Grafitti

As I sit in the back of a school in Timor I am grasped by one of my small passions; writing my name on things. A form of proof, that I was once somewhere and. . .had a pen?

Sitting in one of the larger desks I have plenty of room to write my name on the leg out of the view of the other students. As I study the desk I realize that as far as my passion is concerned I am far from alone. The desk is marred with names and dates; words and Tetun, Bahasa, and English. The walls are also covered to about 5 feet in scrawls and words and drawings.

Graffiti in many of its forms interests me. Having traveled most of the United States and stopping at every tourist trap on the way, I have become an old hand at reading while going to the bathroom.

The walls of truck stops are of particular meaning to me. There is no paper in America that has a better advertisement section the walls of a long time truck stop bathroom. Pictures and drawings and scrawled phone numbers. There is racism and fear there as well; misogyny, anti-Semitism. But if you look long enough and ignore the blaring black marker you often find poetry of the kind I like. I once ran into a burgeoning poet while working my way from Florida to North Carolina. I noticed his simple verse in Orlando and by North Carolina he was taking up more and more space with something that approached art. I wish I had continued north and seen what he was writing by Maine.

In America a bathroom wall is a place to throw out lines looking for someone who might understand or agree. Or start fights. I have always enjoyed graffiti fights, mostly in bars near urinals. "Mike was here", "Mike is an asshole", "Mike will kick your ass", "Mike can't find me because he's an asshole" and so on.

In Timor most the bathrooms are made of baebuck, from spiky Palm fronds laid together and pierced. It does not give a good surface for writing. The schools are different, they have white walls made for graffiti.  This one is dominated by the artist and an English enthusiast named Maccom. Right above my desk Maccom has written "this is a place for meeting" and further towards the corner of the room he has written "this is a place for me to be meeting alone"

I have no good psychological understanding of graffiti. I imagine one could be made between the difference in the American graffiti and those found in other countries. I believe that there is a reason we have the phrase, "He couldn't see the writing on the wall."

Here in Timor.  There are no symbols;  little hearts or pluses or minuses.  No skulls or swastikas or lightning bolts. Just names, and little drawings of things that exist. There are no professions of love or accusations of such. Just doodles. Is this a mind at peace? Or  one that has not fully comprehend its own capacity. I wonder if the children start playing games if this will change. It is a tenet of a collectivist society to group instead of standing alone.  Entrepreneurship is all about standing alone.

 I do not know the political or sociological ramifications of trying to encourage individualism in a society that values the family more than person, but I know there are sparks of that great independent fire out there. Maccom  sticks to trees and pig faces rendered in a squarish hand.  But there, by the edge, is a whorl of shapes.  An abstract; to me it looks like it is trying to be the curve of a woman’s back. I wonder if he saw it too.

 Maccom is not my favorite graffiti artist. That title belongs to someone who calls himself Jonn, King of Mongki.

I think I would not mind going into business with Jonn King of Mongki. I think he's got some of the delusions of grandeur that fuel entrepreneurs during the long nights of work. My favorite piece by him, of the 12 scattered in and about Dilli, is one in which a very tiny Timorese teenager is trying desperately to escape from the enormous ass crack of a bright green sumo wrestler. He has his head and one arm free and he looks as if he's about to hook a foot and struggle on. This drawing is within a stone’s throw of the ministry of education. And I like to think that its placement is no coincidence.

Here we go.  “Tc was here. This is a place for me to be meeting myself”