Changing Times for the Family

The biggest thing on my mind right now is my sweet younger sister who is going through a very tough time.

The second biggest thing on my mind is my sweet wife, Cynthia, who cannot remain in Timor-Leste in her current condition.  It is time to pack her and the kids up and take them back to Oz.  The hole in her heart valve appears to be getting worse.  She’s had it all her life but has managed to get by until now.  The last two weeks have been spent mostly in bed.  So this Wednesday we return to Oz and put the kids into school for a couple of months and I will come back to Timor and we’ll just see how things go.  Of course, there are a bunch of things going on for us here which makes it hard to suddenly just leave.  We are not sure how things will go in the future but like all of creation its a step-by-step journey.  In some sense though, it feels as though my world is falling apart.

Meanwhile, things keep happening.  Anen, my friend and neighbour proudly owns his beachfront units with his loan completely paid off after 5 years. 

He’s just doing some painting with a change of tenants and the place is looking great.

I got to go out and shift a weather station to a new, more permanent location at Remexio, up the mountain from Dili.  The Government staff I work with, Florindo, is here spraying the station against ants which is the biggest killer of electronics.

The guy with the machete is collecting posts to construct a temporary fence around the station.

We usually have an audience, and here some local kids return home from school.  They also get our usual speech, “We’re measuring rainfall, so please don’t shoot this thing with your slingshot.” Time will tell.  For the adults, they get our other speech, “That thing measures wind speed, when the wind blows, it spins, and not the other way around – it does not bring a big wind here.”  Even in high mountain locations like this our stations have been accused of drawing big winds into the area by the little whirly-gig that sits on top and spins.  Although the kids don't really get it, this station will contribute to a raft of improvements that will hopefully mean a brighter future for them, albeit a decade or more down the track.

A side effect of sourcing rubber tubing for the corn husker was buying an extra tube for playing at the beach.

The other cool thing that happened was the first container load of farm products got delivered for a group I’m working with called the Nazareth Foundation.  We got barbed wire, star pickets, buckets and filters, corn shellers and grinders.  Its an exciting time of developing a group that I hope will be able to see problems in the field, research solutions on the internet and import necessary items to deliver innovative and affordable products to a Timorese market.  A second container coming will have some chicken wire which we hope will save the lives of a lot of chickens from unnecessary carnage.

Unfortunately, the quality of the barbed wire is not as good as I’d like but its a work in progress.

These and other things will go on hold though, while I take my sweet fam back to Australia for some serious medical attention. 

Good rains need a good corn husker

A spirit house called an “uma lulik” looks over a field of corn in the mountains of Luro, Timor-Leste.

Right now we are in the middle of the wet season.  It still doesn’t rain all that much where we live – the north coast of Timor-Leste is a comparatively dry location.  But up in the mountains and on the south and east it can rain heavy every day for an hour or two.  By now, all the corn is in and rice planting is under way.

 

How old is this rusty barbed wire?  About 3 years. I put it in with my mates from Oz.  The quality of the steel is so poor it has snapped in some places. Just one of a long list of reasons that keep these guys so poor.  The barbed wire was twice the cost of barb in Oz which will last 50 years before it looks like this (note that the fence was never burnt which destroys the gal). 

Last week I got the opportunity to visit Lino, my corn farming friend, and our test crop of corn. 

This crop is the first one that I was able to be on the farm on planting day to help out. Probably the single biggest issue he faces is getting plant density right – that is, the number of plants in every square metre.  Research shows that the best density is around 4-6 plants/m2.  When I first met Lino he was planting at around 1 plant/m2.  Its not just a matter of rocking up and saying, “Plant them closer!”  You’ve got to be persuasive and convince not only one farmer but the whole community since they make decisions at a community level.  In fact, after 3 years of working with Lino I’ve only managed to get him to raise the plant density to 2 plants/m2.  I guess I’m not very persuasive.  This year, I decided it was time to be on site on the day and work alongside Lino targeting 5-6 plants/m2.  The corn is looking great after 6weeks in the ground but its still early days.  They’ll still need to battle it out with white grubs eating the roots and the possibility of strong winds flattening the corn.

Some green grubs attacking the young flower at the top of the corn plant destroys the pollen needed for the cob. 

The good news is that there are plenty of corn shellers now out in the country just itching to shell corn. 

Yours truly with a bunch of corn shellers ready to roll. Anyone working with corn in a developing country should grab one of these!

