We’re sitting in the gardens of the Xanana Gusmao Reading Room in Dili, East Timor, and it’s about 33 steaming degrees in the shade. Even Dili’s ubiquitous crowing roosters sound weary of the heat. But Sister Michelle Reid is looking cool and relaxed in a pair of bright pink cotton pants. The colour of the pants exactly matches her shoulder bag, made by one of the convicted criminals she has been working with over the past four years in Dili’s notorious Becora Prison.
I find myself wondering about the man who has carefully sewn together the pink purse for his Australian teacher. Was he a member of the pro-Indonesian militia mobs who tortured and massacred thousands of East Timorese after the 1999 vote for independence? Or is he a convicted rapist, in this country where violence against women constitutes about 40 per cent of all criminal offences?
It’s quite possible that Michelle Reid doesn’t know what crime this man has committed. Since the first day she began visiting the prison to run workshops for the inmates, she has been far more interested in redemption than in sin.
‘I never made any inquiries about why they were there,’ she tells me. ‘I wanted to be able to meet the men as individuals, not to meet their crimes, so that a relationship could be established between us first. My idea was not to change them but to create a safe place within the prison where they could come and change themselves.’
I first met Michelle Reid by chance in a Dili café in June 2004, and it was some time into our conversation before she mentioned that she was a Catholic nun. At that first meeting, she had described to me how she sometimes had to trick the local taxi drivers into taking her to the jail, so fearsome was its reputation in the East Timorese capital.
When I interviewed her on my return visit in 2005, she laughed at the memory. ‘Yes, I used to have to say, “Just a little bit further up this street, not far now.” But I’ve never felt fearful for my own safety in the jail. People are amazed when they see a prisoner and a guard holding hands when they’re talking, but that’s quite normal. There are a lot of Timorese cultural attributes that are beneficial for a calm environment in the jail.’
Michelle Reid is a Good Samaritan Sister of