The Corn Mill

I have been working with Lino and Atina in Los Palos to build up a small agriculture business.  This is mainly centred around the growing, storing and selling of corn.  On the side, Lino asked about getting a corn mill.  Its a grinding machine that breaks up the corn into crumbs (not flour) for the villagers to make a soupy, porridge type meal.  He says that people will pay about $1 to have 10kg of corn milled.  The mill itself costs $680.  I didn’t do much on the business analysis side except to ask how many people would come each day to get corn milled and I think we had it worked out.  Lino was pretty keen to get the machine and somehow I just went with it – probably because he was brave enough to try my idea of buying a silo for the corn.  Thanks to the boys in Darwin for some of the start up funds for the mill.  Its a Chinese machine with a crank handle to get it going.  The motor (blue part) is a diesel and the guy in the shop couldn’t get it going for the first hour because the pump mechanism was stuck.  He drained the oil and pulled off a side plate to make some adjustments so when the video shows the motor going we were all actually pretty relieved.  The motor drives a flat belt which drives the mill (yellow part).
As I couldn’t take it to Los Palos, Lino arranged to come into Dili to put it onto the back of a bus.  For Atina, it was only the third time in her life to come down into the “big smoke” of Dili.  The second time for her was at the start of this year when they came to our place for a church conference.  Although she got very sick on the bus (vomitted a few times) she really wanted to make the 8 hour journey to see Dili.  She is a few months pregnant now so this may be her last chance for a year or two.  The machine is not exceedingly heavy but there was a fork lift nearby so we made use of it.  They tied it up well and Lino says he got it home ok.  We also bought a set of scales – very archaic (think ancient Egypt), a shovel and a scythe for their business.  He brought us a sack of corn from the first crop for our chickens. 


Seeds of Life have researched a new white corn for the Ministry of Agriculture to release to the people.  It is about to be launched so I decided to buy some early and hope to get it to Lino to plant soon.  It will be harvested in 4 months and be ready to sell as seed for the next wet season (begins November) so we hope to get a good price for it as it will be the first season that most farmers get to plant it.  This is all part of the game of trying to guess the future market.  We’ll see how it goes.  
 
Some other pics…
WEC wanted to film their dance class on the beach, so they asked if they could run an extension lead from Sonrei to power the music and some spotlights.  Cynthia and the kids enjoyed watching the free concert, so did a number of young guys on their way home along the beachfront.

 
Cynthia Hosted the most recent homeschooling afternoon.  She had a new family come along making 10 kids all up.  Here they are creating a marble race track using found materials! What fun!
 
Some sea activity…  A large army “boat” zoomed along the coast…

 And on Wed Anen, one of our neighbours ran to ask me if “they” could borrow our boat to go and fetch another neighbour, Gomez.  He had gone fishing way out at the horizon in a larger dugout with his small motor.  Apparently the motor broke down, so he had been attempting to paddle back but it was getting dark and they were worried about him.  He made it back fine.

Another load of boxes arrived through Rotary (From our home town -the Lower Clarence area of northern NSW.  The girls had fun opening all the fabric boxes and going through each and every piece to appoint its future use.  The boxes also contained a huge number of fabric inserts lovingly made by some sweet women in Oz.  Most went straight into packaging ready to be distributed.

HIAM Health invited us to attend an important ceremony.  Ramos Horta agreed to become their patron.  It was great to see Laura and Nathalia who were both vollunteering back in 2004 when we first met HIAM Health.
    
Samuel attended a Grand opening ceremony of a new Ag centre.  He took the opportunity to grab a few pics of a traditonal dance.

Samuel also met up with a Gideons group.

