I dropped my father off at the airport on Sunday after five weeks of rolling around Dili and neo-hippie-watching, emulating, in Ubud. Before he flew we decided to head down to Tasi Tolu* to check out the new statue of João Paulo II and the reportedly $7 million road leading to his bronze feet.
The statue sits on top the last little peak of the ridge line that curves around the three salty ponds – fused now with the season’s rains into two – that give the area its name. The Pope is about a quarter the height of Cristo Rei, and with his confounding-ly boxy body, petite head and lower perch, he lacks the Rio-of-Asia oomph of his savior just visible to the east. Unfinished, when we visited the bronze likeness wore a sash of blue tarp, its face obscured with a white plastic bag.
Up atop the next small peak, in the white sunlight of midday, we squinted west as an Anteater truck unload sludge into the treatment ponds, scanned north to the reef at Dili rock, Atauro, and then looked east to the cemetery above Mustang’s house and over to the fuzz of smoke indicating the center of Dili. Shots from the firing range below went pop pop pop as we talked about what the weather would be like back home, summers at the farm
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