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‘Dili-dallying’: An Acquisitions Trip to East Timor

Anya Dettman unpacking some of the acquisitions from her recent trip to Dili Anya Dettman unpacking some of the acquisitions from her recent trip to Dili

Luis Maria Lopes proudly shows his self-published newspaper, The Voice of Culture

Luis Maria Lopes proudly shows his self-published newspaper, The Voice of Culture

Antonio, the driver, patiently waits in the car for Anya

Antonio, the driver, patiently waits in the car for Anya

With 2009 marking 10 years since the people of East Timor voted overwhelmingly for independence from Indonesia, it seemed an appropriate time for an acquisitions trip there on behalf of the National Library of Australia.

The capital, Dili, was a changed city from my last visit in January 2008. A little over a year after the attempted assassination of the President José Ramos-Horta, there was a new atmosphere of confidence and optimism, and the city seemed more secure and undergoing an economic resurgence. Although still a small, dusty town, at peak hours it is now choked with newly purchased cars negotiating recently installed traffic lights, and roadside banners proclaim the shopping malls that are soon to be built. The much-beloved and amiable domestic pigs, once a feature of Dili streets as they wandered freely through the town, have now been banished and confined to back yards. Pavements have been repaired and trees planted, and every Friday morning all public servants, from the prime minister down, are expected to participate in limpeza geral, general cleaning, picking up rubbish and sweeping the city streets. Somewhat predictably, this has resulted in almost nobody turning up for work on Fridays, and taxi drivers are reluctant to venture forth on that day lest they be dragged unwillingly from their cabs to have a broom thrust into their hands.

The winds of change have not, however, blown through the book trade. There are still only three small bookshops in Dili, probably no more in the rest of the country, and the bulk of their stock is published in Indonesia, with literally only a handful of their titles locally published. There is still no government shopfront, or any central location to purchase government publications. Print runs are small, mostly consisting of reports or instructional material, and there are few publications devoted to history, literature, culture or even light reading. As most publishing continues to be done by local non-government organisations, foreign aid agencies, the government, educational institutions and the Church—and their publications are usually only obtainable from their respective offices—acquisition work still requires the hire of a car and driver and making numerous visits all around town.

The driver I had arranged to employ was not available when I arrived but, as is often the Timorese way, I was able to get assistance from the cousin of a friend of a friend, Antonio, who had a car, of sorts. I was rather nonplussed when the battered car arrived and saw it was missing several windows and seemingly held together with duct tape. My apprehension deepened when I was asked to help push it to start, and my confidence vanished completely when it stalled outside a government office I had just visited. We both had to push it out of the compound, I sweating in my once neat suit, to the amusement of the office girls that emerged, giggling, to watch and make jokes at our expense.

Nonetheless, Antonio proved remarkably patient with this crazy malae (foreigner) and her requests to visit more and more obscure areas of Dili (he usually curled up to sleep in the car while I was inside various offices). But the thrill of the chase proved contagious and soon Antonio was suggesting possible publications and sources, including East Timor’s first gossip and entertainment newspaper Teki tabloid (loosely translated Hot Chick Tabloid). The assistance of a local was invaluable, as street numbers are usually non-existent and locating offices can be difficult.

It took three attempts at trawling the outer suburbs of Dili to finally locate the Nacional Grafica (National Printers), which had no knowledge of the publication I was after. A friendly public servant suggested to Antonio that we look for a building off a hidden alley behind the Customs House burnt in the 2006 riots. After circling the block several times, we did indeed find the well-hidden lane, which led us to … Grafica Nacional! The entrance was covered with a large sign proclaiming: Do not enter, by order of the President. The actual entrance was, of course, the exit.

Most offices, particularly government departments, need to be visited more than once. With bureaucratic practices still lingering from the Indonesian period, requests for publications are often met with indifference or suspicion. The locals are usually reluctant to take responsibility for parting with publications, or indeed admitting they have any. A further complication was that a national public holiday, Restoration of Independence Day, fell on the same day I was in Dili. Although it was enjoyable watching the colourful festivities, it meant that all government offices were closed that day. Falling so close to the Friday clean-up, many public servants thought that Thursday might as well be an unofficial holiday also.

If the attitudes of the bureaucracy proved frustrating, the citizens were helpful and enthusiastic once they understood the purpose of my visit. Just about everyone, from the State Secretary of Culture, Virgilio Simith (responsible for planning the future National Library of East Timor) to the local poets I met in cafés, was delighted to see a copy of the Library’s East Timor bibliography and to know that Australians were interested in learning more about their country. Many gave freely of their time to assist with my searches and either donated publications for free or for minimal cost.

Antonio managed to locate where the new newspaper, Voice of culture, was being published. The inside of the ramshackle bamboo hut was lit by a computer screen flickering from power supplied from a cable stretching across a mud floor to a small generator. Here, Luis Maria Lopes, with extremely limited English and the assistance of an obsolete dictionary and his young daughters, writes and self-publishes his newspaper in several languages. He told me started the newspaper because he was so proud of Timor’s culture and wanted to promote it to young Timorese and beyond. Despite his obviously limited resources, he insisted on donating a copy of every issue he had on hand and refused to take any payment. He was honoured his little paper would be in a national library, he said, and it was his gift to Australians so they would understand his people better.

Despite mixed success in some areas, the trip resulted in the acquisition of over 150 new titles for the Library’s collection—books, DVDs, journals and newspapers. With the National Library of East Timor still in the planning stage, the National Library’s Timor collections may well hold the only copies of some of these titles for many years to come.

Anya Dettman
Senior Librarian, Indonesia and East Timor Unit