East Timorese Lingual Gymnastics, Malae Bulak

Originally Posted by Mick Pacholli (Admin)

East Timorese Lingual Gymnastics, Malae Bulak

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Portuguese, left Tetum Right

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Welcome Fab Marsani

What do East Timor and Switzerland have in common ?

Culturally, Fiscally and Geographically bugger all, but citizens of bothcountries have the capacity to confound visitors with the dexterity of their lingual gymnastics.
Moreover their capacity to use several ‘official languages’ to get their message across.

Switzerland has four national languages [German, French, Italian and Rumantsch].

According to government statistics the later being a regional language which is spoken by less than 1% of the population.


Those same statistics suggest that there are more people who speak Albanian as their mother tongue living in Switzerland than those who speak Rumantsch!

East Timor’s lingual peculiarities are equally perplexing to the uninitiated and first time visitor.
Portuguese and Tetum are the country’s official languages, with Indonesian andEnglish being given ‘working language’ status under the constitution.

East Timor’s lingual dexterity is a legacy of close on five centuries of colonisation, a decade of nation rebuilding and the pragmatism which survivors of adversity display.

Tetum the language of the people and Portuguese the language of the government share equal billing as the country’s official languages. And English is the lingua franca of the sizable United Nations and NGO contingents.

While the government’s efforts to teach, promote and foster Portuguese in amongst the nation’s youth meets with ambivalence and frustration.


Having done their schooling in Indonesian, a significant proportion of young adults are bewildered by and still grappling with their government’s choice of official languages.

As scores of youths I’d met across the country conveyed – “we’d rather be learning English.”

Bahasa Indonesian is very much in use for day to day commerce, in most cases shop keepers and stall holders still use Indonesian to quote prices and barter.

Which is confusing for those visitors who’ve diligently studied their Lonely PlanetTetum phrase book ‘standards’ prior to arriving in Dili, only to find that the numerals are more or less superfluous in day to day fiscal
transactions.

This was highlighted when I asked a teenage boy what the word for ‘hundred’ was in Tetum (I‘d learned to count to 99 in the local language but I‘d hit the end of my numerical road).

He self-consciously apologized, “I forget”.

Obligingly he asked one of his friends to help him out. He in turn shrugged his shoulders before another youth blurted out “atus”.

Their hesitancy perplexed me. Is it because they don’t have much use for numbers exceeding 100, or are they just getting muddled in this lingual collage means of communication which passes for the norm in Dili ?


I’d learnt a handy phrase which I used as an icebreaker in my efforts to travel around the country, Malae Bulak – crazy foreigner.


I’d just point to myself to question the sanity of someone who was prepared to hitch a ride on the back of a ute laden down with 13 passengers, the yield of a banana tree, three sacks of rice, two roosters and a blatantly distressed goat.


But it was on such occasions where I was best able to communicate with locals using a collage of words and phrases from several of the country’s official languages.


My efforts to make myself understood by speaking Spanish as a substitute forPortuguese sprinkled with the odd Tetum and Indonesian word or phrase invariably brought on smiles to local’s faces and round about comprehension .

A village elder took a shining to the tourist speaking pidgin Portuguese, so I scored an invite to a village celebration inaugurating a new guest house – tourism facility onTutuala Beach at the eastern tip of the island.

The Prime Minister Xanano Gusmao was going to be guest of honour I was proudly informed.


Well he didn’t make it on the night but the head of state and his retinue did rock up the following evening.

No problem, they just had two parties.

As Xanano was cutting and dishing out portions of cake in a patriarchal fashion, he was visibly taken aback as he handed me over a plate. His bewildered expression more or less conveyed,

“What’s this white guy doing here ?”

To break the ice I blurted out “Malae Bulak”.

He burst into laughter, made an impromptu reference to the ‘crazy foreigner’ for the benefit of those assembled. And in turn I scored a second helping of what looked like a wedding cake from the ‘father of the nation.’

Returning to Dili I had to recuperate from the bone rattling trips I’d endured to traverse the provinces, invariably bouncing about on the back of transport vehicles navigating the country’s pot riddled roads.

So I decided to book a therapeutic massage with one of the many small businesses plying their trade to foreigners living in the capital.

United Nations peace keepers – technocrats, consultants of all persuasions, NGO contingents, aid workers, research fellows, missionaries and carpet baggers abound in bustling Dili.

And entrepreneurial types from all corners of the globe have opened up shop to service this burgeoning market of resident foreigners.

Turkish bakeries, Brazilian restaurants and Thai beauty salons flank Indonesianeateries in competition for the ex-pat dollar where the lingua franca of trade can be as baffling as a governmental edict on official language.

I’d arranged to meet the masseur in front of a Sri Lankan restaurant – (a man with a distinct Filipino accent gave me directions over the phone).


At the arranged time I found myself sitting in a makeshift foyer in the dining room of a restaurant not yet open for lunch, where half a dozen locals looked on puzzled at my presence.

My efforts to ascertain whether I had the right address where met with blank stares from clients and staff alike – Tetum and Tamil were the languages spoken at this establishment.

A staff member sensed my nervousness as I suspiciously asked if I had the right address for the Filipino masseur.


She feigned incomprehension but led me to a chair placed in front of a closed door emitting hocus-pocus like chants accompanied to the sound of rattling trinkets.

When that performance- consultation finished I was ushered into a dank room to be confronted by a heavily made-up, bare-chested man kitted out like a Bollywoodchorus dancer with an
entreaty of, “Please”.
.
I challenged him with, “You’re not Filipino, are you ?”


“No, no – I’m Sri Lanka!”

The penny dropped, as several doctors I’d previously met had explained the difficulties of administering medical procedures to East Timorese fervently grounded with animistic beliefs.

When not dishing out curries to foreigners this small business was dispensing witch doctor remedies to locals.

‘Infiltrating’ Portuguese into the vernacular of East Timor’s youth alongside persuading a superstitious people to avail themselves of the services of trained medical practitioners are some of the many challenges this fledgling democracy is grappling with in its nation building phase.

At times coming across a fluent Portuguese speaking local under forty appeared as incongruous as stumbling across an Albanian speaking ski instructor in the Swiss Alps!

– Fab Marsani