Next challenge?  Make a corn husker!  Now why didn’t you think of that?!  If you don’t know what it is, just google “corn husker” and it’ll bring up a bunch of images of either very cute, blonde cheer leaders for some footy team in the US or a small hook thing that straps onto your hand.  Honestly, I’m more interested in the hook that straps onto your hand. 

Apparently those yanks have been using this thing for a century or two and keeping it all to themselves.  Since the corn shelling job has been reduced, corn husking is now the big task.  We don’t have good quality leather here so I’m going to try to fashion one out of an old car tube and some scrap metal.  While working on my new invention, Israel says, “Why do you want to make that? pulling the husk off a corn cob doesn’t take long!”  So we did the maths, say 15 seconds to pick up, de-husk and bucket a cob.  Say Lino has 1.4 ha at 2 cobs/m2.  Thats 28000 cobs.  At 4 cobs a minute, 240 cobs/hr, say 2000 cobs per 8 hr shift.  At that rate, it would take 14 days.  Increase your plant density and you’ll be husking corn for a month.  So its time to get inventing and reduce the work load.  Stay tuned…

First though, I had to get back home to Cynthia.  While we wait for a fast flowing river to go down, a bus makes a daring attempt to cross the causeway coming dangerously close to the edge.  You’ll be pleased to know we waited longer before crossing.

Unfortunately, things haven’t been going well for Cynthia and the pregnancy.  She’s been finding it hard to breathe with tight pains in her chest.  We ended up visiting two doctors.  We are banking on it being muscle strain creating chest pain and resulting in oxygen deficiency.  A bit of paracetamol and “tiger balm” appears to be helping.

Pray for stability, there are multiple road blocks trying to catch a “revolutionary”.  The Prime Minister is “reshuffling” his government, and just for your entertainment, I mention a grenade lobbed into a US compound, I mean, why?  The yanks are nice aren’t they?  They just let us steel the secret of the corn husker.

Pregga’s

The big news this week is that Cynthia is pregnant! That will bring our tally up to four. The first three are rip-snorter specimens so I hope that number four follows suite. You can’t get too confident though. If my maths is right I also think it means we’ve contributed to a doubling of the world’s population. However if you include our siblings into the picture it’s still an overall decline in the population. So no biggy. We receive what the good Lord gives. It is quite difficult for Cynthia though because of a leaky valve in her heart so she’s pretty short on breath but still coping (just).

I’ve finished drawing the Beto Training Centre.  It’s a rather ambitious project that I’ve been musing over for a good 18months or more. I’m still not exactly sure if I should proceed but then I’m not exactly sure about a lot of things these days. Here it is…

This is the first floor, its got several snazzy features:

1. Large sewing room for Bele Kria

2. Shop front for Bele Kria sales and other items

3. Reception for the whole centre including handling sales for Bele Kria

4. Large training and meeting room – multi-purpose space

5. Kitchen for daily use of staff as well as trainees

6. Office for administration

7. Small library and study space.

8. Sound room for recording local music.

9. Bathroom, shower, toilet (extra facilities including laundry located in separate building at back)

Then the top floor looks like this:

1. Dorm 1: Accommodation for up to 8 women – designed for women in need, or young women coming to Dili for study. Women will be trained in sewing, design and hospitality and assist in the operation of the centre.

2. Bed 1: Bedroom for staff member caring for women.

3. Unit 1: Unit for foreign volunteer assisting with operations

4. Dorm 2: Dorm for visiting teams to sleep 12 – either foreigners from overseas or local people from the mountains coming to receive training.

5. Unit 2: Separate unit accessed from outside centre. Designed to be a source of income to help in paying for operation of the centre such as food, electricity and maintenance.

So there you have it.  We could do with some help on this one.  My neighbour just scored two loos for $25 each so it looks like we are on our way.  I am interested in sourcing some specific materials from Oz for this such as quality louvers and some regular door handles, and taps and sinks – the sorts of things that are difficult to find here.  Let me know if you’ve got ideas.

Looks like we’ll be preggas with activity this year.

A New Year in Timor-Leste

So 2014 is done and its time to look into 2015 and think about the year ahead – what to do, who to be, how will our family grow?

Some highlights from 2014 were:

• the shifting of management of Bele Kria from Cynthia to Emmy to become a more independent Timorese entity.
• the teaching of young church leaders in a joint Bible course with our Brazilian friends
• the groups who came to visit us such as the Darwin crew preaching the good news of Jesus with the Timorese churches in Los Palos.
• the support of a number of Timorese ministries with finance, mentoring and that ambiguous term: “capacity building”
• the ramping up of water filter systems as a small business operated by Serenity.

