Crowd-pleaser lightens misery

DILI - In a city where hope is only beginning to extend beyond the next meal, Action Jackson and Duncan Gray are beacons.

Inside the sports stadium where thousands live under tarpaulins and behind barbed wire and machine-guns, Gray, an Auckland property manager, hands out rice to an endless stream of people left with nothing but each other.

Outside, "Action" - Sydneysider Andy Jackson - keeps thousands more cheering, laughing and singing as they wait to enter the stadium, 100 at a time, hour after hour.

"Aussie, Aussie, Aussie," roars Action, a sergeant in the Royal Australian Regiment's third battalion.

"Oi, Oi, Oi!" the crowd roars back.

"Timor, Timor, Timor!" yells Action.

"Oi, Oi, Oi!" yells the crowd.

As Action launches into another standup routine for a crowd that does not understand English but knows how to laugh, a truck filled with armed Indonesian soldiers rumbles slowly past.

"This is good time to sing your song," says Action.

"I can sing louder than the lot of you together," he says, as the crowd shifts uncomfortably.

Slowly, they begin to sing.

As the Indonesians stop at the gate opposite, and pumped by Action's encouragement, the Timorese resistance anthem, Foho Ramealau, grows steadily to a crescendo and ends in cheers and applause.

"Timor, Timor, Timor!"

"Oi, Oi, Oi!"

The Indonesians turn into their gate, staring straight ahead.

"It's good to be over here helping," Action says. "It takes a long time to get this amount of people through here and by lightening the mood a little bit it allows people to calm down and not get so stressed about things.

"Hopefully, between renditions out there we can get through without stress and injury."

Inside, Gray, of Devonport, has taken three months off work to help World Vision dole out rice, 5kg at a time, beneath 35-degree skies.

"It touches your heart, especially when the kids come through," he says.

"But I tell you what, they can still manage a smile."