Independence Day

The 20th of May was the 10 year anniversary of independence for East Timor, or as they say here, “the restoration of independence.”  That’s because way back in 1975 when the Portuguese pulled out, the Timorese declared themselves as a country and even appointed a president.  Unfortunately, it only lasted a few months before the Indonesians invaded.  So 2012 is ten years on from 2002 when East Timor received official recognition from the world that they were an independent country.  East Timor was actually governed by a United Nations transitional administration from 1999 (independence vote) until 2002.  The 19th of May is actually the big day which leads up to midnight.  This is how our day went…
5.00am I get up to prepare for our boat to go to Atauro with Rahel (a Swiss girl in WEC) who is taking a group of Timorese to the island.  It was a first time for them to do an activity like this and it was actually Rahel’s final adventure before leaving the country.  (Thanks Rahel for all you did here in TL!)


9.30am I leave to pick up Mateus to try to get to Liquidoe in the mountains behind Dili.  To do this we had to weave our way through a myriad of tiny back streets dodging police blockades put in place to clear the roads for all the dignitaries arriving from overseas for the big night.  Timorese love a party and they love blocking roads to make their party look more prestigious.  By some miracle we made it through and up the mountain and after a couple of hours driving through the usual hair raising landslides we came to Liquidoe.  (Ok, this time I was genuinely a little concerned about one particular landslide.)

11.30am Inspect the building works that Mateus is doing on his school extension program. Its progressing, albeit slow and basic.  He’s all heart and making a good effort.  The bush poles which constitute his school building are now clothed in Indonesian corrugated iron and the roof is completed.  The next step is doors and mesh for windows and a simple concrete floor.  Then a simple kitchen and toilet and hopefully the place will be ready for the first students.

   
12pm Lunch with Pastor Delphin to discuss a building project by Castle Hill Church.  They’d contacted me to see if I could shed some light on the situation about if the pastor was happy for them to prepare to build a school building for a preschool program he is involved in.  Unfortunately, it didn’t go so positive but I gave it my best shot.  (Castle Hill – report is coming your way soon) On the upside, Pastor Delphin was building something using mud bricks made by locals.  This inspired Mateus and he is very interested in using mud bricks for his building.
OPPORTUNITY FOR ADVENTURE:  Mud brick building in East Timor
Do you have some building skills with mud bricks or know anyone who has?  We could really do with someone coming over for a few weeks to show Timorese a few skills in mud brick building.  The mud bricks could be prepared before you come and we can assist in accommodating you.  Only for the adventurous in heart (serious request!)
1.30 pm Then I helped Mateus and his staff of “Serving Our World” to hand out school packs for his students who seemed to pour out of the mountains in a continual stream.  Each pack included: a school bag (mostly pink but the boys didn’t seem worried), a box of coloured pencils, a lead pencil and an exercise book.  The kids were pretty happy.  There’s a bit of very noticeable malnutrition and stunted growth among the students which reflects the tough, dry mountain environment in which they are trying to survive.

After this, we zoomed back down the mountain to pick our way back through road blocks and finally make it home.
5.30pm We then received the tired adventurers back from Atauro and pushed the boat back up the beach.
9.30pm After dinner we launched the boat again with a small crew from Seeds of Life to cruise around to Tasi Tolu (the beach where they held the Independence Day celebrations)  We picked our way through East Timor’s small naval fleet of half a dozen boats hoping that we didn’t look like invaders and skilfully missed the reef (almost) to land on the beach.  Here we found a stack of dignitaries including the President of Indonesia and Australia’s governor general among many others. 


VIPs galore gather at midnight.                       The people enjoy live music.
The Timorese president serves five years.  Hence, after 10 years, right on midnight, they raise the Timorese flag and appoint the new president – Taur Matan Ruak. 

Flag raising ceremony               Tau Matan Ruak hugs Horta         

I think its an historic moment for East Timor with a sense that they are really moving forward and at least beginning to see a brighter future emerge out of their difficult past.  It was marked with a great display of fireworks – probably the longest lasting that I’ve ever seen.

