Adults do get bullied. It’s called politics!

Bullies are mean.

Bullies think they have the natural right to make others feel bad about themselves.

Bullies are cowards.

Yes, so we’ve heard.

As a child, I don’t remember being bullied much. Perhaps it was because I was bigger than most other children but mostly, I think it was because I never allow myself to be bullied.

When I was six, I got into a bloody fight with a boy who teased me in kindergarten. He ended up having a black eye while I lost my front tooth. This explains why I grew up with a set of crooked teeth.

I don’t remember crying. Instead, I spent my teenage years begging my parents to let me wear braces.

When I was thirteen, one of our teachers tried to humiliate us by defacing our faces with a piece of white chalk whenever we made a mistake in class. I would sit at the back of the class, fuming and just when I managed to sum up enough courage, I stood up and blurted out, “You shouldn’t be doing this. What you’re doing is wrong!”

“Oooohhh, you think you’re so smart? Step out now!” The teacher yelled at me and threatened me with his long metal ruler from the table.

Oblivious to the threat, I walked right to the front of the class and extended my hand voluntarily. Smack! I received a hard blow to my outstretched palm.

I don’t remember crying but the teacher probably did after he was fired from the school once a report was lodged by my friend’s parents. According to my friend, her Mom said that she didn’t spend all those money on teenage-acne-skin treatment cream just for the teacher to draw on with a dirty chalk.

So now you think that being an adult, I probably don’t get bullied around. Bullying only happens when you’re a child. Adults are too dignified to subscribe to such method of intimidation and abuse.

On the contrary, I get bullied more as an adult than when I was a child.

As a child, we often get bullied by other children or adults because we’re either smaller in size, weaker in strength, ugly, fat, effeminate, eccentric or if we possess any other undesirable human traits.

As an adult, I’ve learned that societies are taught to believe that one’s worth is measured by gender, age, social status and income. If you don’t measure up, you’re more likely to be subjected to bullying by those who think that they are above everyone.

At the age of 25, I left Malaysia to serve as the youngest female UN volunteer in Timor Leste. I was young, idealistic and needless to say proud.

Working together with a mixture of people from various countries and diverse culture really opened up my eyes to the universality of human behavior. I left feeling proud but this was soon replaced by insecurity. Being the lowest paid UN staff, it was easy for others to make me feel small and insignificant.

Soon enough though, my job taught me to understand the importance and significance of my role in the greater scheme of things.

There was one particular senior staff who tried to make me feel that being a woman, young and a volunteer, I was not worthy of his respect. Being in charge of administrative, procurement and logistics coordination, he felt that he had great power and influence over anyone. Simply put, any staff who needed something as trivial as a chair, had to seek his authorisation.

Upon realising such power, many staff tried to gain his favour by giving him favours. He, of course, thrived on all the special treatment.

Being young and naïve, I did not quite understand the need for anyone to kowtow to him. I thought that it was simply his job to attend to the administrative and logistic needs of his fellow colleagues. Hence, I never bothered paying him more attention than needed and maintained our relationship strictly professional. I could not bear to be in his company since I questioned his intention and integrity.

Needless to say, my indifference towards his power and position eventually hurt his ego. I began to notice that it took me more effort than anyone else to request anything from him. He would snub me in public and found ways to make my work difficult.

The extent of his dislike for me reached a climax when he denied me access to a driver, truck, chairs, equipment and additional staff I needed in order to organise an important event.

His excuse was, I did not provide him with sufficient notice and it was a weekend where the word “work” meant nothing to him. It was of course an excuse used to make sure that I would be held responsible for a failed event since the word “weekend” did not exist in such a humanitarian work context.

I was given an ultimatum, to submit to defeat or to rise up to the occasion.

I chose the latter.

Instead of breaking down and pleading to him, I gathered all the strength and courage I had to put together all the resources I needed on my own.

