Presentation – integrating Timorese music into workshops

Last Friday night I gave a short talk and video presentation to the Melbourne East Timorese Activity Centre in Richmond, inner-city Melbourne. This is a group of Timorese and Australian activists and Timor supporters who meet at the start of each month to hear about various initiatives and developments taking place in Timor, to eat together, and keep in touch.

As you can imagine, it is a lovely group to present to. There is a wealth of experience and knowledge in the room, and also an appreciation for all the work and initiatives that are taking place in East Timor. I decided to focus my presentation on the ways that I’d integrated the aspects of Timorese traditional music that I’d learned about during my residency – songs, instruments, stories – into some of the workshop work I was doing there. I created three new videos for this presentation, showing the gradual transition from a song or story being learned, to being integrated and then shared more widely.

I got some very warm and appreciative feedback after my presentation. Several of the Timorese people talked about how important it is that the traditional culture is maintained. However, they said, “We don’t really know how to use it in workshops like this. It’s an important way that outside visitors like Gillian and Tony can contribute and assist us. There are lots of music people in Timor, but they don’t have these skills of working with children and large groups of people.”

Here are two of the new videos I presented that night. The first one shows the integration of a traditional song into workshops – from the first time I learned it sitting on the back of a truck:

The second one shows a Musical Story-telling project I led in Lospalos, about the nearby Lake Ira-Lalaru:

The only time I visited Lake Ira-Lalaru (which is enormous), it was flooded, and the causeway that you travel across by car proved impassable. Here are a couple of photos from that day, taken through the car window:

 

Workshop in Kakavei

On the last Friday in Lospalos, we went to a village named Kakavei for the day. Kakavei is in the mountains outside Lospalos, and has a population of just a few thousand. It is one of the places that we learned about in the English conversation classes where we asked the students about the villages they came from. We struck up a friendship with one of the students in that class – a man named Tomas – and he invited us to come to his village for the day to make some music with the local children.

Tony and I were joined by Lina and Rachel from ANAM. We travelled to Kakavei in a ute, three of us riding in the back, the other two in the cab with the driver. It is about an hour’s drive from Lospalos.

Kakavei is a long, skinny village, laid out along a ridge on the road to Iliomar. We started by visiting Tomas’ family, eating lunch with his wife, neighbour and children, and trying on tais that his wife had woven. Then we drove to the home of the Village Chief, wanting to introduce ourselves and ask formally for permission to do the workshop in one of the village’s public spaces. The Chief wasn’t home, but two of his kids jumped in the back of the truck in order to join in.

As we drove slowly back towards the town centre, we called out to children, “We’re going to play music together! Come along!” Children along the road would stop what they were doing and run to catch up with the truck.

Making a parade

A couple of hundred metres from the venue we hoped to use, we all got out of the ute. Lina began to play the flute, and Tony tapped rhythms on one of the kakalos we’d brought with us. “Lina, can we lock into this groove,” he suggested, demonstrating. “It’s one of the rhythms I learned last week from one of the Kakavei elders, that she played on the gong.” (Tony had made a visit to Kakavei with his daughters the week before, and recorded a performance by one of the elders, which he later transcribed). Meanwhile, Rachel and I were scanning the roadside, finding coconut shells and smooth flat stones to clap together, and offering them to the more willing and curious of the children who were now trailing after us.

When we reached the proposed workshop site, an earlier health education workshop was just packing up, so there were lots of people milling around. School had finished just a short time earlier, so there were also many children, in addition to those that had joined our impromptu parade.

However, the Village Chief had not yet been found, and Tomas was reluctant for us to use the covered workshop space without formal permission from him. We chose a shady spot on the grass in front of the building, rolled out the large workshop mat and brought all the instruments from the car.

Starting the workshop

By now, my one-off workshop plans were beginning to lock into a familiar shape. We started with Mobakomeenofway, with all the children standing in a circle around me, the other musicians mingling with the group. First we learned the words, then the dance step, and then we put it together. There was lots of laughing and self-consciousness at first, and we never quite got full participation with this first song. However, I knew by now that that didn’t matter. The Timorese are often shy at the beginning of unfamiliar activities like these workshops, and like to watch for a while, before they really get involved.

Language

I led the workshop from the centre in Tetun, and every now and then, one of the adults standing around the outside of the circle would translate an instruction into Fataluku. Language is such an interesting challenge in Timor Leste. Tetun may be one of the national languages but it is not the native tongue in many parts of the country. People learn to speak Tetun if they are going to school regularly, and adults may speak it if they have worked in Dili, or have spent lots of time with people from other parts of the country. It means that when leading a workshop, the reason people don’t understand may be because of my clumsy Tetun, or may be because they don’t actually know any Tetun!

Working outdoors

As an outdoor workshop, it was much harder to build a strong sense of shared focus among the group. My voice would not carry far, and there was lots of chatter and talking going on – both among the young participants and the older people who were watching everything with curiousity and amusement.

