The Corn Harvest

    This week I went on a round trip of the eastern end of East Timor.  The first stop was Los Palos to inspect a corn crop. This crop was the result of that movie we showed last year with the Darwin men.  We swung a deal with a member of the local house church.  The Darwin guys put in money for a silo and its transport.  Thats the thing that looks like a tank in the picture with their old “silo” next to it which is a beat up, rusty 44 gallon drum.  Seeds of Life donated some of their top growing corn seed and the farmer grew the corn.  Seeds of Life also gave 2 tarps for drying the corn and I put in two tarps and a hand made, hand cranked “take the kernel off the cob” machine.  They planted out 1.4 Ha of corn and have done very well.  They began harvesting soon after I left.  Its great to see this project moving.  We hope to fill the 2000L silo which should take around 1.6 tonne of grain.  About 50kg of the best seed will be kept to put in another crop.  We plan to seal up the silo and wait till October/November for the grain price to go up from 60c/kg (now) to $1/kg.  They will repay us the cost of the silo plus interest so we can buy another silo for someone else and continue the project.  Eventually the Darwin guys could get their money back and have supplied many large silos to poor farmers in this country – what a very nice investment!
                                      



Pastor Samuel eventually got his 7000L tank on the very round tank stand base which worked perfectly.  Its all hooked up to the guttering.  Now they have heaps of water for their family, their church and the veggie patch.  Thankyou very much to the Palmerston Baptist Church, NT for donating the funds for this.  




     Down on the south coast we gave out more tarps from Seeds of Life and inspected more corn.  One job was assisting the young Losconi group in building a large shelter to dry their corn in.  Specifically, I was showing them how to install black builder’s plastic under the slab to stop dampness rising up.  I breathe a sigh of when I get back as the roads a pretty wild.  There are countless landslides and we passed three trucks that recently rolled off the edge resulting in a number of deaths.  The government sprinkles around a number of excavators through the mountains just to wait for the next landslide and push a way through.


The presidential election went very well and proved to be a peaceful event.  Jose Ramos Horta has been knocked out of the game, leaving two candidates – Taur Matan Ruak (former Defence Chief?) and Lu Olo (representing Fretilin) – to go onto to a second vote.  The poster encourages people to vote with the words “Respect, Law, Peace, Unity”.  We passed packed out buses and trucks taking voters home from their epic journey to vote.

I got a job!  Big surprise for us.  The position is Climate Change Advisor (stop laughing) for Seeds of Life within the Ministry of Agriculture.  We hope that we can continue to serve the people of East Timor in this new role.  It will involve scientific research in the field of climate and advising the Timorese on how to improve their crop yields and look after their land in a changing climate.  This will help us to pay off a few expected and unexpected debts and perhaps live a little (although Samuel thinks our life is quite well appointed, the rest of the family beg to differ). 
As we live by the sea, we experience the reality of occasionally losing a life to the great blue.  But this time it was not to be.  A young man who was caught out in the high seas in his rather too small dugout was thankfully found.  His little boat was towed in to a crowd of over 100 very worried locals.
  
We also had the priviledge of hosting a baptism with the Potter’s House church.  (sure to send a query up a spine or two back home).  A great bunch of people who are keen to follow Jesus.

On the Run

I went on a big 3 day trip to the south side of the island to inspect some corn fields.  This is part of the work I do for an agricultural NGO called Seeds of Life.  My job was to look at their problem of drying corn.  The southerners like to get in 2 crops of corn in the wet season so the first crop has the problem of how to get it dry before it goes rotten.  Basically drying corn is about spreading it out on the ground or on tarps for a few days until its dry enough for shelling (taking the kernels off).  What happens if it rains during those days?  Your crop could be stuffed.  Its sort of important to avoid this.  A farmer can usually cope with this problem with the normal meagre yield but since East Timor is progressing we have the pleasant problem of how to dry several tonnes of corn in one go.  For most farmers groups visited, SoL will provide new large tarps (plastic sheets) for drying.  One group of seed producers is looking at a yield of around 4 tonnes so the plan is to assist them to build a simple thatched shelter of 6m x 20m for undercover drying.  The exciting thing about this particular task is that SoL is not just paying for it but loaning them the finances (aprrox. $1200).  Then they will buy the seed and pay them the price minus the loan.  SoL is happy to pay a good price, $1.50/kg as opposed to their normal 80c/kg, so the locals seem pretty happy (4 tonnes would yield $6000).  The reason I like it is that its not just another donated gift.   Being a loan, the Timorese need to weigh up the benefits of the drying facility against the cost that ultimately comes from them.  The ultimate question will be, “Will I lose more than $1200 worth of corn if I didn’t have this drying facility?”  Given that a couple of years ago they lost almost the whole crop due to this problem then  I think it’d be a good investment.  We got to stay in a very well appointed Nun’s accommodation facility while there.  They were also already well stocked with Bibles which made me happy.  The guy in the hat is Budi, an agriculture advisor from Nepal that I work with.
Straight after this I was off again on a two day journey with some jovial Japanese to Venilale in the mountains behind Baucau.  Bit of a bummer as it meant 5 days away from the family.  We drove passed a site in the mountains where 60 years ago, the Japanese forced Timorese to dig caves into the mountains to store artillery to fight the Aussies.  Strange isn’t it – driving happily in a car with a Timorese, 2 Japanese and me the Aussie where 60 years ago our grandfathers fought each other.  Hmmm… anyway, back to the story of doing penance for our sins … This was to inspect a site and meet a group for a small biogas digester.  I had a rushed meeting friday night with a Japanese expert and subsequently changed my neatly thought out design for a digester :(  .  Its a cool mountain location which is concerning as biogas (methane from poo) is best produced at around 33 deg. C.  They put on a very nice big feed on Saturday and since we got no where near finished I’m pretty sure they served it up again on Saturday night (no fridges mind, and no guarantee the beast was killed that day either) and since we still didn’t finish Saturday night, I’m pretty sure they served it up again on Sunday morning – reason being, I’ve been suffering terribly bad diarrhea and have been on the run ever since, so to speak.