That weekend, I spoke with some locals who agreed to lend me all the furniture and equipment I needed from the local community hall, drove my own assigned vehicle to painstakingly transport all the materials and hired additional workers from my own pocket. It was a lot of hard work. I could have made my own life easier but I chose not to compromise my dignity and pride.

The event was a huge success and the biggest battle won, was one of personal triumph. The senior staff soon learned that I would not be broken down and what I lacked in age and position, I made up in strength and determination.

There are many forms of bullying and for adults, they are politics in disguise. They may not always appear in the form of someone who is bigger, prettier or simply mightier, but often in the form of a senior person in a position of power. We are taught or made to feel that we are not good enough due to the fact that we are younger, uneducated, poor or simply being a woman.

However, if we learn to have respect and belief in ourselves, nobody can take that away from us no matter how hard they try. Bullies may break our physical being but hopefully they will never break our spirit. We can either submit to their prejudices or we can always prove them wrong.

Perhaps what we should think about is why there will be some people who love to put us down? I personally think that it is often the only way they know how to deal with their own insecurities.

The good thing is, there will always be a few people who will recognise and acknowledge our hard work and potential and those are the people who really matter.

My experience as a UN volunteer has taught me that every person, no matter how low they are in the scale of things, they each have an important role to play and they should never let other people try to convince them otherwise.

Always serve with pride and dignity because that’s the best weapon you can ever use to throw bullies off balance.

Bullies have no respect for themselves.

This article was first published on The Malaysian Insider on 18 December 2009 under the same title.

Constitutional amnesia?

“You’ve been selected to work as a Civic Education Officer,” a woman with Filipino accent told me on the phone.

“Oh, great! Thank you.” I replied happily.

It wasn’t until I received my job description later that I realised civic education had nothing to do with teaching children on how to become courteous, kind and responsible citizens.

I was the first batch of students who experimented with the new education curriculum when Pendidikan Sivik was changed to Pendidikan Moral. In Moral classes, amongst other things, we learned that if we saw a banana peel lying haphazardly on the floor, we were supposed to pick it up in order to prevent someone else from potentially slipping and injuring themselves.

I finally understood what it really meant when my job description stated that my main duties were to plan, coordinate and implement activities that create and promote awareness amongst the Timorese on their new Constitution, along with their rights as eligible voters and citizens of Timor Leste.

As my work progressed, it began to dawn on me that as young Malaysians, many of us do not really know what our Constitution was all about and, most importantly, the significance of it.

There were moments when I literally felt a sense of sadness because as a “prosperous” country, as opposed to Timor Leste, we are civically bankrupt. It is almost as if we have progressed so quickly that we have forgotten the fundamental basis of what makes our country independent and sovereign.

The saddest thing of all is, it has only been 52 years and we are already taking our constitutional inheritance, something earned through blood and years of struggles and sufferings endured by our fore parents, for granted.

The Timorese may not have much in terms of economic security, but they had one thing that was rightfully theirs: a newly independent country. Like a clean slate, they had a new Constitution, a newly elected president and above all, a citizenship for the first time in their lives.

Thousands of adults, accompanied by their children, would stand in queues every  morning, from Monday to Friday, waiting patiently to be registered as voters before the first presidential election. Once their personal details were entered into laptops, photographs and finger prints taken, they waited with unconcealed glee before receiving their brand new voter registration card. They giggled and laughed shyly as soon as they saw their photos on the cards. When some of them accidentally lost their cards, you could see their distressed faces as they lined up impatiently to get a new one.

When they were told that they would be receiving civic education, they rejoiced in the thought of getting to know their new country and their rights as Timorese, not second-class Indonesians.

In most villages, the four Timorese educators and I were treated like dignitaries. We scheduled our meetings in advance so that the women could plan and organise their domestic chores, and the men, their farming work in advance.

Even before our team arrived at the village centres, hundreds of villagers could be seen from afar, gathered quietly in front of their community halls or churches. Children were less inhibited as they ran towards our approaching car, followed by cacophonies of undecipherable chatter and laughter.