Building response to rhythm

I followed the song with some call-and-response body percussion rhythms, keen to try and get everyone working from visual cues and creating sound as a massed ensemble. We then divided into three groups, based on where people were standing, and named these ‘Tony-nia grupo’, ‘Lina-nia grupo’ and Rachel-nia grupo’ [Tony’s group, Lina’s group, Rachel’s group]. I taught each group a body percussion rhythm, made up on the spot, with one derived from the gong rhythms Tony had learned the previous week. We set these rhythms to different body percussion sounds – thigh slaps, chest thumps, claps, etc. We tried layering these rhythms up, which was not completely successful – as I have frequently found in Timor, people are quick to imitate rhythms and melodies but they are so attuned to imitating what they hear that when multiple rhythms are played, they tend to copy whichever is the most dominant. Still, the group of participants was highly engaged and filled with energy and excitement about what was taking place. We used this rhythmic task as a precursor to instrument-playing.

Working with instruments

We gave out the instruments one by one. Chime bars were given out one by one, and we kept back the Bs and Fs, so as to have a pentatonic scale/chord. I kept one full set back initially, in order to have something to demonstrate melodies on for the musicians. Also, I felt a bit uncomfortable about our outdoor working space – it was hard to contain the energy, but it was also hard to keep an eye on everyone taking part. I was fearful that one of the chime bars could easily go walkabout, and for that reason didn’t give out bars from the third set. Illogical, I know! And it is worth pointing out that in all the workshops we did with the chime bars, we never lost a single bar or mallet. Everything always came back, so my fears and cautions were unfounded.

We tried transferring the body percussion rhythms onto the instruments. At this stage we realised it would have been good to give out the instruments in sections – instead, we had given them out quite randomly, focusing more on spreading the different sounds around the group so that participants would be exposed to a range of instruments and colours. With a group that size, and with the difficulties we were having in talking over the thick buzz of ambient sound, there was no way of getting individuals to move places and position themselves within a section. So we let this idea go, and instead began to work with unison rhythms.

Given that we were now set up in a pentatonic mode, I decided to work with So-so feeling, a pentatonic song I wrote some years ago with English language students at Collingwood English Language School. The tune is one that came about after listening to lots of Malian blues music with the students, in particular Boubacar Traore’s music. I got Tony to play this melody on the sax, and the ANAM students and I demonstrated to the group where to place two syncopated claps/beats at  the end of each phrase.

Moving indoors

By this stage what had started off as a shady grassy workshop space was now in the full sun, and we – the musicians and the participants and onlookers – were all getting hot and burned. Tomas caught my eye.

“Let’s move into the building,” he suggested. None of us needed any persuasion (although I hoped it was okay for us to use that space, given we hadn’t been able to get formal permission from the Village Chief). We picked up our workshop mat at each of its four corners and the group moved swiftly to the shelter of the building. Ah! The relief of a contained space! Things began to pull together much more quickly now.

Creating a song

“We need some words for our song!” I suggested to the group. “It’s a song about feeling good, feeling happy. Who can suggest some words in Fataluku?”

No suggestions came at first, and Tomas stepped in both translate the request, and clarify with me what it was we were wanting.

“Just one word each from a few different people would be great,” I told him. “They don’t need to flow as a sentence, just as a series of words about feeling good.”

“Maybe… feeling good singing?” he suggested. “Something like that!”

So our words for the song in Fataluku ended up as

Vaci inica rau-rau kanta vaihoho

(‘Today we are feeling good and singing’)

We were now fully in gear, and charging toward the end of the workshop. The ‘B’-section to the pentatonic melody is a short repeating riff in A minor. I asked Tony to play it, and the other two musicians also picked it up quickly. The crowd of participants joined in with the unison rhythm.

Now we were ready to move from one section to the next. “1-2-3-CHANGE!” I would call, and the group would switch sections – either playing their instruments, or singing the words of the song. Tony played some charged improvisations over the instrumental sections, and we had a satisfying whole-ensemble massed singing feel to the sung chorus sections.

Sharing the familiar

It was time to bring things to a close. “Why don’t you sing the song I taught you in the car?” suggested Tomas.

“Will you sing it with me?” I asked him. “It’s in your language – can we do it together?”

There was no way Tomas was prepared to sing in front of his community in this context though! Fair enough – he had way more too lose, and we were still something of an unknown entity. Also, Tomas has a certain social standing in his community, as he is a missionary, and also quite politically engaged. Add to that the fact that he may not be an enthusiastic singer, and it was quite reasonable for him to refuse my suggestion.

Therefore, I took the words for the song that I had scrawled into my notebook during our bumpy, rattling ride to Kakavei, and introduced the song the crowd as one that “I think you will all know. I just learned it this morning. It’s something we can sing together.”

I sang through the words hesitantly. The tune was familiar to me, but the words were hard to read and given that I’d tried to learn them from Tomas over the noise of the car engine, I wasn’t sure I had them all written correctly. I was therefore heartened and gratified (and secretly thrilled) to be given a spontaneous round of applause from the crowd when I sang through the song that first time. The Timorese aren’t great clappers (this is both my experience, and something I’d been warned to expect before coming here) so that burst of applause seemed particularly heartfelt and appreciative.

