LUCY EDKINS

Anne Ooms' room
  
A room in Timor

From the kitchen area you look over to the living room, open, colourful, a sense of space and muted, dappled light. Two walls mostly window, long wooden framed windows held open at the bottom by sticks. Two archways, one corridor width, the other wide, separate the two living areas.

Walls painted bright blue, blue green, painted with a dry brush to give a scrubbed effect, ceiling fans, vinyl sofas, two black, one red, draped with the traditional woven cloths in Timor Leste, the thais. A small white coffee table in the middle of the sofas, on it a jug of flowers and foliage from the garden.

It's a tropical house and through the windows, walls of tropical foliage: flowering vines, hibiscus, coconut palm, bougainvillea, large flowering ginger.... beyond, vines cover the fence, bananas, lemongrass, teak, fig, a bed of basil. The house is clothed in green. Through one set of windows you can see the front, covered verandah with its row of pot plants on a ledge and cane chairs.

An orange painted ceiling fan, a white ceiling. A painting by a Timorese artist: a single tree in the centre, landscape of hills, sea, sand, sky. On another wall a collection of rusted objects scavenged from the beach. A small box on the floor filled with books and a pair of yellow thongs on top. White tiled floor.

On the right side wall, to the right of the windows, a wooden door opens onto the garden, beside it a red painted book shelf inset, mostly filled with books. Beneath, also inset into the wall a red desk covered in papers and odds and ends. A large woven mat, a sleeping mat, in front of the door.

There is always some noise: chickens, dogs, the vegetable cart man, the Baptist church, the motorbikes, the children playing in the street, lads, neighbourhood chatter and shouts, sometimes a karaoke weekend....

A woman lives here alone, it is usually hot. She often lies on the mat near a standing fan and reads. She will not live here too much longer, she thinks. She appreciates the space and beauty of the house. Sometimes she thinks, this is not my beautiful house......