A Celebration Called Nyepi

31 March, 7.00 a.m. Here in Bali. I rushed here from Bangkok thinking I could get into a 30 March flight via Merpati to Dili. Right at the airport, an airport staff told me there would be no flight out by any airline on that day.

At the hotel, the staff repeated the same information to me. On the way to my room, the hotel boy who helped carry my two pieces of luggage said Bali would be celebrating the New Year. I thought I heard him say it was a Buddhist ceremony. Later, I found out from a copy of the Jakarta Post I bought in a convenience shop that it was actually a Hindu ceremony. It’s their New Year according to the Hindus.

Nyepi is to them a Day of Silence. Lights are put off. Machines are turned off. Shops are closed. Locals stay indoors. Tourists are advised not to leave the hotel compound. At the Melasti Beach Bungalows where I stay, the guests eat in a tent inside the inner compound; the restaurant by the road was closed yesterday. The Jakarta Post says in an editorial: “Let the sounds of the wind and the birds be the hallmark of Bali for one.”

This year’s celebration of what Hindus called Caka 1928 fell on a Friday, a day when Muslims would gather at mosques. On this day, however, Muslims did not use the loudspeakers for their Friday sermons. They also did not use their motorized vehicles to go to the mosques. As the Jakarta Post noted: “It was an admirable show of tolerance without sacrificing the practice of one’s respective religion.”

I agree. It has caused us inconveniences during the day, e.g. not being able to shop; going to the toilet in total darkness; groping the keyboard to be able to type; giving up TV for one day and a night, etc., but these are small things to pay for giving us the chance to see a glimmer of hope that the world will rediscover tolerance.

The Hindu who came later in the day to make my bed said, “It’s for reflection, sir. Thinking about self and family and others.” For me, the word introspection, which I loved to quote from my existentialist idols when I was younger, would never be the same again after this brief interlude of observing Nyepi in Bali.

Cheers!

Waiting for Emma

We are still here in Timor Leste waiting for Emma, the cyclone that was supposed to hit us two days ago. For the past two days, the government has been tracking this cyclone, reportedly with a 150 km per hour velocity. Fortunately, nothing has happened yet except for occasional heavy downpour. Surviving the heavy rain is quite manageable.

There’s much stress over news about Emma. If it comes here, it will be the first time in living memory that a typhoon, storm or cyclone of such magnitude will hit the country. It will be a real disaster on top of several disasters that have hit the country.

A coincidence, but during the week, we have had two guests from the Asian Disaster Preparedness Center (APDC) based in Bangkok. They are Earl Kessler, deputy executive director, and James Bennett, training coordinator. The two were accompanied by Charlie Ayco, the Director for Regional Programs, of Habitat for Humanity International, also based in Bangkok.

The three are preparing a case study to be presented to the World Urban Forum scheduled in June this year. The study is about the shelter kits distribution project implemented by UNHCR and NGOs as a response to a man-made disaster, the destruction of 70% of the country’s infrastructure in late 1999 in the aftermath of a referendum when majority of the people chose to establish a new nation.

The approach consisted of the UNHCR making available shelter kits consisting of basic house building parts to partner NGOs, which in turn took care of selecting beneficiary families and conducting orientation and community preparation activities. The approach makes sure that the assistance will not entail relocating families and communities; the same basic core house materials will be provided each beneficiary; the shelter kits can be further augmented by family resources; and the donors and NGOs need not compete for coverage, house design, and other matters.

In preparation for this mission, Habitat Timor Leste, headed by Butch C. Batilong, National Director, worked in partnership with the Bohol Local Development Foundation to prepare a database on beneficiaries of the shelter kits projects using the Poverty Database and Monitoring System (PDMS) software. Tony Irving and Arnold Seloterio, IT Consultant and Database Manager, respectively, of BLDF have been brought here to Timor Leste for this important assignment.

Aside from the cycle, there is another disaster that many people anticipate to hit the country. Some economists are saying that with the phase-out of the UN peacekeeping mission by May this year, there will be quite an impact on the local economy. Hotels and restaurants, which provide for most of the employment and share in the economy, will bear the brunt of this expected impact. Business will be adversely affected particularly those big shops which sell basic commodities. There will just be less customers to spread cash benefits all around.

Probably in anticipation of this economic slump, most foreign-funded projects now focus on enterprise development and building the skills base for local employment and entrepreneurship. It is simply that no amount of economic growth in the coming years will be able to create jobs for those who are unemployed now. The labor force has 20,000 new entrants each year and there is no industry large enough to absorb that many people and those unemployed before in gainful employment.

Both the government and the international donor community in Timor Leste are engaged in efforts to prevent a possible disaster that may arise from this explosive situation. Hence, while waiting for Emma the cyclone, we are reflecting on other disasters that may likely hit the country and join efforts to find ways as creative as the shelter kits distribution to contend with them.

Forward Timor-Leste!