After singing together, it was time to pack up the instruments. We gathered them together in sections (in marked contrast to the way we’d given them out), calling for each instrument type in turn. When it came to the chime bars, I called for them by colour – “I need three big red chime bars” – and this proved a very effective, orderly way of gathering together all the sets of instruments.

Reflections on chaos and stress

As I write this reflection on Kakavei (some two weeks after the event), I remember in particular the overwhelming sense of chaos the workshop had for me, right up until the time we were able to go into the covered building. I don’t mind chaos so much, but the sense of starting to lose the hold I have on the group can cause me worry at the time, especially when there are lots of instruments spread out among the group and no-one seems particularly contained.

In Timor, though, I’ve learned that showing stress or worry is difficult for the Timorese. I’m not sure if it is because it scares them if your voice seems to change pitch or tone, or if your anxiety makes them feel uncomfortable or guilty that things aren’t going better for you, or if it just makes them dislike you.

There was a point in the Kakavei workshop where things had just become really noisy and no-one could hear me. I could feel my voice fading on me, getting tired due to working outdoors. I was doing my best to keep smiling and looking relaxed, but said to the group (to whoever could hear me), “ Wait, wait… Just listen… If you speak when I’m talking then you won’t be able to hear what I say.” One of the watching men took pity on me and called to the group in Fataluku to quiet down. I thanked him with a grin and we continued on.

At the end of the workshop, Tomas said, “I could see you were getting stressed for a while there. I’m sorry they weren’t listening so well at that time.”

“Oh, yes… I’m sorry about that,” I replied, pretty unconcerned for myself by that stage, but suddenly on alert that I might have upset Tomas, our host. “I just couldn’t make myself heard. But that’s okay – it’s a normal situation, especially when you are doing music outdoors and everyone is getting tired.”

“No, I mean, it’s okay for me,” Tomas clarified quickly. “I was just worried for you, that you weren’t enjoying yourself, or that you didn’t think it was going well.”

I reassured him that getting a bit stressed in the middle of noisy, chaotic moments in workshops is fairly normal for me, and something I hope I am getting better at managing, with age!

But I also remember the delight that we all felt just about being in Kakavei, and sharing our music and our workshop with these people whose lives are really quite isolated. Lospalos is the ‘big smoke’ for them, and that town is over an hour away by truck. The young people here have probably spent all of their young lives living on this ridge, in this long, narrow village. Visitors like us are the kind of thing that people may talk about for ages afterwards.

At the end of the workshop, I asked Lina, Rachel and Tony to play together. They played a solo each, and then improvised together, the crowd of young and old people gathered around them. The most musically magic moment for me was when they improvised – lightly, sweetly – on the kindergarten song I’d learned from young Dona in Lospalos, Ikan hotu nani iha bee. The melody is open-hearted and innocent, and the three instruments (oboe, flute and saxophone) floated, twirled and glided around each other, improvising around the melody and harmony. I don’t know if anyone recognised the melody in Kakavei – there is no kindergarten program there, as far as I know – but the audience was as entranced as I was. It was a peaceful and uplifting way to finish.

Final parting gesture

As we began to move toward the car to go, one of the elderly women who’d been watching the workshop came up to me. In fact, this woman had been a participant in the workshop, playing a chime bar for much of the time. She came towards me and at first I thought she was going to press her cheek against mine, the traditional warm greeting between women and friends. But she brought her head closer and closer to mine, and from the buzz in the crowd around us I knew that others were enjoying seeing this exchange. She leaned forward so that her face was close to mine, and I did too. Then she dipped her face slightly and rubbed her nose firmly against mine. The crowd roared their approval.

“Do it again, do it again,” Tony urged. “I want to photograph it.”

The woman completely understood his desire to document this moment, and happily obliged with a repeat nose-rub especially for the cameras. Once again, I felt the warmth of genuine appreciation in Kakavei and climbed back into the back of the ute feeling myself glowing.

Toka Boot

This event took place in Lospalos on day 101 of my residency, but I am writing this blog post in Dili Airport, day 106, as I prepare to depart.

How do you find a way to gracefully and joyously exit a community where you have played some small part for just a small amount of time? ‘Toka Boot’ means ‘big play’ – it was the closest thing we could find in Tetun to describe the idea of a Big Jam, an event where people of all ages could come together to play music. Toka Boot (btw, the second word is pronounced more like bot than boot) was to be an extension of all the weeks of Verandah Jams (and other informal music-making) we’d been doing in Lospalos, but involving many more people, and in a large public space. It was a way of celebrating my residency in the town, and bringing as many people as possible together to do this. It was also a way of sharing the talents of Tony and the ANAM students with the wider Lospalos community. For the last week in particular, we’d been doing creative workshops everyday, in various sites around the town. Toka Boot was a way to bring that all together.