Of course there were a bunch of other cool things that happened but I list these as the more unique highlights of 2014.  I think its important that we do things each year that stand out from other years, things you can go wow at.  Something I’ve been brewing on over the year is the sense that great deeds are accomplished beyond our day job.  The task we do each day like going to school, looking after our family or going to work is really important but I think the things that change the world around us is what is done in addition to the day to day life.

So what’s on for 2015?  Who knows? but here’s some guesses …

Given that water filters could take off and I see some other pressing needs around me like good rolls of barbed wire (go figure!?) I decided to go into international trading.  We’ve ordered a container of mixed goods from China: filters, buckets, barbed wire, chicken wire, hand grinders, hand corn shellers and star pickets.  This will be imported with a small business here in Timor to help them ramp up their current activities of meeting the needs of poor families in day to day activities.  Its about observing the menial and challenging tasks in the home such as cooking, getting clean water, growing veggies, preparing food and then trying to find appropriate solutions to these tasks.

I’ve also started on that training centre I’ve mentioned in 2014.  In fact, the first patch of concrete was poured today – the driveway to get onto the land.  I’m not exactly totally committed on this task which is sort of massive but I’m not getting any vibes to back off so its more than likely to go ahead.  You’ve gotta love my anti-“call of God” sort of approach to this sort of thing.  Its more like “yeah, maybe I will, but then maybe I wont”.  Its like a “wandering around blindly in the desert after God” sort of approach, which is what it feels like most of the time.  No offense intended to the big man upstairs.  Lets just hope he makes some sense out of our actions down here.

On that happy note, God bless you all in 2015, watch a little less telly and do something beyond your day-to-day this year and I guarantee your life will get just a little more lively.

Big heart, Big God

For some strange reason (lets blame technology) one of the great stories of this year hasn’t yet been told.  Back in July, we had a visit by a team from the Palmerston Baptist Church.  The trip was a mix of evangelism and practical work.  The main aim was to work with the local churches in Los Palos to run a series of night programs in the town. 

Great men (in brown skin) who are ready to work together for God’s glory.  This work was facilitated by the ever faithful Pastor Samuel (in red) together with a number of local churches including the Independent Protestant Church (IPTL), Baptist, Nazarene and Assemblies of God (AoG). 

Ok, starting out was a bit slow, but who can resist this sweet dynamic duo below doing a boogie to one of the songs.

The young people were a real winner with the locals.

As word got around that the group was in town the excitement began to build.  I really appreciated the flexibility of the group and being open to encourage the locals to get in on the action.  Pretty soon we found some great talent especially in a local Baptist church.

Some of the girls from the local Baptist church making fast friends.

The gathering each night grew with fun and games from the youth and great, simple preaching from Doug and Janelle.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Each morning the team did some hard yakka tiling the youth house under the steady eye of Graham out the back of the Nazarene Church.  Its great to see this accommodation facility now being used by young people needing a place to stay.

Look ma, no tiles!

Slabs don't come neat and level in this country, the first job is chiselling off lumps and bumps.

This is actually very hard work, what a sensational effort !

There seems to be no easy way to clean off the cement.

Look, ma, tiles!!!  Notice also the cupboard and lining in the study which included re-doing some electrical.

Yes, just occasionally I get back on the tools – here doing a spot of electrical.

Is there anything these guys cant do!?!

Perhaps one of the forgotten parts of a building project is the furnishings.  These cupboards will be used by the youth for their clothes and study materials.

After the hard work is done, there’s just a little time for R & R.  The Great Wall gets a little test on the road to Tutuala (ok, it couldn’t make it all the way to Jaco but it had some fun.)

Jaco is on the eastern tip of Timor Leste with beautiful beaches and reefs.

 

 

 

Many thanks to these noble souls who took the plunge to work alongside the folks in Timor.

We’ve got more projects coming up in 2015 – we could do with all sorts of tradies but most of all people with a big heart ready to be moved by a big God.