They welcomed us warmly as we shook hands and exchanged pleasantries with the suco (village) or aldeia (sub-village) chiefs. When the meeting finally commenced, they would sit silently on the floor as we took them through customised flip-charts, illustrating the Constitution.

Occasionally, there would be one or two who raised their hands to ask questions or state their comments during the session. Unlike Afghanistan, the women participated freely, although with less vigour.

“Can I also be the president of Tim-Tim (the pet name used by Timorese in reference to Timor Timor) one day?” A Pak would ask sheepishly and his question was greeted by roars of laughter from the others.

“During the Indonesian occupation, where do we have HAM (short for Hak Asasi Manusia or human rights)?” another Pak lamented. “How do we know our votes will be secret?” an Ibu asked shyly.

Most of the time, these meetings lasted for more than three hours. Our Timorese educators’ voices would be hoarse from giving long lectures and answering questions while I usually observed in silence, but not without curiosity. The language used was Tetum and while nearly all understood Bahasa Indonesia and had no problem conversing in it with me, most preferred to use the official language amongst themselves.

At the end of the meeting, some villages presented us with “tais”, a typical Timorese hand-woven scarf, as tokens of their appreciation. We stood humbly before the chiefs as they wrapped the scarves around our necks one by one while the congregations applauded our effort. By the end of my mission, I must have had collected more than a dozen of them.

This was one of the things I loved most working at grassroots level in Timor Leste.  We went with nothing to offer except information and yet the communities welcomed us with open arms.

It was in Timor Leste that I had heard of people talking about the Constitution and human rights so passionately. It may be a nation with a high illiteracy rate, yet there was a strong sense of activism amongst the people. Nearly all the adults I met had either directly or indirectly fought for the independence of their country. As a result, they treasure and understand the value of their Constitution, a powerful symbol that signifies their existence as a free and independent nation.

After fifty two years of independence, we as Malaysians are now experiencing collective amnesia. Never have I once heard or spoke of the Federal Constitution with my family or friends. How could we when our education system does not teach us its values and meaning. We were too occupied trying to pass our Moral examinations and what does that get us today, when young urban Malaysians are becoming more obnoxious and rude?

Come election time, we think about which party will serve the interest of our individual races the best. Many do not even bother to register as voters, what more exercising their rights to vote.

Come Merdeka Day, it’s all about waving the Jalur Gemilang and displaying our patriotism and love for our country. But what is our country and who are we showing our affection for? Is our country represented by the government, or by 26 millions Malaysians?

I think it’s time for all of us to go back to where it had first begun, when we had collectively decided that we, the rakyat (not the government), shall be free and it is us who decide what our Constitution is.

Let our forgetfulness be a temporary amnesia, not a permanent one.

Do share with me your understanding of our Federal Constitution and how we can create better awareness amongst Malaysians on what it means.

This article appeared on The Malaysian Insider on 16 October 2009 under the same title.

Losing my virginities

If I can describe Timor Leste in one word, it would be, “Virginal.”

This small island saw very little development despite being a former Portuguese colony during the 16th century and became part of an occupied territory of Indonesia until 2002.

It was almost as if its coloniser and occupier had deliberately wanted it to remain as a child with learning disabilities. This was not congenital by nature but one that had been created and shaped as such through a long process of involuntary subjugation by the Indonesian government.

However, like many children who are unexposed to external elements, Timor Leste maintained a kind of purity and innocence which baffled the minds of those who live in this day and age. After all, it should by now surpass the age of a minor and embark life as a young adult like the rest of its neighbouring peers.

Timor Leste has the most beautiful and untouched beaches I’ve seen in my entire life. If paradise does indeed exist on earth, they will be a coveted choice. There was hardly any concrete buildings in the capital city of Dili (except those that have been implanted by the international community during the period of transitional power at the start of the 21st century).