There were two parts to the day. The first part, starting at 3pm, was called the ‘workshop’ and was a way to get people involved in learning guitar parts, getting instruments in tune, and also making instruments to play. We invited Maun M, our instrument-making neighbour, to come along at 3pm to demonstrate how to make both the kokes and the kakalos, and we brought a large coconut palm leaf and several pieces of pre-cut, stubby bamboo along for him to use as his materials. Sadly, Maun M didn’t make it, so that element didn’t happen, but many people commented that they particularly enjoyed the fact that there were traditional instruments being included in the jam, available for people to play if they wanted to. If this Toka Boot ends up being the first of many in the future, I hope the idea of instrument-making becomes incorporated into the event.

The second part of the day was the ‘toka’ – the playing! We were introduced by the local Ministry of Culture representative and Mana Holly. I then took over the microphone and welcomed everyone. “This is an event where everyone is invited to play,” I told them. “We have brought lots of instruments with us, and other people have also brought their own instruments to play. You can choose what you’d like to do.”

I had a tough gig at that moment. Timorese people are notoriously shy, so no-one wanted to be the first to move from the safety of the edges of the space. I kept talking.

“Here we have some plastic buckets, but you can play them like drums. Who wants to play the drum or bucket? Come and sit in these chairs here. This next instrument is a shaker. I don’t know the Tetun word for it but in English we say shaker. People who want to play the shaker can sit in these chairs here.

On and on I went, introducing each other instruments, designating sections where people could sit, and demonstrating ways of playing the instruments we’d brought with us. Gradually people began to take their places. A group of excitable young boys quickly realised the virtues of the kakalos, and suddenly rushed to the mat where we had laid these out. Bottles and bamboo sticks were similarly popular – it’s the whack-able quality of these instruments that particularly appeals, I think!

We also had a sizeable group of young men with guitars who had come along. They sat as a group directly in front of me and did a great job supporting all the music with steady chords. We also had our three sets of chime bars set out along one of the mats, but these were commandeered by some of the Motalori kids (who had been coming to our house every day) and no-one else got a look-in there.

I planned the musical content to reflect three things:

• local music and rhythms I’d learned during my residency
• music that had been composed by the Motalori kids (as a way of acknowledging the time they had spent playing music with me and Tony); and
• Forever Young, as the unofficial anthem of the residency, and with its Fataluku lyrics. So many people had responded with delight to the Fataluku version, and enjoyed jamming on the chords with both the chime bars and guitars, that it seemed an ideal way to end the Toka Boot.

We kicked off with some call-and-response rhythms, getting everyone warmed up, listening and participating. From here we established cues for starting and stopping, and ‘tested’ these, seeing if we could get a strong clean stop from the whole ensemble.

We began the music jam by creating a rhythmic section A with three contrasting rhythms, a melodic section B that utilised the ‘Melodia Motalori’ on the chime bars, and a sung section C that featured a traditional Fataluku song. (When I’d tried the song out on a local crowd the day before in Cacavei, I’d received a spontaneous round of applause. Given applause isn’t a typical TImorese response to music, I felt like that was a particularly strong affirmation of this choice of song).

We switched between sections A, B, and C on a cue from me. We’d hoped that everyone in the space would sing along with the songs, and that they would know the words, but they were pretty quiet. I could see some of the women in crowd singing along, but most of the teenage boys kept their mouths firmly shut! (Afterwards, I asked a friend if perhaps people hadn’t known the words, thinking we should have written them out for everyone. She told me, “No, they know it. They’re just shy!”).

These three sections also gave Tony and the ANAM students opportunities to solo or improvise over the ensemble music. Tony playing the saxophone was best-placed to do this, and he alternated between improvised solos, and playing the melodies of each section.

I also brought different instrumental sections in and out throughout the jam. The shaker-playing group in particular was excellent at stopping and starting on cue. Other groups were less confident, and tended to stop playing if a group near them was asked to stop. Therefore I didn’t get to play around with variations in texture as much as I’d hoped.

We cued a Big Finish from the whole ensemble, and then it was on to Forever Young.

This piece took awhile to get going. The boys on the kakalos and bamboo sticks were getting close to out of control – nothing was broken, but it meant that no-one could hear anything much else. Tony and Doug suggested that kakalos weren’t needed for the next piece.

While they organised that side of the room, I set about making sure everyone could see a copy of the words to the song. That morning, Tony, Sarah and I had written out copies of the words onto large white poster pages. Now I called for volunteers from the crowd to step forwards in order to hold up the words for people to sing from. We also had two lots of the lyrics up on the walls.

So there was a bit of to-ing and fro-ing, trying to start, then stopping because people were still not quite ready. I particularly wanted to establish the idea that the instrumental sections would be different to the singing sections – if everyone played their instruments while we were singing then no-one would be able to hear anything.

Finally, I got my eye contact going with the guitarists and the chime bars at the same time, counted them in and we were away. Two brave young women who’d sung in the community radio gig earlier that week agreed to join me with microphones in the centre of the space to lead the singing (they were very reluctant but fortunately for me acknowledged that me singing Fataluku words on my own wasn’t really appropriate, or as convincing).

