Skitching

I first came across this term as having the meaning to ride your skateboard behind a car holding the bumper bar, preferably ducking low enough so the driver couldn't see he was towing you as a hitchhiker-cum-stowaway.

There is a refinement here in Dili. A kid on a bicycle will hang on to the tail hook of a cooperative motorbike rider and coast along. Sometimes 2 kids. My record, though, was Dad with one hand on the right of the tow rail and his other arm linked to a son whose brother was linked to him.

But wait, that’s not all.

On the other side, brother number 3 was holding the left of the tow rail, making for a 5-wide cavalcade of riders. They were travelling at a comfy 20 kph down the main street of Dili calmly ignoring the honks of protest from traffic banked up behind.

There aren't that many roads without deep or extensive potholes in Dili and it didn't seem to me that the one handed riders (or none, in Dad’s case) would cope with this well. I wonder where they were going?