JOHN'S STORY
JOHN used to live in a house in Dili with four bedrooms and two tankfuls of fish.
It was just like any other house, except there were lots of different ways to get out, just in case bad people came.
On 6 September 1999, six-year-old John and his family left Dili.
They took nothing with them, and they never went back.
Five years on, John is in Grade Five at St John’s Catholic Primary School in East Melbourne.
But to get to Australia John and his family took the long way around.
This is John’s story as told to Lachlan Hastings.
BEFORE THE WAR
Dili was warm.
There were lots of markets and shops and lots of trucks and buses.
My Dad owned four trucks and two buses. They were big buses, like buses in Australia.
I lived in a house with my cousin.
There were lots of ways out because his family were scared of burglars and people who might come with a gun and stuff.
It was a noisy city, but in the middle of the night it was quiet.
6 SEPTEMBER 1999
The war started in 1999, when I was six years old.
I was born on 12 February 1993.
On the day we left, it was raining badly – heavily.
We left everything except our dogs.
We once had five dogs but two of our dogs died because robbers poisoned them when they tried to get in.
We took our three dogs as far as Bali then we gave them to an old man.
ATAMBUA AND KUPANG
The first place we went to was Atambua in East Timor.
I liked it there because there was a waterfall.
We slept there for one night in our car until morning because we had nowhere to go at night.
But I didn’t know where we were going.
Then we went to Kupang and stayed there for two weeks in a hotel.
We went to buy clothes because we didn’t take anything with us.
I still have got a jacket we bought, but it is only little. It doesn’t fit me anymore.
BALI
Kupang became too dangerous for us because the bad people came.
They started in the corner of Timor, and kept moving up and catching people.
Sometimes they caught people and put them in the jail. Maybe they killed them.
So we went to Bali.
We flew there in little aeroplane that went up and down, up and down.
It was scary.
We stayed in Bali for a month but we stayed inside mostly because we were scared.
MACAU
Then we went to Macau, which is part of China, and stayed there over a month.
We flew there on a big plane with two levels – the biggest plane I had ever seen.
There were lots of people selling animals they had caught such as sea snakes for food.
In East Timor, people eat snake.
I had it once, about a year before we left - back when it was alright in East Timor.
It tastes like chicken.
THE CHOICE
It was time for us to make a choice.
Mum and Dad didn’t tell me but I knew.
We had to vote.
We could go back to East Timor or go to Portugal.
Mum and Dad chose Portugal.
After that we went to Portugal and lived in Portugal for one year.
I think it was January when we went there. Back then I didn’t know how to tell the time or the date.
I liked it in Portugal.
East Timor was a flat country but in Portugal the roads went up and down, up and down.
But we had no relatives there because they chose East Timor.
I went to school in Portugal, but I didn’t really do Grade Two at all.
But in East Timor I went to kinder, Prep and Grade One before the war started.
There I learnt in Indonesian and in “Hakka” – olden day Chinese spoken in East Timor.
I still have some of the books over here.
But Portuguese was hard to learn.
I don’t member any Portuguese at all but I do know some Italian.
Si means ‘yes’.
DARWIN
We got visas to travel to Australia.
From East Timor to Australia we went a long way around because we went to Bali, Macau and Portugal first.
It took nearly two days on a big plane to get to Australia.
Because I had been on a plane before the trip was boring.
When we arrived in Darwin my unclue came and took us to my great-grandmas house.
It was boiling hot in Darwin and it was only after we left we found out there was a swimming pool.
Then we went to Melbourne.
MELBOURNE
When we first came to Melbourne we stayed with my uncle in Deer Park, but not for long.
Then we came to the Richmond flats to live with my mum’s family.
For two-and-a-half years ten of us lived in the one flat.
Sometimes my cousins stayed and that made 12 in all.
Then we went to Brisbane to visit relatives for two weeks.
Afterwards, we went to Sydney for two weeks to visit our relatives there also.
Then we went back to Melbourne.
We have now celebrated Christmas in Australia three times – once in Sydney and twice in Melbourne.
MAY 2004
Now I am in Grade Five at St John’s Catholic Primary School in East Melbourne.
But for two-and-a-half years I went to Richmond West Primary school.
I like St John’s - when I went there I improved a lot.
At Richmond West we started work but never finished it. At St John’s we have to finish our work before we go out and play.
TODAY
I like living in Australia.
Sometimes my dad goes fishing at the big bridge behind the city.
When he catches fish, he brings them home straight away and my mum cooks them.
They are fresh and tasty.
Last year, I caught a pink fish. It was flipping and going everywhere.
Mum took out all the guts and cooked it.
It was yummy.
I am still East Timorese, but once I have been in Australia for a while I will call myself Australian.