Forever Young was a hit. As with our earlier song, no-one really joined in with any kind of audible gusto, but many were singing along quietly – I could see their lips moving! The guitarists held the accompaniment together well, and the boys on the chime bars also kept time remarkably well, given the density of sounds going on for most of the time. The ANAM musicians also played solos during the instrumental breaks, with the two singers holding microphones to their instruments so that the solos could be heard. Even Tony got to sing into a microphone at one stage, one of the girls came and held it beside his mouth during one of the choruses. The rest of the time he kept our drum groove going on the djembe.

The Many Hands staff took part in the event, and reported back that at least 200 people had taken part throughout the event with a further 300 moving in and out of the space. 500 people having some experience of this event is a wonderful outcome!

“Do you like this? Do think it’s good?” Mana Holly asked different people in the crowd as she roamed around with her camera. “It’s great,” they told her emphatically. Mana Kim also spoke to a number of people after the event and reported back that people had been overwhelmingly positive and excited about the event. The only negative comment was that it was the kind of event that should be happening often, not just as a one-off. One person (connected with local police I think) felt that events like this could help to reduce crime, and yet another person suggested that it was a good way to combat racism towards malae (foreigners), explaining that this was something that was on the increase. It was the first time people had seen malae and local Timorese working together in a participatory event like this. People also appreciated the instruments that were in use – they were happy to see their traditional instruments being promoted by outsiders, but also that many of the other instruments were made from things that were easily available locally – buckets, bottles and bamboo.

At the end of the jam we handed the floor over to Plan International, who have been running a music recording project for some time in Lospalos. Several of their bands had come along, and they now performed sets of their songs. They sat in the centre of the room, one of the Motolori boys taking the initiative to sit in the middle of them and be a Microphone Stand (and at the end of each set jumping to his feet to yell “Thank you very much!” into the microphone like a pro), and the audience crowded around to hear these performances too.

I made my way to the edge of the market space and sat down with Sarah (who was looking pretty wiped out from her malaria, but sticking with the gig nonetheless – what a trooper) and Oswalda and two of her friends. They congratulated me and asked how I was feeling. “I’m tired now,” I confessed. The three young girls then grabbed hold of my arms and proceeded to give me an arm massage.

Tony and some of the Motolori boys walked home, carrying all the instruments on the two wheelbarrows we had borrowed from our neighbours. I followed shortly after, and when I got home I was surprised to see a group of other neighbours (none of whom had been at the gig) crowding onto th verandah. They were awaiting our return, it seemed, keen to have their own Toka Boot on the veradah. How could we refuse? We watched with pride as they set up the instruments – with care and respect now, unlike the chaotic handling things received in the early days of the verandah jams, and began to play. They were jamming on their own, without guidance from us.

How things had progressed since that first jam, when Kamil, our Indonesian friend, had to go out into the street to persuade some of the local children to join us! Now they were waiting for us when we got home, and the only way to get them to stop playing once they started was to call for a break, explain that we needed a deskansa [rest], and reassure them that they could come back tomorrow to play some more. They would then pack up the instruments with the same care and attention as they gave to the unpacking – putting the chime bars back in their bags in the right order, painstakingly counting out eight mallets per carry bag, gathering all the kakalo sticks into their little red carrier bag and entering the music room at the side of the verandah respectfully and (for the most part) without pushing each other, and placing the instruments down in their correct places (most of the time – some of the bamboo sticks still got dropped on the floor on occasion).

Excursion to Lore

Lospalos, day 93

We did another excursion on Thursday, this time to the coastal town of Lore. We’d been told it would take 3 hours to get there, but it turned out to be a journey of about 1 hour and a quarter only. The dirt road was slow-going but there were no big pot-holes or drops away at the edges, so I would call it a pretty reasonable road for Timor!

We stopped in one of the towns we passed through. All the local school children were on their morning break and as we got out of the car they crowded round us, staring, not talking, but sticking close to us just the same. We wandered around for a while with this entourage, then I asked them if they’d like to sing a song with us. “We’d like to”, they answered, so we taught a short song with nonsense syllables, and then got some rhythm games started. Then the bell rang for them to go back to class so they went to line up and we got back in the car.

The beach at Lore was rocky, and had some of the biggest waves I’ve seen on this island so far. It’s a wide, long spread of beach, with horses grazing down on the rocks at the water’s edge, and palm trees lining the edge of the furthest-back sand dunes. The children from the nearby village followed our car as we drove up and sat on a log in a row, watching us intently. If any of us got too close, however, they shuffled along, or jumped and ran to the other end of the log. We made this into a game after awhile.

No fish for sale because of the rough seas, so we ate the food we’d brought with us – freshly made rice packages wrapped in banana leaves, bread rolls with vegemite, packets of tuna, bananas and biscuits, and cups of apple tea. We tried swimming but got dashed against the rocks pretty quickly so we settled for beach cricket (with a piece of bamboo as a bat, and a tennis ball) and soccer, and shell hunting instead. The local children never joined in, they just stayed sitting on or near that log.

English classes and local villages

Day 93, Saturday

Saturday is market day, so a good day for a big grocery shop. I also love the energy of the big local market – there are hundreds of people there, buying and selling. It’s right on the outskirts of town, so you can get a mikrolet (if we have a hire car we drive) but most people walk there and back.