Closer to home

Hi, its Cynthia here.  Samuel is away again, but just for a few days, and I thought it may be a good time to catch you up on the Bacon family.  Samuel hasn't blogged much lately and his last one was about the election.  I’m guessing/hoping that some one may actually want to know how Israel and Serenity are going!  Not to mention a few other small details.
Soo… we had 2 weeks here  without Samuel earlier this month - which was a first for us.  Thankfully Buddy was around to guard us from any danger (although only in the day, as each night he would wriggle out the fence and go and run wild, fighting with the competition and chasing the girls around – boys!) So really he wasn't much use cause he would arrive back home around breakfast time and sleep the rest of the day….hmmm.     Maybe Israel was our protector after all.
Our health has been pretty good, thank God!  Serenity and I have each had a 3 day flu which is nothing compared to the dengue running riot over here.  Lots of foreigners have been sick with dengue and we heard that something like 60 Timorese kids have died from it so far this season.  Pretty sad.
While Samuel was away we met a visitor who had just arrived in Timor.  His name is Bevan and he is a wheat farmer from SA.  Last Sunday we invited him along to the home church we hosted and he will be arriving tomorrow to stay with us for a while.  Speaking of home church, Paul came.  He works for MAF and has come for a week to replace John who is  with his family in Australia.  Earlier in the morning we had heard him fly out (a perk of living next to the airport) and we had rightly assumed he was doing a medi vac.  He explained later how he had picked up a teenage girl had been very badly burnt in a house fire.  Very sad.  I guess its good that she is alive though.  Her family are with her in the hospital.  She came from Suai, which is where Sinta comes from (Sinta works at Bellekria).  So in the evening I shared the news with her and later this week we may try and visit the family and assist in some way.
When we first arrived back in Jan, an expat here asked me to find or recommend a suitable young woman to train up as a housekeeper.  I asked Sinta, who seems to know about people.  She recommended 2 girls.  One lives locally and has finished school and was keen to work hard.  So we arranged for her to start a month ago and it has been going really well for them.   The other girl lives in Suai and and is a kind of orphan with another sad story – her father (Sintas relative) brought her back to Timor from Indonesia when she was a tiny baby.  She never knew her birth mother.  Then when she was still little her father was killed in 1998.  So she was “adopted” by her dads sister.  But recently this aunt also died.  So she now lives with her aunts husband.  And he is likely to find another wife which may fare badly for this girl as generally step mums are nasty to step kids here.  Just like the stories I suppose.  Anyway so we have arranged for an expat here to pay this girls school fees, and Sinta is keen to bring her down to Dili  live with her.  Its just a matter of finding the means for Sinta to go there or send a message somehow.
Also a  couple of expats have been bringing their unwanted items to us to distribute, and I'm starting to wonder if we should actually open an opshop of sorts somewhere, like this one in Thailand.  Its an interesting idea.  But instead I sent a lot of it off with Samuel to Los Palos for Pastor Samuel & Uli to distribute there.
What else….
Homeschooling has generally been chugging along well this year,  although I've had a particularly trying few days and feel ready to throw in the sack and let them run wild. But I hear that's just a normal part of teaching, and I’m sure I’ll recover and keep on going. Besides, I have to do something with them to stop them bickering all day :)
I hosted the Tuesday afternoon “homeschool” group, and after some brain games i got them to try and build a tower.  Yes Serenity had her hair in tiny plaits for a few weeks.  I do it as a treat about once a year.
Serenity is obsessed with Buddy and Taffy and rarely speaks about anything else… Is that normal?  I guess its better than some other obsessions.  Taffy is looking a little plump – more than halfway through her 2 month pregnancy. (well its 20 days to go apparently…) Both Serenity and Israel (ok and me) are very excited and cant wait till she gives birth to some cute little kittens.  They have made box kitten houses and play gyms and are currently making a birthing bed.  It keeps them occupied.   We had a sweet sunset a while ago and then Serenity took a photo showing two planets.  Israel enjoyed the rope swing.
Now that our house is more of a home I’ve noticed that they spend less time playing with the neighbours which is a bit of a shame I suppose.  The benefit is that they come home in tears less often. They still go and play a few afternoons each week and occasionally they bring a group of them down to our front verandah and play hopscotch or draw with chalk on the concrete floor.  We haven't been swimming so much this year.  Its too cold for me.  But it has also been pretty overcast and windy, and the current “current” often seems to bring the brown water from the river.  Most of the year the current flows it away from our beach, but this time of year it switches.  Haven't seen any crocodiles or dolphins lately.
Well thats about everything I can think to write about at the moment.
Oh and heres a giant caterpillar! If only it made a  giant butterfly.
I am sure Samuel will have some more stories to tell later in the week when he gets back.
Thats all folks

