Guest blog by Maj Nygaard-Christensen, PhD student, Institute of Anthropology, Aarhus University, who is currently conducting her fieldwork in Timor Leste.

I arrived in Timor Leste the 23^rd of February to a country which had changed considerably since my first fieldwork here in 2005. Particularly the capital, Dili, where I am currently staying has changed its appearance. Refugee camps for IDPs are scattered throughout the city, often around convents or churches; others in parks. The Catholic Church has been heavily involved in providing assistance to people displaced during last and this year’s crisis. Many, many people have lost their homes. My Timorese family was not spared. They lost their house and all their belongings when their home was set on fire almost a year ago. They have now found other places to live, but many others remain in the camps. There is no immediate solution in sight as to how and when they can return to their normal lives.

Dili Life
One big security concern for many people is that of youth gangs in the capital. In 1999, the major part of buildings and infrastructure in Timor Leste was destructed by militia and Indonesian army; and it is sad to see how things have again gone in the wrong direction. It seems that every week fights between rivalling gangs leave people injured and houses or cars burned down. Many people lost their homes this way during the past year. My Timor-family too lost their house and all their belongings with it when their home was set on fire last year. They all managed to escape through the back yard, but for some of them, this makes the third time in their lives they have lost their home and belongings due to unrest: in the late 1970s, in 1999, and now in 2006. Their trouble isn’t over yet, either. Saturday a member of the family was stopped in his taxi by drunken members of one such gang. His mobile phone was stolen and they demanded money as well. When he didn’t have any to give, they decided to break his car window with an iron bar. The cost of replacing it resembles two months’ full pay. This is no small thing for a man who can name the day, date and exact time when his family became the owners of a car. As many others, they have no trust in the police or justice system in general and will not report this. Still, on a more positive note, the last two-three weeks have in fact generally seemed calmer than what many people feared, possibly due to the increased presence of military and police in the capital.

Black Hawks Fooled by Rebel Spirits?
At the moment there seems to be a heavy presence of international military and police almost everywhere in the capital: as I am writing this, two trucks loaded with armed foreign soldiers pass by my veranda and military helicopters are buzzing in the sky above. The morning of my arrival to Timor, Australian troops shot at Timorese youth during trouble in a refugee camp near the airport. Two of them died. Resentment against Australian troops grew further when they shot dead five Timorese during an attempt to capture Alfredo Reinado, a former major and rebel leader, who at the time was hiding in Same south of Dili with a number of armed supporters. Reinado, however, escaped. He is said to have participated in a ceremony with traditional leaders who blessed him with the strength of Dom Boaventura – a leader of a rebellion against the Portuguese in late 1800. Thus, he can easily fool the spiritually unarmed Australian troops attempting to capture him: with the strength of Boa Ventura some believe he can walk right in their midst without being seen. The strength of Boa Ventura is also said to have caused two Black Hawks used in the search for his whereabouts to become suddenly covered in black clouds on an otherwise fine and sunny day. With such limited visibility he was not found. According to one local newspaper an eyewitness tells the story thus: “Actually at that time the sky looked bright and clear, I don’t know where that thick cloud appeared from” said Soares, full of surprise”. Another rumour claims that the Australians have also had losses; they just do not want the Timorese to know. One story thus goes that 12 Australian soldiers were killed and flown home by night. “Don’t you remember that plane that came late at night?” I was asked, “People say that is when they picked up the bodies and returned them to

Australia”. Rumour is how many get their news, and even if they get them from the actual news, these often lend further legitimacy to rumours through retelling them in printed media.

Fieldwork
My PhD project is part of the research network Re-enchantment of Politics: Religious Dimensions of Democratisation in Asia. My project concerns the relation between religion and politics in the democratisation process of this newly independent nation. With this focus, the present time promises a busy but interesting fieldwork experience; the first presidential election taking place at this very moment, and the parliamentary elections will be held around 2 months later. The current President Xanana Gusmão has been one of the most popular national figures in both the resistance against Indonesia and in independent Timor Leste. He will no longer run for president, so now the battle has begun for his soon empty seat. Although Gusmão had reportedly claimed he would retire to grow pumpkins, it appears he will also take part in the parliament elections with a newly formed political party. The Catholic Church here has traditionally been playing a central role in political life, and I am therefore interested in how it has adjusted to independence. I have thus been conducting a number of interviews with members of the Church. At the same time I have been following the currently journeying image of Our Lady of Sorrows, who is received in various neighbourhoods of the city as a highly honoured guest. In my neighbourhood people spent days cleaning all the streets through which she would pass and all the neighbours collected money for the preparation. A tall, flower decorated bamboo arch was erected under which she was received last Friday. Elsewhere she has been received by anyone from nuns, traditional dancers to cheerleading high school girls. The passing over of the image from one neighbourhood to another at times mean that otherwise rivalling groups will meet. Here nuns have played a role in, at least temporarily, reconciling youth groups so the ceremony would run smoothly. Returning here for the second time has meant that it has been a lot easier to get started with my project. My Timor-family has, again, been ever so helpful. The family has many contacts in the church which they seem only glad to share, and have also assisted me with getting in touch with politicians taking part in the election campaign. This means that I have been able to participate in a number of exciting activities and make quite a few interviews already. My original plan was to go to the remote district where the family is from, but the situation has seemed unstable enough that I did not like the idea of being that far from the airport; within the first week of my stay many left the country on advice from their embassies. Instead, after spending the first weeks in a depressing hotel, I have rented a house two doors from where the family lives, in a neighbourhood which has so far been relatively trouble-free. Now I am crossing my fingers that the situation remains stable enough to carry on with my remaining 9 months of fieldwork. If not exactly clear from the above, it is good to be back in Timor Leste!