This has been a full and eventful week. It’s been shaped quite strongly by our regular attendance at the local English classes. We started this the previous week, thinking it could be a good way for Tony’s daughters to meet some English-speaking people their own age, and continued going all of this week too, as it was bringing us in contact with such a range of people, all keen to share their experiences and ideas with us in the spirit of an exchange.

On Monday afternoon, we asked the class to talk about what interesting and special things there were to do, see and experience in Lospalos. We discussed the idea of ‘special and interesting things’ all together first, to gather ideas and put the question in the context of visitors coming to Lospalos. Then the class gathered into pairs and presented one idea to the rest of the class in English.

One boy said, I would show the visitors the Lake Ira-Lalaru, because it is very beautiful. It is the largest lake in Timor, fed by seven springs, and it is close to here. It also has an interesting story and I would tell them the story:

Long ago, there was a village where the lake is now. One day, a snake with seven heads came to that village. This snake bit the daughter of the village chief. In his anger, he called for people to kill the snake in revenge.

However, the snake turned out to be a king of snakes. So nature then took its revenge. Water began to pour from each of the seven heads of the snake. Rain poured down from the sky. The ground cracked open and water came bubbling up. Soon the village was submerged, and the lake is still there today.

That’s one version of the lake story – I’ve heard two other versions since then, but that is unsurprising as it is passed down through an oral tradition. I like the idea of it changing, like a game of Chinese Whispers.

On Tuesday, Tony led what sounded like a superb conversation lesson. He wrote a list of questions on the white board, asking the students to imagine that they had met him, a visitor, by chance in the street, and were having a conversation with him.

• Which village or town do you come from?
• What is interesting to see or do in your village?
• Is it far from here?
• How do I get there on local transport?
• How much does it cost?
• Can I there and back in one day?

He arranged the group into two concentric circles, facing each other in pairs, and they each had to ask these questions to their partner and give the answers in English. The inner circle then moved one place to the left and had the same conversation with the next person.

Tony explained that he wanted them all to have the conversations at the same time – “Like at a party!” Everyone laughed and the energy lifted, and it sounded like they had a very dynamic, engaged lesson together.

The lesson revealed information that we had been looking for – where could w get to in a day using the local mikrolet and truck transport options. Tony’s daughters were particularly keen to go somewhere in a truck.

The conversation class led to invitations being issued by different students to come with them to their village, and the following day (Wednesday) Tony and the girls travelled with two of the students to the village of Kakavei on the back of a truck. Kakavei is high in the mountains. The student showed them around – they met local children and did some music games with them, they met a local song-women who performed for them, they visited their host’s house, and his wife had prepared local food for them – sweet potatoes mashed and wrapped in banana leaves, and a drink made from crushed corn – watched tais being woven and got to try some on.

They got home around 5pm, very happy with their adventure. I was envious – I had opted to spend the day working, but Wednesday had turned out to one of the ‘backwards steps’ of the Lospalos shuffle and I hadn’t had the productive, energised day I’d hoped for. Never mind. It all balances out.

Exploring the kakalo’uta

Lospalos, day 87

I’ve been doing some transcriptions this week, revisiting the footage I shot in Dili at the Cultural Festival of different traditional instruments. I realised I had some footage of the Kakalo’uta being played, so spent some time reviewing that and transcribing the piece they performed.

Tony and I have gathered up quite a bit of bamboo over the last few weeks, and yesterday we lined up three pieces of resonant bamboo each, and started to transfer the kakalo’uta rhythms to these three pitches. It sounded pretty good. Then this afternoon, Tony got talking to our neighbours, a family of many young boys who often come to our verandah jams. They offered him a coconut and he ended up sitting with them to eat it. Somehow this led to him describing our bamboo instruments, and from there, to the father of all the boys making a new instrument for us from one of our pieces of bamboo.

What he made was very like a Papua New Guinean log drum, planed flat on one side with a long slit down its middle that you hit on either side. “This piece of bamboo is too narrow, though,” he told us. “If you can get a very wide piece” – showing us the ideal size with his hands – “then that will be even better. It will have a much bigger sound.”

Now our heads are buzzing. A traditional instrument craftsman right next door to us! We have two more weeks. If we can get enough bamboo, could we commission him to make us some more of these instruments so that we could create a piece for an ensemble? What about our experiments with three differently toned pieces of bamboo – our makeshift version of the kakalo’uta I saw in Dili? Perhaps we could modify this design to make a variation of the kakalo’uta that could be played on the ground, rather than having this three pieces of wood hung suspended from a frame. I asked what it is called. It’s called kakalo – from the Fataluku word meaning “to hit”.

 

The cacophony that is Christmas in Timor

Christmas seemed to start here on December 6^th. I was in Dili that day, and noticed for the first time that all the shops had put their Christmas decorations up, there were reggae versions of Christmas carols being pumped out of every shop stall, Christmas trees were for sale all over the place, and there were lots of additional temporary stalls out on the streets, selling new items of clothing, toys, and so on. It was a completely different vibe.

