An almost carefree air pervades the capital of East Timor. But there is a surreal feeling that this could end suddenly, maybe before, during or after next Monday's vote for autonomy, independence or chaos.
The Indonesian military are off the torpid streets and the white ATV's of the UN park in place of their brown trucks. Spookiness - in Dili, though not in the countryside - is a thing of the past for now.
Sheer rocky brown mountains drop to sandy beaches edging a turquoise sea at Dili's waterfront. East Timor's atrocities have been set in spectacular surroundings, reminiscent of Guatemala.
Speech is freer in restaurants and hotels - which can be counted on one hand in this low-rise city of 100,000. An officer at the next table is now more likely to be a UNAMET district electoral officer than one of the TNI, the Indonesian army.
Next Monday's vote will be fair, but can it be safe? The UN Assistance Mission in East Timor has attracted admiration for its courage, thoroughness and creativity - not alone in managing to register more than 450,000 voters in spite of intimidation by anti-independence militias, mountainous terrain, and voters' often doubtful documentation.
Many of UNAMET's almost 1,000 number (including the 10-strong Garda contingent among the 271 civilian police ("Civpol"), have experience in Bosnia, Kosovo and other tense postings.
UNAMET has gone to great lengths to educate voters in a land where illiteracy (mostly among women) is up to 60 per cent. It runs multi-lingual radio and television programmes. In the local Indonesian language paper, Suara Timor Timur, UNAMET takes the back page to publicise daily voter information and accounts of violent campaign incidents. The paper's offices were attacked several months ago for publishing such news.
Four columns of news are in English, Tetum, Bahasa (Indonesian) and Portuguese and their order is alternated each day. So, too, are campaigning days.
All the days seem the same because the anti-independence autonomists campaign when they like. It is regarded as an achievement that the pro-independence umbrella group, the CNRT, has opened two offices in Dili. One of them has just raised its flag after anti-independence militia took it down. But in the mountains this weekend nothing stopped thousands celebrating the 24th anniversary of FALINTIL, the rebel army.
UNAMET said on Friday it plans to have kites flying over its 200 polling stations in the country, so that voters making the long trek to them can find their way. "It will be written in the sky where to vote," said UNAMET's spokesman, Mr David Wimhurst.
One of the UN's main watchdogs here is the also well organised International Federation for East Timor Observer Project, dedicated to "self-determination" for the former Portuguese colony.
It thinks UNAMET is inclined to be too upbeat about the days ahead. Since the campaign began on August 14th there have been several murders and serious incidents of militia attacks on would-be voters.
IFET will have 120 volunteer observers from 15 countries - including two from Ireland. (One of them, Mr Garry Kilgallen, of Friends of South Africa, is being posted to the neglected old Portuguese region of Oe-Cusse, a region of East Timor that is, in fact, in Indonesian West Timor.)
IFET has two main concerns - getting voters safely to the stations and processing them in the time allowed. Voting stations, staffed by two unarmed UN electoral officers each, will be open from 6.30 a.m. to 4 p.m.
What if there are still queues at 4 p.m.? IFET is "seriously concerned" at a UNAMET plan to reopen the next day and points to the risk of storing ballot boxes overnight in areas terrorised by militias. Nor can much be expected from the Indonesian police, who always do "too little too late" when there's trouble.
Mr Randall Garrisson of IFET said that communication with UNAMET was very good but "to some extent they are making it up as they go along".
He pointed to one of the attacks last week. In Manatuto, a town east of Dili reached by a precipitous road high above the sea, the local offices of CNRT were "completely destroyed". IFET says it has the name of a Kopassus (special forces) officer who was present. UNAMET, said Mr Garrisson, saw it as "a bump on the road".
In Same, south of Dili, there had been no pro-independence demonstrations at all and no door-to-door canvassing because of attacks on students trying to set up a CNRT office there, he said.
"When one side has had daily attacks you can't be optimistic about polling," said Mr Charlie Shiner, another IFET official. "We see it everywhere. Among the general public there is a feeling that this is a powder keg." He is not ruling out the possibility of a bloodbath in Phase 2, after the voting and after the result, which can be expected within a week.
Phase 2 includes the weeks of limbo under Indonesian rule - when most of the observers and more than 400 foreign journalists will have left - until Indonesia's Consultative Assembly (MPR) votes on whether East Timor is to be granted independence (assuming the result has rejected autonomy).
For now the big question at UNAMET, IFET and other foreign observer centres here is will the ballot be free and fair enough?
IFET believes that the turn-out will be crucial, reflecting the level of intimidation rather than of interest. If, for instance, only 40 per cent turn out "the tendency would be to reject the result. But then again if 80 per cent turn out and vote for autonomy? Yes, it's a problem," said Mr Garrisson.
A judgment on whether the vote "has been an accurate reflection of the will of the people" will be made by the Independent Electoral Commission which is to make a recommendation to the UN Secretary General. IFET puts some hope in a belief that the Indonesian government of President B. J. Habibie "cares about its international reputation".
Doubt persists that the army high command does.
But IFET's view seems encouraged by the director of information at Jakarta's Foreign Ministry, Mr Sulaiman Abdulmanan. "The government has a very strong determination to solve this problem once and for all," he told The Irish Times.
This resolve included all ministers including the Defence Minister and chief of the armed forces, Gen Wiranto, he said.
Mr Abdulmanan reiterated President B. J. Habibie's recent State of the Nation attempt to assuage domestic anxiety that independence for East Timor would unravel Indonesia's uneasy unity, encouraging already violent separatism in Aceh, Ambon, or Irian Jaya.
Asked about a debate between Australia and the US about sending peacekeepers if mayhem breaks out and Indonesia's refusal to countenance such an idea, he said: "The conditions for civil war do not exist in East Timor . . . We are still able to control the situation."