Back In East Timor

Dear Friends,
After 8 weeks in Australia, we have returned ‘home’ to East Timor.  While we were away, the Nazarene Church from Los Palos was able to use our house for accommodation while they attended their national conference in Dili.  So we have a new record for how many guests staying at Sonrei House – 60 people! (O my goodness!?)  Surprisingly, the house looked pretty much in the same condition as when we left it.  Emmy had done a great job.  The cat and dog are still alive.  We didn’t lose any kitchen knives either (highly valued by local women).  I’ve only noticed the loss of the battery drill, one boat roller and the outboard to the boat with its fuel tank.  I’m fairly confident it’ll come back.  Anen, our neighbour, who I’ve been giving construction training to, has won a good contract to build five units further down the beach which is great news that he’s getting out on his own.  The sewing business is still running and considering how to improve advertising and improving the work space.  They were very excited about the certificate they were awarded from last year’s markets and couldn’t believe they were one of only four recipients (we heard that line a few times).  Tobias with the fishing business returned his $200 loan and says the profits are still on their way.  We got the little white suzuki back with a large crack in the windscreen after being rocked on the way back from a Bible Distribution run on the other side of Baucau.  Pastor Samuel is talking about the construction of the fence wall for the Nazarene Conference centre with limited funds as well as developing a Bible Leadership course to train house church leaders (very exciting).  We went to a Korean Ballet which was a bit weird, but I feel like I’ve moved up into a new world of sophisticated culture.   I’ve had a couple of meetings with the Japanese regarding their household biogas systems and will travel to the mountains with them tomorrow for two days.  I’ve just been back from a 3 day journey to the south side of East Timor to survey corn crops with Seeds of Life and have been asked to assist a farmers group to build a corn drying ‘shed’ to secure the next corn harvest in April.  We’re yet to visit our Los Palos corn project but I’ve bought a hand cranked sheller for them (to take the kernels off the cob).  Our light truck never sold and the brakes have failed (again).  Bible distribution has begun again with a few being sprinkled across the country during my travels.  Cynthia is back into teaching the kids – the big event being that Serenity will start high school.  We’ve been back for 8 days so it will take a bit to get into the swing of things I suppose.  One of my big missions this year is to give more time to my family – I think its achievable, but I’m ever the dreamer.
We invite you to come over if you can,
God bless,
Samuel

Just some pics to fill the gap

While Samuel is off gallavanting around the island, I thought id do a little of my style of blog update...

Feregrina - pointing up to Serenity who was taking the photo from her upstairs bedroom.

Israel surrounded by beauties - Naomi and Feregrina

the missionary kids science lesson - building a flashing lighthouse! The 4 of us mums take turns every week.  Sometimes its a little daunting, but they are all such sweet kids!

Serenity took this lovely picture of Cynthia holding Israel, the corner of Atauro on the far right.

"Our" beach :) there were about 50 small outrigger canoes fishing where the river flowed into the sea.

Serenity the model! well she was looking at Israel.... This is what our front yard will look like when the new building is finished.

This is the view from the side of the new building - a little swampy from all the heavy rain, and lots of coconuts to fall in heavy winds :)

Asika the bright eyed beauty - we cant resist taking photos of her!

