This past weekend Ulla and I travelled to Laga to visit the sisters and the orphanage there. This was my first experience riding on a mikrolet. As you can see in the picture, a mikrolet is really just a large van with a long bench lining the length of each side of the interior. You can comfortably seat about 8 people in the back, but a mikrolet never travels anywhere with just 8 people. On one of journeys we squeezed 25 people inside!
Ulla and I were able to catch a mikrolet along the dirt road right outside the orphanage around noon. We hopped in the back and were the only passengers. I took a seat and stared out one of the side windows in front of me (I was facing sideways). We began moving, and I immediately felt a little queasy. Siitting sideways in a moving vehicle is something new to me, and it was difficult to see out the dirty windows so that I could fix my eyes on an object outside to prevent carsickness. We drove for about 5 minutes before a man standing with a goat signaled for the mikrolet to stop to pick him up. I thought, “Surely he’s not going to be getting on, not with a goat. Maybe he knows the driver and just wants to say hello.” As has so often been the case regarding my mission experience here in East Timor, I was wrong. The man quickly wrestled his goat to the ground, tied its legs together, picked it up and carried it on the bus with him!
For some reason, the driver told Ulla and me to come sit in the passenger seat in the front next to him. I wasn’t sure why he asked us to do that, but I really didn’t mind. I didn’t want to sit in the back by the goat. While we were still stopped, the driver pulled out a cigarette and started smoking it. I quickly remembered my sensitivity to smoke, and I was thankful to be sitting next to an open window. Ulla, who was sitting between the driver and myself, however, got a faceful of smoke at one point and must have smelled it the whole trip.
At this point, we turned around and actually headed back the way we had just come. When we passed by the spot where we had boarded the bus, I seriously considered calling it quits and getting off right then and there. I figured I will be here for another 7 months, so I have plenty of time to explore East Timor. Surely one of the sisters from one of the 2 convents here would need to go up to Laga at some point, and I could tag along with her in one of the sisters’ “chauffeured” vehicles. I didn’t see any reason to have to suffer on this mikrolet another minute. I wanted to get out, but something kept me from doing so. I reasoned that it couldn’t get much worse that it was right now, so I might as well stick it out. Furthermore, I knew if I got off the bus I would have to explain to all of the sisters at the convent why I had come back so soon. I didn’t want to go through the embarrassment of that. I wanted to tough it out. I wanted to prove to them and to myself that I CAN do this. One of my goals before coming here was to truly immerse myself in the culture and experience how the East Timorese live. This is their primary mode of transportation-thousands of people travel on mikrolets every day. Am I really so “privileged” that I can’t live (or at least travel) like an East Timorian for 1 day?
Within 20 minutes of driving along the bumpy road on our way to Baucau we had picked up 15 other people. This brought the total number of passengers heading to Baucau to 20! I liken the mikrolet to a clown car-it is so small, yet somehow there always seems to be enough room to squeeze in another rider. The rest of the hour-long trip to Baucau went very smoothly. Well, as smoothly as a trip in East Timor can go, that is. We bumped along on the rugged roads, the sheep bleating in the back of the van along the way. I was grateful to be sitting in the front seat, facing forward, with a cool breeze on my face. I wondered how bad the next trip would be when I probably wouldn’t have this luxury. The fare for this hour long trip? $1!
Once in Baucau, we hopped onto another mikrolet headed toward Laga. The mikrolet was empty, so we waited a good half an hour for it to fill up before heading out. The elderly lady who sat down across from Ulla was very excited to see malae (foreigners) on the mikrolet. After talking for a while, she offered us some homemade food from a bag she was carrying. I was wary of eating anything offered by a stranger in a foreign country (much less something homemade), but Ulla grabbed some and offered me a bite. It was crunchy, and sort of sweet, but I couldn’t tell you what it was. I only had a little bit. The good news-I didn’t die. And no, I won’t be accepting any more food from strangers any time soon.
An elderly man carrying a rooster sat down across from me. I felt so badly for the little boy sitting beside him, because he had to ride with a faceful of feathers for the whole hour and a half trip. The man had a very dirty towel wrapped around his shoulders, and every once in a while he would use it to wipe the sweat from his face. Who knows how many germs were on that thing? I guess if he’d lived this long with these habits, there was no point in trying to talk him out of them now.
The trip to Laga was very hot. There were 25 people and 2 chickens jammed into the small mikrolet, and we stopped often to let people on and off. There are very small “windows” in the mikrolet to let air in, but you only feel a breeze if you are travelling fast enough. With all of the stops we made, it was hard to ever feel “cool”. I mostly kept my head down and eyes closed, so I didn’t feel too sick along the way. We were some of the last people to get off the mikrolet, and when the drivers heard we were going to the orphanage, they drove us up the steep hill, into the compound and right up to the orphanage doors (unbeknownst to us at the time this cost us an additional 25 cents, bringing our trip total from Baucau to Laga to $1). I was very grateful to get off the hot mikrolet, and as a parting gift it gave me a firm bump on the head as I ducked out of it. Regardless, I had survived my first one-way trip on the mikrolet!
The return trip home from Laga was pretty similar to the trip to Laga: hot and very crowded. At one stop on the way to Baucau, an elderly lady boarded the bus. Without being prodded by her mom (who was carrying a smaller child in her lap), an 8 year old girl stood up to allow the older lady to sit down. This left the girl without a seat, and she stood in the small space in the middle of the seats before a complete stranger motioned for the girl to sit on her lap! I never cease to be amazed at the kindness and generosity of these people. The bus was extremely hot and cramped, yet this stranger did not hesitate to offer the girl her lap to sit in. It was so kind!
We were the first ones on the mikrolet for the last leg of our journey from Baucau to Venilale. Thus, we drove around different streets of town for a good half an hour before finally heading “home”. Because we were the first ones on, we got to sit at the very back of the mikrolet. This was great because I could look out the large back window and focus on the road without feeling carsick. This was the “hippest” mikrolet we had been on so far. It played songs on the radio that I had actually heard and could understand! Some songs I recognized included Jason Mraz’s song, “I’m Yours”, “Hotel California”, “This Time for Africa”, and even Justin Bieber songs! No one else on the bus seemed as excited as I was to hear “American” songs-go figure.
Because we were at the very back of the bus, we were in clear view to all the people we passed who were walking or working along the roads. Some waved at us first, sometimes we waved first. Either way, they were always very excited that we waved to them! We felt a little like celebrities!
I am happy to say I survived my first round-trip mikrolet journey! It was definitely enlightening to experience how people here travel. In the United States every passenger on a plane, subway or bus has their own seat. We’re uncomfortable if we happen to bump shoulders with someone sitting next to us. Furthermore, we never have to worry about sitting next to a chicken, goat or pig. We are so blessed to have non-smoking transportation that includes air conditioning, seat belts, and smooth roads. Perhaps I will become so used to travelling on the mikrolet that I will forget what travel is like in the U.S. It will be a real shock to come home and sit by only humans next time I ride a bus or a take a subway.
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