk and fell off eventually. According to information he went dead right there at the scene before the police arrived. The video attracted my attention because the way the suspect stabbing is scary. It is also sad to see that young people nowadays are much wilder, and extremely hostile to each other more than my time when I was at their age.

Naturally crimes happen anywhere in the world, even in the most peaceful countries. I consider that as a way the Nature processes, people born to die. But in the case of Timor-Leste. The pattern of young people conflict indicates some structural and systemic problem in this country. I thought that poor education system contributes to this outcome. Young people are not well educated from school, and I would say from family as well. One generic and biased personal observation. When I observe school youngsters grouping along the street of Dili, they are not disciplined. They don’t respect public street norms, they bully each other, they interfere one another, and worst they fight, sometimes. This type of attitude and behavior are brought in to the society eventually.

Similarly, desperation for economy in the country also contributes. What young people mostly do at home is nothing but just sitting in their neighborhoods. There is no work to do because there is no work indeed. I don’t think the State can recruit all people to work for government. Even if there are jobs in industries, they don’t have skills. They become desperate because of the nothing-to-do. They find each other to plan for activities such as drinking alcohol, gambling, etc. These activities are poisons for peace when done in poor society.

All culminates in the martial art fight phenomenon. All these years, after independence, martial arts conflict has become the major reason why people fight each other, it even affects the political and democratic processes. Is it not horrible? In this country, when there is dissenting opinion, defamation, harassment, and other serious conflicts or crimes happen among individuals and community members, most people don’t seek for justice, they don’t go to tribunal. There are many reasons why, but some are because they are not able in terms knowledge, and resources. Another is because they don’t trust the judicial system. Officials in law enforcement entities are partisan because being inclined to their groups' principles. As a result, some people make their own decisions, they act directly, they fight-they kill to feel like getting justice.  

*I hope this gives you an inspiration

Social Media Cant Change Me from Being A Radio Listener

26 December 2022

I grew up in a home where my father was a hardcore radio listener; he had to listen to radio every morning, noon, and evening to accompany news of independence struggle. Radio stations that he listened to everyday were Radio Australia Indonesia, Radio BBC Indonesia, RTP, and RRI. I remember my father assembled a broken old radio connected to a huge speaker; in a small village in 90s there was no electricity, and so was TV. The only way to access media or information was through battery-powered radio. My father erected a tall antenna in order to be able to receive radio frequencies from those stations which I think aired from London, UK; Lisbon, Portugal; Melbourne, Australia; and Jakarta, Indonesia.  

I was exposed to this kind of culture everyday. So I happened to love listening to radio until now. Social media has taken over conventional media. Most of my generation has shifted from convectional media, particularly from radio to social media. Social media is super easy, cheap, and freaking convenient. You can just have it on your bed, and whenever you go. Information content is also limitless. Therefore, nowadays most people like it more than radio. I once asked milennial a question. Do you listen to radio? he questioned back my question "what is radio? lol. I don't make this up. It is a real story. 

 

By the way, it never changed me from being a radio listener until now. I still listen to radio due to following reasons. First, it is a vintage style, I want to keep the old style in this modern era because I just feel different. News and music presentations on radio are felt more real, according to my personal opinion. Second, listen to radio is even cheaper than social media. It does not cost me money like accessing social media. Radio tool is being part of mobile phones nowadays. It is so convenient as well. Third, radio has less fake news. I feel like listening to a radio station is less stressful than playing social media. Radio presents predetermined sources and guests. On the other hand, social medial allows anyone, literally every single person on earth can say anything they want to which I think sometimes I don't get what the heck theytalkinabout. 

As I have got connected with GMN TV previously, we agreed that I would love to come filling in a session at their radio station called Radio Semanal.  I showed up, we talked about urban planning like in my previous engagement on the TV talkshow. Urban planning issue is interesting to be raised and voiced out to broader audience. This radio talk, however, is more on real life related planning issues. 

By the way, GMN has  a very nice radio station room. The show room design is simple but elegant. It is indicated by the audio equipment such as microphones and headsets, room walls, ceilings, and lights. I would say that it is more LUXO than other radio stations I have seen before. 

*I hope this gives you an inspiration.  

Experience with GMN TV Talkshow (INSIGHT)

Dili 24 December 2022

Nine months ago, I was contacted by a friend. He said that GMN, the largest national private TV station is looking for a guest to appear on a relatively new talkshow program. INSIGHT, a new program designed to bring young people from different backgrounds to share their thoughts and ideas and inspire audience or public in general. The first thing come to my mind at the time was that people who deserve this kind of opportunity in Timor-Leste,  are mostly politicians, independence veterans, influential people, and other well-known ones. Most national TVs want them because they have high rate of views as the society has been set that way. A TV program would be interesting to most viewers if it talks about memory of the past, and also who should rule in the government. They argue more about one politician should be better than the other because contributed plus to the independence effort, or else the other politicians are bad to govern because they have gray or less contribution history, or even traitor etc.  