As you depart further from Dili, such simple and ordinary concrete structures we’re accustomed to are being swallowed by nature, pregnant with the sort of silence which can only be achieved through the absence of motorized vehicles. Majority of rural Timorese live in small thatched huts constructed from mud, wood and dried leaves. Those who are slightly better off live in houses made of naked cement walls and tin roofs.

Such was the level of simplicity that during the night, it felt almost as if everyone had gone to bed with the sun. With no electricity, there was total darkness and calm, except when you looked up at the sky, the millions of sparkling stars could not look any bigger and closer.

Timor Leste was my first United Nations mission and it’s true when they say that your first mission is often the most memorable and in my own personal view, the most exciting as well. I was entering unexplored territory. Very much like sex a la Malaysian style, I had heard very little of it but was left to my own imagination to figure out what it was really like. So, I fantasised about it and when I finally lost it, I was craving for more.

As with sex, there were minor glitches and momentary periods of emotional and physical adjustment. The biggest challenge and discomfort I had while in Timor Leste was having to confront my fear of the fearless cockroaches that were plenty and had the knack of flying amok in small spaces.

It was hell for me when it was time to go to bed. While I could seek refuge under the protective mosquito net, I was left completely vulnerable when the call of nature announced itself in the middle of the night.

Guided by only the smallest maglite torch you could find, I felt like a blind person waiting to be devoured by the vicious cockroaches. As if that wasn’t enough, more were waiting to taunt me in the loo.

I had to fashion an effective way to relieve my bladder without having a series of panic attack every night. The method of choice was admittedly primitive but no, I did not resolve to wearing diapers (hell, it was painful enough having to pack sufficient supply of sanitary products and diapers would have taken up precious space for indispensable items such as wet wipes, books and Knorr tom yum cubes).

Suffice to say that a 1.5 litre plastic bottle sliced into half did the trick.

Growing up in a privileged environment, I had to engage in laborious work in Timor Leste for the first time. One common task was to carry and transport heavy boxes of project supplies and this was usually performed alone. Don’t ask me where the men were but thanks to them, I developed strong arms and I was in my best form.

However, when I went home for my break after a few months, the first thing Mom said to me was, “Hmmm…your hands. They’re not as smooth as before. They’re so rough now, like the hands of a coolie. What exactly were you doing there?!”

The other challenge was to pass my driving test and the vehicle of choice was the crude but extremely sturdy Tata Sumo 4x4. I was obviously out of practice when it came to driving a stick shift but thankfully, the Political Counsellor for the Chinese Embassy, one of the first few international delegates I encountered by chance, gave me a crash course a day before.

Even though I passed the test, I still struggled to manoeuvre the vehicle which nearly cost my life once when it rolled dangerously backward on a strip of narrow and curvy road by the edge of a steep cliff. Once I mastered it, a normal six-hour drive became five and my best record was four and a half as soon as I learned to identify unique landmarks which helped me to navigate my way easily through 215km of barren landscapes.

Of course, these were minor challenges compared to the many new and exciting experiences I had in my first mission. I would subsequently find myself losing my “virginities” over and over again.

I had my first experience of staying in a floating hotel in Dili. Amos was a massive boat which offered camp-style accommodation before any other hotels were built on lands. Lodgers had to share tiny compartments cramped with bunk beds, small suspended televisions offering HBO and BBC channels and a flooded shower room every time one took a shower. But it was also on the Amos that I had witnessed the most glorious sunset in my life.

It was in Timor Leste that I first flew on a four-seater helicopter, small enough to have intimate access to breathtaking views from all angles through the transparent windows on all side.

Hopping on one of these was as easy as riding on chartered buses, scheduled to transport us to villages on isolated mountains deep in the jungle, twice a week.

It was one of the few things I lived for in Timor Leste and the novelty never really wore off.

Ultimately, it was having my own private beach in “The Blue Lagoon” fashion that made my experience in Timor Leste truly memorable. Eight years ago, nobody would have heard of Los Palos, Tetuala and Jaco Island, what I considered as the “holy trinity” of Lautem district.