In Lospalos, it is not unusual to be awoken around 5.45am (before the electricity goes off for the day – we only have electricity overnight here) by someone playing music very, very loudly. This may be a poor country, but it doesn’t seem to stop the people who can investing in very powerful sound systems. Once we got into Christmas season, the music of choice was things like revved-up Jingle Bells, and We Wish You a Merry Christmas in 4/4. Brahms Lullaby is also apparently a Christmas song in Timor.

One morning in the week before Christmas, we woke up to a mix of three different sound systems, each playing completely different Christmas songs. Add to that the usual soundscape of roosters crowing, pigs squealing and dogs barking, and you have, as Tony commented that morning at 6am, “A real mess out there this morning.”

The cacophony continues even in the church. At mass on Christmas Eve, the automatic rhythm section on the electric organ thumped out its duple time beats, even in songs in 3/4 or compound time, so that O Holy Night ended up as one big hemiola. The choir persevered, as did we, and the effect was actually thoroughly intriguing and engaging.

Minister Januario (who is apparently the minister in charge of electricity and power blackouts – his name is often groaned in irritation when the power goes off suddenly) gave Lospalos a Christmas treat this year – we had electricity almost non-stop from December 24^th until December 26^th. This was a mixed blessing as far as Tony and I were concerned, because electricity means everyone keeps their music going throughout the whole day. Very bland, white, sexless, nameless pop versions of Christmas carols. We were pretty happy to head to Dili for a break on the 27^th. But then we got to Atauro for New Year and the 24-hour music started up again.

New Year’s Day celebrations

On the afternoon of New Year’s Day on Atauro, a group of us were invited to go to a special mass. They told us, “We will take you there at 5pm, there will be lots of singing, and after, you will eat there!”

Tony, a couple of other guests and I had already been to the local church during the week, to listen to the choir rehearse. We loved their open, unforced, powerful way of singing. Also, when we’d first arrived, I’d described my earlier Atauro experiences of songs and singing (by the Singing Boatman on the early morning boat back to Dili) to the manager of the place we were staying, so he was on the look-out for other musical experiences we could have.

That New Year’s Day mass was one of the most welcoming experiences I felt I’d had in Timor. When we arrived it seemed like proceedings had already started, but there were 5 blue plastic armchairs lined up at the front of the space that we were ushered into.

“Would rather be up the back,” muttered a couple of our group self-consciously, but there was no chance of that. We were clearly Honoured and Welcome guests.

Everyone in the congregation knew all the songs, and sang in full voice. Some songs were fairly easy to join in with, as they had repetitive choruses with only a few words. One was even in English:

Singing glory, praise the lord, hallelujah

Singing glory, praise the lord, hallelujah

Singing glory praise the lord, hallelujah

Singing glory, hallelujah, praise the lord!

This was not a Catholic Church, but kultu [Protestant Church]. The pastor beamed at us as we joined in with the singing. He then asked a member of the congregation to come to the front and translate the Gospel and his Sermon into English, one sentence at a time. The less godly among our group might have preferred them not to do this, as it was quite an intense sermon, filled with constant reminders of God’s love for us and the need for us to accept him as our personal saviour… But at the same time, the effort that was made to include us and make us – a group of foreigners and strangers to this close-knit community – feel a part of the event was truly generous.

When mass concluded, people began to shuffle around and change places. Some large tables were brought in. Row upon row of people lined up to shake hands with each of us, and with the pastor. The women gave each of the women in our group a gentle two-sided cheek press. Men just a got a handshake. “Boas festas” we all wished each other.

I went outside to wash my hands and was directed towards the large kitchen at the back of the building. (Timorese kitchens are built separately to the main building, and this one was spread under a rooftop with no walls). Twenty or more women were busy cooking, chopping vegetables, washing dishes, pouring drinks into glasses and cups, slicing large cakes. It was a hub of activity and incredibly detailed in its organisation of labour.

The evening meal began with a snack – a slice of sweet cake, flavoured with nuts, and a cup of hot, sweet tea or coffee. When that was finished, the team of women cleared all the dishes and began to re-set the tables for dinner. While we were waiting we took photos of ourselves with all the children who had by now overcome their shyness and were clamouring around us. Digital cameras are wonderful in this context, with the possibility of showing people the photos you have just taken.

Dinner was amazing in its range and abundance. After all, this is not a wealthy community. We had clearly been invited to a significant event in their year for which all stops had been pulled out. There were several different meat dishes, and several vegetable dishes, two kinds of rice, and even some vegetables cooked without salt. We were invited to eat from the “head table” – the pastor’s table. There was another, larger table for the rest of the congregation to eat from. Everyone helped themselves and sat on long benches to eat their meal.

Meanwhile, the music continued. We learned over that weekend of the Timorese (or maybe just Ataurean) tradition of committing to performing live music 24 hours a day across the festival period. They had a roster of singers ready to roll out the songs, and a sound system with speakers attached to even the tops of the palm trees outside, so as to share their music with the rest of the community. It was impressive in its devotion, if not somewhat exhausting and relentless in its execution.