     Martin, Rob, John and I

1.00am We headed back home on the boat (avoiding all the traffic jams which was the point of going in a boat), pushed it up on shore and flopped into bed.  Thank you, Lord!

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.

The Presidential Campaign

If you’re outside East Timor – a presidential campaign probably means the daily press coverage on who in America will be voted in to try to be voted in to try to be the President of the United States.  Here, in East Timor, we have our own presidential campaign going on to see who will be the next president of East Timor.  And just in case you missed the news (or just in case the news thought it wasn’t important enough to mention) I’ll let you know that the vote for the President will happen on this Saturday, 17th of March.  Should the news have let you know?  Perhaps if you were in Australia it could be worth being informed about but I’m sure some latest drama about which celebrity kissed which celebrity is more important.  We had our final campaign day yesterday which meant mainly seeing Fretilin, one of the big old parties, filling up trucks with young people chanting and clanging away as they drove up and down the streets.  They spray paint their bodies in Fretilin colours and lash large Fretilin flags to small scooters and tear up and down the main drag.  Very noisy and slightly intimidating.  It was nice to see a good Timorese military presence casually strolling up the road picking up garbage to tidy the place up – nice initiative.  The Aussie troops have been steadily coming into the country to be ready for any “action”.  We had grand plans of stocking up for trouble – buying a bag of rice, filling the gerry can and discussing an escape plan.  Our general plan is to load ourselves into our boat and head for Atauro (the island).  And thats about where our preparation ends (the gerry can is still empty).  This is the first election the country has had since the crisis days after 2006.  Back then, their was a lot of bloodshed and IDP camps.  I care far more about a peaceful process than who might get in.  The general response I get from the Timorese is that the candidates are generally just interested in themselves and looking after their own family, friends and connections.  There is not a lot of hope for significant and uncorrupted progress in the country.
Some of the main candidates are (from my extremely uneducated or possibly falsely educated view):
Jose Ramos Horta – the current president, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, and well recognised leader being the man on the diplomatic front fighting for East Timorese independence.  He was shot in 2008 and nearly killed by Alfredo Reinaldo’s men who were leading a small rebellion (Alfredo was shot dead by Timorese security when he came to the President’s house).  He lives on and has created a marketing campaign for Dili as the “City of Peace” over the last few years.  He likes driving small fancy cars like Mokes.
Lu Olo (Fretilin) – Fretilin is the original political arm of the Falintil which was the army fighting for independence.  I guess they see themselves as deserving the leadership position since it was because of them that the country is free (in their view).  They stick up for the rights of the veterans who should be rewarded for their bravery.  Lu Olo won the first round of elections in 2007.  They are big, aggressive and loud and I think this works against them to some extent amongst the people.  They like to remember where they have come from but many people want to look forward to what the future holds.
Taur Matan Ruak (“Two Sharp Eyes”)– the former defence force chief, he seems to have the support of Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao.  I remain largely uninformed on this powerful figure.
The Original Leader – When the Portuguese left East Timor in 1975, the Timorese actually declared independence and elected a president.  A few months later the Indonesians invaded (with a nod from Australia and America) under the guise of a pre-emptive strike against a possible communist uprising – tut, tut.  Anyway, an old leader from this era is running again – that is, until he died a few days ago. 
The Minister of Justice – now this ones a lady.  She is a trained lawyer and apparently she was Alfredo Reinaldo’s mistress and the lady who was facing some sort of court action in Australia in connection with the afforementioned shooting.  (Could this really be true?)  The Ministry of Justice remains my most least liked place to visit amongst all the ministries when I have to deal with bureaucracy.
There are, I believe, another 9 candidates but I dont know about them.  I think this will be between Horta and Lu-olo.  But, being not so into politics, its a stab in the dark.  All the Timorese must go to there registered homeland.  There is no long distance voting.  So Friday is set aside to travel back home to get ready to vote.  You just put a “1” beside your choice.  A candidate must get more than 50% of votes to win.  Needless to say, this is highly unlikely for any candidate so the top two will be chosen for a rematch in a few weeks time.  Tedious business but I’m sure dragging out the event will help to simmer down emotions.