I spent hours basking in the sun on white sand as soft as talcum powder and snorkel alongside fishes, sea turtles and coral reef that would make any certified divers and crystal glass turn green with envy. It was also the first time I slept on the beach and woke up with the sight of a whale at a distant horizon. I was instantly humbled by its grace and enormity.

All these happened eight years ago and sometimes I wonder whether it’s still as virginal as I first saw it.

This was previously posted at The Malaysian Insider on 6 October 2009 under the title Paradise found…and lost?

You can take your heart away from home but you can’t take home away from your heart

I’ve recently started a column with The Malaysian Insider which appears every fortnightly on Sunday. This is the second article which is accessible here under a different title (Find heart in your home, you’ll have home in your heart) or just read below.

There is a beautiful song by Ilir Shaqiri, a Kosovar Albanian singer, that captures the immense joy and comfort of finding home in a foreign land better than any other songs I’ve known. (You can listen to it here)

I first heard of this song in Timor Leste when I was working with the United Nations back in 2002. One of my Kosovar friends had played it and despite not understanding a word of Albanian, I fell in love with the moving ballad, Shaqiri’s warm voice and the exotic sound of the Latin-Slavic language.

Naturally, I was curious to know the meaning. With my friend’s help, I discovered that the lyrics were even lovelier than the song itself.

It tells a moving tale of a Kosovar Albanian who travels to Istanbul on a business trip. During the trip, he enters a poçari shop (poçari means a clay vase seller in Albanian) and asks to see the best vase available. While inspecting the vase, it accidentally slips away from his hands and breaks into twenty-five pieces, much to his mortification.

The poçari goes berserk and starts to swear in Turkish. Offended by the poçari’s unnecessary insults, he swears back in Albanian. Expecting the poçari to put up a fight, he sees tears welling up in his eyes instead.

“Is this Turk, this Muslim going crazy? I swore at him and he’s hugging me,” he wonders.

The poçari reaches for another vase and hands it over to him and says pleadingly, “Swear on me again, please. I am also Albanian. Brother, swear on me in Albanian again. Albanian words cannot be bought here in the bazaar.”

Alarmed by this, the other customers run out from the shop. When the poçari and him are finally alone, the vases come crushing down and shake the Sea of Marmara.

According to my friend, there are many ethnic Albanians from Kosovo, Albania and Bosnia who were forced to escape to Turkey during the first and second world wars as well as the series of wars that erupted in former Yugoslavia during most of 1990s.

The Serbian government was determined to exterminate the “Turks”, a term given to ethnic Albanians who are predominantly Muslims, in reference to the spread of Islam by the Ottoman empire in the Balkans. An estimated 250,000 to 300,000 ethnic Albanians were driven out from their homes to Turkey between the first and second world wars and 250,000 more after the second world war. An estimated 2,000 (I was told 20,000) ethnic Albanians were killed in Kosovo under Slobodan Milosevic’s leadership.

It’s no wonder that the poçari is moved to tears when he hears his mother tongue uttered for the first time after a presumably long and painful period of exile, despite its ill-intention.

Five years ago, I was in Dubai during a transit from Kabul to Kuala Lumpur. I only had time to check into a hotel and leave the next day on an early morning flight. Feeling bored, I decided to check out the hotel’s boutique shops.

An interesting shop selling Middle-Eastern paraphernalia sparked my interest. I wanted to buy one of those make-your-own bracelets with intricate carvings on silver alphabet cubes as a gift for someone. The problem was, each cube would set me back quite a lot and the person doesn’t exactly have a short name.

“Do you give discounts for these if I buy more than five pieces?” I asked in true Malaysian fashion despite the shop owner’s sombre expression. He didn’t look like he was going to entertain my attempt to haggle.

“Where are these from?” I persisted in an attempt to break the silence and hopefully, during the process, he might soften.