End of the Dry

We are coming to the end of the dry season in Timor-Leste. That is a busy time for people working in the field of agriculture. Seed for distribution needs to be packaged up, new seed needs to get into the hands of the right farmers, and new plans are made to improve productivity. I’ve recently looked back over the last three years of working with my friend Lino on improving his corn yield. The good news is that every year his yield has gone up. We estimate that in the 2010/11 season he harvested around 0.8 t/ha (tonnes per hectare). Then in 2011/12 he harvested 1 t/ha. In 2012/13 this went up by 30% to 1.3 t/ha. Last year, he was very happy with his harvest of 2 t/ha. He’s been trying a number of new things on his farm such as improved seed from Seeds of Life, increasing organic matter with a bean vine, planting the corn closer and using a little urea. Its hard to say which technique has led to the most increases in yield and also how much the weather has had an impact. We hope the improvements we’ve introduced have made a real difference but in the end I am thankful to God – it is God who makes things grow. As well as increasing the yield we are working on decreasing his labour. A great story from this is the corn shellers which take the kernels off the corn. I’ve recently been asked to order a 40ft container of these and some corn grinders to distribute to farmers (funded by IFAD). This brings the total to almost 6000 shellers – which means 6000 households that can shell the corn more easily! If you’ve tried to do this job you’d understand how excited we are.
This season Lino is ready to make some big changes. Two of his big challenges are all the weeds and the white grubs that seem to be eating the roots of his corn. Unfortunately, I am turning to chemicals to try to resolve this problem – roundup and furadan. I’ll be working with him to limit the impact of these chemicals to just the weeds and those who want to eat the corn but I can’t help feeling that my clean, green soul is slowly ebbing away. My rational head says that using roundup may result in less ploughing which means you trade diesel fuel for roundup. The careful use of the toxic furadan might offset the heavy use of chemicals on imported foods since there is higher local production. I think your head can go round and round on this stuff. In the end we’ll just try to be as careful as possible and hope that the chemicals are a temporary arrangement. We’ll also have a crack at a fancy seed planter and increasing the plant density which is still quite low at 2.2 plants per square metre. He’ll be trying about 1 quarter of his field with this new technique and we’ll get the results by around April next year.
A very cool little story: my neighbour Anen has finally repaid his home loan for his three units. This is a great achievement after 4 years of work to build then rent and manage three units for foreigners. Like a previous neighbour, Amena, Anen also got the opportunity to build a fourth investment house during this time as a spin-off from the first 3. He has demonstrated a beautiful principal that a poor person, given the opportunity of finances and guidance, can completely change his future prospects. He has been very faithful in making his repayments. During this time he’s also invested his earnings (he always collected half the rent) in renovating and expanding his own house, taking on teenage student borders, putting his children into good schools, improving his neighbour’s house who is a widow and helping his extended family in the mountains. The ripple effects from this one family can only be known by the good Lord. We’ll be discussing a new project for him next year.
Personally, I’m feeling a little dry so I hope that soon the dry season will end for me too.

Happy fish.


Nervous fish.

Trip to Ulmera

Sometimes we find it hard to know what to do on a weekend.  Its not like we’re stuck for things to do but sometimes we look for an opportunity just to take a break.  This weekend we settled on a little drive to the mountains to a place called Ulmera.  You head west from Dili along the usual scenic coast road, then head up into the mountains.  At some seemingly random point hang a right and you’re off into the bush with a little 4WD touring – in the dry that is.  In the wet it would be more serious.  We come to a sweet little cluster of houses related to our neighbours.  We sat and chatted and exchanged the usual cup of Timor coffee for a bunch of goodies from our standard kit:  clothes & things donated from Oz, a couple of cook stoves, a few Bibles.  We also checked out the water source which is the usual hard luck story of a little spring way down in a gully with an arduous hike to carry it up to the house.  For entertainment, I ask why the heck is the water downhill and the houses uphill?  Why not build the houses below the spring – it would be a whole lot easier to sort out their water.  At least two NGOs have looked at it and walked away.  We might have crack at it.  I haven’t done a water system in so long I’m beginning to go through withdrawals.

Xakira surveys the scene at Ulmera, climbing the ladder to a mango tree.

Folks sit at the spiritual house on the left, the small chapel on the right and the spirit post front centre surrounded by rocks:  gotta keep all bases covered.

An unfortunate possum with an uncertain future tied up around his hips at a local house
Some other pics…

MAF continues to save lives in more ways than one – 44 gallon drums will save many tonnes of farmer’s corn.  How many can you fit on one ute?

Cynthia and Emmy packing 100 hygiene packs for women – made by Bele Kria, funded by Rotary for Bairo Pite Clinic.

Joseph gets 4 laptops for training uni students.  Thanks to the kind folks from the Clarence for arranging this.