Grow up

It's really very sad to realise that my ingenuity keeps me believing in things that really don't exist so that I feel like the worst fool when I'm confronted with reality.

For me, East Timor, the newest country in the world, was an example of bravery and courage. They fought Indonesia invasion for 25 years and then they became a country in their own right. Of course I only know this because East Timor was a former Portuguese colony and it was on the news all the time. I remember one day, 15 years ago or so, a Portuguese TV channel did a story on East Timor freedom fighters. Many of them lived with their families and children hidden in the mountains. The reporters followed them at night, they were going some place and for some reason they could not make any noise, maybe because Indonesian troops were patrolling the area, I don't know. What I do remember is that at some point a little boy trips and falls into a hole on the floor. Her mother runs to him, helps him to get out of the hole and you see her talking to the boy, taking her finger to her lips and urging him to be quiet, not to cry, so that nobody hears them. The little boy holds his tears and doesn't cry. An old men sees that and turns to the camera, smiles and gives the thumbs up, as if he's saying "we're going to make it". And they did make it.

Or so I thought. The latest reports I've read by journalists that have recently been to the country talk about a country devastated by corruption, inefficiency, lack of money or money obscenely spent in unimportant things. It turns out that the people of East Timor are not as united as was thought, they have different ethnicities and fight each other or don't get along and politicians don't give a shit and buy expensive cars and use money from abroad to invest in mobile phone companies. It is expected that a new country faces the deepest problems but these are problems cause by sheer disrespect and corruption.

I am the most stupid person in the world. Also the saddest.