“Iran,” he answered rather grudgingly. By then, he probably assumed that I was not worth his time since I appeared to be a cheap-skate.

“Are you from Iran?” I persevered. He nodded his head.

I smiled and said, “Chetor Hasti? (How are you?)” perhaps a tad too enthusiastically. I was feeling smug that I could converse in basic Farsi, a similar language to Dari, one of Afghanistan’s official languages.

Unexpectedly, the Iranian man broke into a huge smile. I could literally see the muscle on his cheeks relaxed and his initial hostility disappeared altogether.

He replied cheerfully, “Khoob Hastam, khoob Hastam (I’m fine, I’m fine).”

He was curious with my rudimentary knowledge of the language and I obtained his further approval once I explained that I worked in Afghanistan.

“You take this. Gratis. It’s gift from me,” he urged. It was impossible to refuse him as he pried open my hand and pushed the bracelet firmly onto my palm. I decided to accept his well-meaning gift graciously for I understood that by refusing him, it would insult his generosity and kindness.

“Tashakor (thank you),” I said to him with a polite head bow and my right arm folded across my chest. He laughed good-naturedly and replied, “In Farsi, we say ‘merci’.”

I am constantly amazed by our desperate need to identify ourselves with something familiar and it reminded me of the time that I had spent in Wales as a law student. We had a large Malaysian student community and I have never felt more Malaysian since then.

The issue of racial differences never came into question despite the Chinese and Indians being highly outnumbered. If anything, we all embraced and magnified the differences by flaunting them in cultural events.

Since we didn’t have sufficient Chinese and Indian Malaysians, the Malay students had to participate in Chinese and Indian dances. They never complained but were eager to partake in the cultural exchanges. We even had friends from Britain, Singapore, Hong Kong, China, India and Pakistan who volunteered to get involved.

Our spirit of solidarity and unity attracted them and that made us true ambassadors. We were in a foreign territory and hence, there was no issue of whose soil it belongs to. Life as a Malaysian was simple and unambiguous.

Malaysia is not just a country for many of us, it’s home and the experiences I had from living abroad teaches me the horror of ethnic intolerance and how precious it is to be free in your homeland.

I received unverified information that in a seminar conducted by Tun Mahathir, he had said that the only way for Malaysians to be united is if everyone were to become Muslims. I snorted and thought about the sectarian fights between Muslim brothers in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Here’s what I think. Unity can be achieved in three ways. First, for those people who call the minorities as pendatang to be sent off to a foreign land where they are subjected to discrimination and restrained from practising their faith. Hopefully, they’ll understand how it feels like to be unwelcomed.

Second, for all of us to become minorities in a foreign land because then, we will not be Malays, Chinese or Indians, but simply Malaysians. Third, nobody has to leave home but, we have to start treating each other as Malaysians.

The poçari and Iranian man taught us an important lesson. Home has nothing to do with religion or ethnicity. It’s a place where your heart belongs to.

My encounter with an inspiring man in Timor Leste

It’s rare that I meet inspiring people despite the kind of work that I do. I’ve met some who are really intelligent, industrious, enterprising, wise, funny or kind, but not many are inspiring. I think they are like a needle in a haystack.

In 2001, I worked as a UN Volunteer for the first time in East Timor. I was working as a Civic Education Officer then. I was posted to the furthest eastern coastal district of Lautem.

I still hold the same belief that it’s the most  tranquil and heavenly place I’ve ever been to. Since then, no beaches I’ve seen have come close to the uncorrupted white sand and crystal clear blue water of the beaches in Los Palos, Tetuala and Jaco Island. It was also the first and only time when I had sighted a whale from a distance in the ocean.

Every few months, I would drive through five to six hours of unpaved roads alongside barren fields that seemed to last for an eternity, curvy, narrow and hazardous coastal cliff towards the capital, Dili, to attend trainings.