I felt like the public has been hypnotized in the media, TV included, to believe that politicians are the ones who can do miracles to change the country's destiny by telling stories, counting privileges they should have but not HARDWORK. Factual, rational, and bipartisan views on issues and developments in the country rarely win the the heart and mind of the people. In the meantime, there has not been much change in the last 23 years of independence. To name a few, our petroleum funds leaked significantly every single year, the current only oil field, Bayu Undan, dried up, lack of job opportunities making young people migrated overseas, urban developments become wicked problem, rural areas are getting isolated due to outpacing climate change impacts that make infrastructure development cant catch up.     

I finally accepted the call with a thought that I could attend the media to reach more audience to promote the culture of objective and bipartisan views on things. This does not mean that I am claiming myself as the most independent person, NEVER. I do have political and subjective views. However, like many of you, rationally, we need to develop this culture from the media to instill good attitudes, develop visionary look to the future, and most importantly walk the talk instead of talk the talk. This is the reason why I would advice all of you to join the cause from your own profession wherever you interact with humans, and environment.   

Back to the topic. I talked on the INSIGHT program as Urban Planner. It means that I was expected to talk on major urban problems such as floods and traffic congestion currently facing urban population. Director of the program at GMN thought that the major urban problems somehow have indirect correlation to lack of urban management. One gap is urban comprehensive plan. As GMN understands, Dili as a home of more than 200k population should be managed. There is something wrong that we need to pay attention to. Dili faces regular floods, traffic congestion occur uncontrolled at some point of time in several areas. The problems seem to occur constantly. However, there is not much narration of solutions from the public, and professionals. Actions to prevent the urban problems appear to be petty, insignificant, unsustainable, and inconsistent, and only project oriented. With all that understandings, GMN would like to present a perspective from which to understand the urban problems situation, and to discuss how to promote urban planning public policy intervention to prevent the problems from being rampant in the future.   

As you all may understand that urbanism is one of the most complex topics to explain exactly. This nature makes it even more difficult to solve its problems. Among other things, if the Timorese want to mange Dili city or any other cities livable for now and future, it requires personal principles to start with, adequate professional skills to go through ideal technical processes, political commitment to influence participation of communities, economic capacity to finance programs and projects, etc. There is no single or one size fits all formula because the process of achieving livable city requires commitments, times, and resources as well. It is an aggregate and now action that needed. My very first advice in the last minutes of the interview is to start things from individual level; incremental effort is the most realistic action to change our situation. We then can keep advocating to the government to pay attention on what they should do.  

*I hope this gives you an inspiration. 

The Silence of Dili Port

Dili 11 December 2022

One night, at 8pm, I sat on the beach front concrete bench of Government Palace/Palacio do Guverno. A place I sometimes go for after 6 pm relax. Even though the place is a center, and being in the side of a main road, is so quite. Cars and pedestrians just pass by unless there is an event nearby. Often times I wont see many people there; that is the moment I love to go there.  

The view sitting there is quite relaxing and calming. I look over to the Cristo Rei lined street lights on the East side, and the straight view to Atauro Island. They are still the same as usual. However,  there is a significantly noticeable situation looking on the West side. That is Dili Port. The only port that had been serving Timor-Portuguese, Timor-Timur and lately Timor-Leste for mostly receiving goods from abroad, is so silent. At glance, I thought it was because either there were no ships yet or all left. 

I then realized that the Dili Port, as cargo port, has just been taken over by the newly inaugurated Tibar Bay Port. All cargo ships are now handled by the Tibar Bay Port. Thus, there are no ships, heavy cargo machines are left at the Dili Port. 

The Dili Port becomes silent if one observes at night. The legacy left now is no longer being noisy and smoky as usually; there is a calm and clear view towards the port's old and rotten buildings and its platform. The port is even astonishing when the lamps illuminate the sea and reflect back. The evening breeze makes the port become so friendly due to its silence. 

The Dili Port becomes a historical and also strategic asset for Dili city. What are we going to do with the Port? in most cities around the world that I have read about, old ports like this are modified and changed to tourism and recreation function. That is because cities are expanding due to population and pressing needs of space. Thus cargo ports are no longer suitable in the city center. 

I am aware that all people know this paradigm. I know it as well that the government is now working with USAID to make a plan for the future use of the Dili Port. I have also attended several meetings and presentations. it shows that the Port development concept is quite good. Equally important, however, institutional capacity has to be considered in the plan as an indispensable component for future port development. 

 

*I hope this gives you an inspiration.