Last of the Bloodsports

East Timor – Last of the Bloodsports By Ted McDonnell IT’S dusk on a January afternoon in Dili, East Timor – an island nation some 600 kilometres off the coast of Australia. An hour ago, rain was pouring from the heavy set clouds, all but, flooding the streets, but that was an hour ago and now the humidity has reached 97 percent. It’s hot and sweaty… The Dili streets are crammed with humanity, cars and motor scooters weaving amongst the unruly traffic. People are doing last minute shopping for dinner but many are rushing off to the island’s national sport. Men and their sons are scrambling along the pot-holed streets of suburban Bidau, 10 minutes from the centre of Dili with their prized roosters on strings rushing to East Timor’s favorite past time ‘Cock Fighting’ – a sport that seems as old as the country itself. It’s an unfortunate sport, and one of the last true blood sports that would have raised the hairs on the back of the likes of Ernest Hemingway’s neck. In his days, living in Cuba, ‘Papa’ was an advocate of ‘Cock fighting’… he loved the fighting of the cocks, the gambling, the blood, the yelling and drinking. He once wrote: “There is no need to tell them that the one reason you live there is because you can raise your own fighting cocks, train them on the place, and fight them anywhere you can match them and that this is all legal.” Hemingway would have loved the cock fighting in Dili… he would have thrived gambling, the aggression between human and chook alike, and the ultimate blood and deat.h On any week day in various locations around Dili, thousands of men and boys - gather to gamble on this national obsession. A match may take anything from a few seconds to several minutes... the 3 inch razor sharp blades tied to the cock’s legs ensure fights are decisive and death assured… there is only ever one winner and the loser is dispatched unceremoniously to the dinner table. But even the hardest man would have to admit it’