We had an Australian trainer, “KD”, who had been living in East Timor for quite some time. Words had it that he was previously a human rights activist in Australia, fighting for the Timorese’s rights way before the country became a sovereign state in 2002. So, he wasn’t just any trainer. He was a trainer with a deep cause.

KD’s method of training was rather unconventional. Since, we trained together with our Timorese counterpart, it was important that the session was conducted in 2 languages, sometimes 3; English, Tetum (official language of Timor Leste) or Bahasa Indonesia. It was equally important that these trainings took into account the level of education of our local friends. So, we engaged in a lot of group activities instead of sitting in a classroom, listening and taking notes.

Anyway, KD was the only staff who could switch from English to Tetum with such ease that it was rather surreal to watch. After that, it was just amusing looking at this white man clad in his usual T-shirt and knee-length khaki pants, speaking in a language which most of us could hardly get used to, what more mastered it.

Apart from that, he was extremely funny and witty. He was also the sort who was so down to earth that everyone warmed up to him quickly.

Our training sessions usually lasted for about three to four days. It was a time when all the district Civic Education teams got together to share experiences, brainstorm, draft action plans and receive new materials. Above all, it was a time to get to know each other and build team spirit. Every training session ended with a special lunch and dinner where everyone of us could just let our hair down and have some fun.

I don’t think I’ve ever had so much fun and motivation while attending training sessions than the time I had spent in East Timor. Looking back, it was simply because KD was responsible for them.

I remember one day during one of these trainings, KD gathered us outside the training room. There were about thirty of us. Since it was held in a school, there was a big field just outside the classrooms and we were made to form a large circle. KD stood right in the middle of the circle.

He started doing all these silly movements and we were supposed to follow him. It was really funny to see all of us; different shades of black, brown, yellow and white of very different age range as well; wiggling, squatting, jumping and shaking all about. We all felt as giddy as kindergarteners and inevitably, roared with unrestrained laughter that when we finally trooped back into the room, we were filled with renewed energy and a huge dose of endorphins.

That was KD for you. He was never too proud to make a fool of himself and hence, we were never intimidated by him, just admiration and respect. He’s just like that; whether as a trainer or an individual.

He was the one who opened up my mind about how fun training can be, even if it’s for adults. He taught me how to engage people, explore different methods on adult-learning, using games and activities to awake the participants’ senses and to build team spirit. Learning isn’t the only important thing; sharing and bonding are as well.

Sometimes, KD would go on trips to visit all the Civic Education Officers stationed at the districts just to provide additional support or guidance for our activities. Once, when he came to Lautem to visit. I went to welcome him as he stepped out from his white four-wheel drive Tata, grinning from ear to ear. He has a narrow gap between his two upper front molars which made him looked goofy when he smiled. We hugged each other and he brought me chocolates!

We had a lovely time when he stayed over albeit it being a short trip. I took him for a short drive around Los Palos and it was pleasant looking at him talking to the locals amiably along the way. He even made them laughed but not before shocking them first with his fluency in Tetum.

The last time I saw KD was when he visited me in Kuala Lumpur nearly seven years ago. I usually don’t receive foreign guests when I’m home; not because I don’t want to but I’m rather shy and uncomfortable meeting people whom I haven’t seen for quite some time. I made an exception for KD because he was different from many people I’ve met. There was no air or pretention in him and he had this special knack of putting people at ease.

I’ve lost contact with him since then even though I’ve tried to get in touch with him through some mutual people we know. At some stage, he was offered a transitional justice position in Afghanistan with the UN but decided to work in Nepal instead, much to my disappointment as I was still in Afghanistan at that time.

I recently googled him and he is apparently back in Timor Leste, working as the UN’s Spokesperson. He was speaking to ABC Radio Australia on the handing over of police forces to the local authorities in Lautem, the first district in Timor Leste to have such ownership. It is strange to read about him and Lautem, the place which has linked us together.

There are people who make policies and there are those who really make a difference. KD is the second type and this is what makes him truly inspiring.