Once everyone had finished eating, they announced that the pastor and his wife would now be going home to have a rest before the next service the following morning. We took this opportunity to thank everyone for making us so welcome. I made a speech in Tetun on behalf of our group, and then Tony, Alison and I sang Amazing Grace, as a way of offering a contribution of our own to the celebrations. The guy on the organ picked up our key, and accompanied us from the second or third phrase.

We walked home as a group, quite humbled by the experience and the welcome we had been given. The music continued well into the night, all the way through to the following morning.

Udan Boot [Big rain]

I’ve been collecting photos of rainy days for a while now. The images below are from the Cultural Festival in Dili back at the end of November. It got rained out big time – apparently it took a week for the flood waters around the President’s Palace to subside. The drains get clogged up with rubbish so the water has nowhere to go.

And this photo was taken in Lospalos, or just outside Lospalos, on the road to the lake in the National Park. We were in a 4wd but no-one was sure how flooded the road was. Maleve walked on ahead of the car, to see how far up his legs the water went. In the end, it was too deep (too much rainfall had flooded over the causeway) so our intrepid driver did a u-turn on the narrow causeway and took us back out again. I took this photo from the back window.

Chikungunya, anyone?

Wednesday, day 62

The last few days have passed by in a bit of a blur, partly because of the workshop whirl one gets into in the middle of a project, and partly because by Sunday I was struck down by a mosquito-borne tropical illness known as Chikungunya. I think it started on Saturday with an ache in my knee that I assumed was due to over-exerting myself in the warm-up games that morning, but in hindsight I now suspect otherwise.

Chikungunya Virus is one of the more exotic diseases I’ve ever had (and I’ve been hospitalised for quinsy, which I’ve always considered exotic for its Victorian quaintness even though it is a horrible thing to be sick with…). But it’s no fun. It starts with a gradually growing stiffness in your joints. For me, this started in my right knee, moved across to  my left middle finger, my right index finger, my right 2^nd and 3^rd toes, my left heel and Achilles, and so on and so on in a strange, random pinball kind of pattern up, down and across my body until it was in my wrists, elbows, shoulders, back, neck and jaw. Sunday afternoon while eating my lunch I noticed a rash on my arms. A couple of hours later this was spreading to my legs. By the time I got the hospital Sunday evening (requesting a blood test that they didn’t have the equipment to do, it turned out) it was all over me. We wish we’d taken a photo of it as it was quite impressively comprehensive, and it disappeared just as quickly by the following morning.

I then developed a burning fever and lost most of my mobility. I could barely walk. It felt like I had the legs of a newborn foal that wouldn’t possibly bear my weight if I were to try to stand on my own. Tony or Mana Er tended to rush to my side whenever I needed to move somewhere. To sit down or stand up, I needed to use my arms, but given that my fingers and wrists were also causing me a lot of pain, I tended to have lean all my weight into my elbows. It was ungraceful, to say the least!

At that stage it looked like it could be dengue, but the only way to diagnose dengue is with a blood test, and I learned that Monday in Baucau that in all the hospitals across Timor, the equipment necessary to test blood for dengue was out of action. The only way to get a blood test was in Dili at a private pathology clinic.

We found a way to get Tony and me in a car to Dili that evening (Baucau is 3-4 hours from Dili by car). Tony packed up all our things, while I sweated it out on the bed, groaning away everytime I tried to shift my weight a little. Oh I was not a happy camper!

Tuesday we made our way to the private pathology clinic in Santa Cruz area. Does ‘private pathology clinic’ conjure images of white lab coats to you? It did for me, but this little clinic, in what seemed like a the front room of a standard private residence, off an unsealed road with wide concrete drains to step over on either side, wasn’t quite what I’d imagined, but it had everything a private pathology clinic needed to take a blood sample and test it. Lots of new sterile syringes in their packets, lots of little tubes waiting to receive blood for analysis, sticky labels for noting name of patients and the tests to be done (in my case a full blood count and a dengue fever test), and a pathologist (dressed not a white lab coat but in a blue t-shirt and a pair of jeans). He knew to expect me, and spoke to me with the low quiet voice that TImorese people tend to use when they want to speak very respectfully to someone, but that is very difficult for a newcomer like me to understand. Still, we both knew enough about what this encounter was expected to yield to get through any misunderstandings generated by language, and in just over an hour I was on my way to the Australian Embassy Medical Clinic, brandishing an envelope with my test results in it, ready for the doctor’s assessment.

Around this time Tony and I realised that my fever had almost completely subsided. I was also walking a lot better – still lurching and staggering around and losing my balance as a result of my stiff ankles and tender Achilles, but at least I was doing so without any assistance from Tony now.

And so we came to the likely diagnosis of Chikungunya Virus (or Disease, as some websites like to call it), carried around and spread stealthily by annoying little creatures called mosquitos. I’ve been steadily improving since Tuesday and hope to get back to Lospalos on Friday. This descriptive post is a bit of a departure from music education and collaborative practice, but how many people do you know, or read about, who have been struck down by Chikungunya? Here’s hoping I stay on track for a full and fast recovery!