Serenity and Asika standing on the upper floor of the new building with the beach in the background

The freshwater creek altered course a little after some large waves, and ran parallel with the beach for 50m or so. Very Picturesque.

Israel and Asika making a fishing line - the blue boat in the background is ours.

Well i thought i better stick up a photo of me too, just so you know im still alive :)

The back of the new building - a small verandah leads to the office, with a storage room to the right for all Samuel's annoying tools :0

Hope you enjoyed the images.  I am sure Samuel will have a story or two to add when he returns from Los Palos!  Stand by for more exciting news.....

Our Accomodation

 Our landlord have been building again!

When we arrived in 2008, we rented his 4 newest rooms built with concrete.  While we were there, he built an extra room beside which became the kitchen and indoor bathroom (upper-class)
Towards the end of our time there, he began a room on top of the kitchen/bathroom.

Now he has built another 2 storey space beside that, and we are living in those newest 4 rooms. 2 bedrooms upstairs, a kitchen/bathroom and living space downstairs.

Our little kitchen has a small fridge, a gas cooktop on an old desk, a tap and a sink which sometimes holds water.
The photo to the right was taken in 2008

 The new living space -with tiles and hand stencilled wall decoration.  Straight ahead is the kitchen, through which you access the bathroom.  (On the right, you cant see it in the photo, is an open window directly to our neighbours living space!  The kids have fun peeking through it.)

The staircase - lovely and tiled!  Only problem is the steps are all irregular heights - generally too tall!   Oh and the idea of a landing....Do you really need one?  Just step across the stairs.   I would hate for one of us to break a leg from these.  Please pray for safety!  Perhaps one day we may suggest  rebuilding them with a landing at the top.
Upstairs is our bedroom which has a lovely big wndow facing the coast.  (Unfortunately the trees block any view or breeze... :(  )
And to the left of the stairs is Serenity's bedroom/schoolroom.  We may need to install some insulation as the roofing iron makes it pretty hot inside...

Our bathroom area has two parts.  The older part with a water storage tank (Mozzie breeding facility).  The newer fancy bathroom has a real shower that works, with hot water during the day - the pipes must be exposed to the sun.










The "upper class" sit-on-toilet, lacks a bit of  beauty..

A good scrub helped a little but not as much as i would like.  I think I'll have to buy some dreaded bleach and give it another try.
I think a toilet seat, and a working cistern with a lid would significantly improve the whole look.

6 days to go!

Oh Dear!
It really does seem that as time runs out, things to do increase.  I wonder if its a scientific rule? -
time > = activities < = 1 stressed body! :)

We are enjoying a few days with family here at Mum and Dads.  We have had one of mums brothers and his wife here which has been lovely, as we don't see each other a great deal.  My sister also arrived yesterday, and two other aunts will be here today. We have a couple of birthdays to celebrate over this weekend.

Samuel has been very busy (what else can i expect really?).
He spent 4+ days in Lismore this past week, and will be working there tomorrow (Saturday), and next Tuesday/Wednesday.  I am hoping he wont have much to do on Thursday - The day we drive up to Brisbane!
Ive been reasonably busy too.  We had a few good days of (Rainbow Road) school, trying to knock off a few workbooks with Serenity, so we can carry less over to East timor.  I've also re-sorted our gear for the 3rd time in the last 2 months.

Wow! where has time flown?

Well, time is really flying now! in 15 days we will leave Brisbane, and arrive in Dili the next morning - the 9th April.  We returned yesterday from a 6 day holiday/trip to Sydney for Samuels brothers wedding.  It was great to get away and camp at some beautiful places, but also very tiring!

Today was back into school work for Serenity.  She will be missing a few days over the next 2-3 weeks, so we are trying to fit in as much as we can.

Last night Samuel emailed Maun Je (Our friend/landlord) to let him know when we arrive.  When i say emailed him, I really mean emailed a friend Rob Williams, (seeds of life) over there with a letter attached, and asked if he could hand deliver it. :)