OK, I’m guessing that many will never have even heard of ‘Timor-Leste’ and its troubled past - so here’s a brief history lesson to set the mood…..
The Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste (also known as East Timor) is located just north of Australia, at the eastern end of the Indonesian archipelago. Its total area is about one fifth the size of Tasmania.
The Portuguese began trade with the island in 1515 and colonised it in mid-century. The Japanese invaded in February, 1942 and occupied until September, 1945. By the end of the war, Timor was in ruins. Approximately 50,000 Timorese had lost their lives as a result of Japanese occupation and the efforts of the Timorese to resist the invaders and protect Australia. A similar number of people died during WWII in Timor as in the United Kingdom - and Timor was only involved through an accident of geography!
Portugal resumed colonial authority after World War II. East Timor declared its independence from Portugal on 28th November, 1975 and was promptly invaded and occupied by Indonesia nine days later. Unlike the Portuguese, the Indonesians imposed strong, direct rule, but this was never accepted by the Timor-Leste people who were determined to preserve their culture and national identity.
An unsuccessful campaign of pacification, torture and execution followed over the next two decades and up to 250,000 individuals lost their lives. In a 1999 referendum, a majority (78%) of the people of East Timor voted for independence from Indonesia. Between the referendum and the arrival of a multi-national peacekeeping force in late September 1999, anti-independence Timorese militias commenced a large-scale, scorched-earth campaign of retribution. They killed approximately 1,300 Timorese and forcibly pushed 300,000 people into West Timor as refugees. The majority of the country's infrastructure, including homes, irrigation, water supply, schools, and nearly all of the country's electrical grid were destroyed.
Australian-led peacekeeping troops of the International Force for East Timor deployed to the country and brought the violence to an end. The UN also launched a large-scale humanitarian operation including food supplies and other basic services. On May 20th, 2002, Timor-Leste became the world's newest democracy and the first new country of the third millennium.
I’m ashamed to say that Australia’s relationship with its near neighbour (Timor) has left a hell of a lot to be desired. The Aussie government at the time virtually condoned the ‘invasion’ by Indonesia that ultimately left over a quarter of a million Timorese dead from a small population base. Then an Aussie government virtually stole the rights to oil from the sea between our two countries by arguing for years about where the boundary should be between Timor and Australia - funds from royalties that had the potential to provide basic needs to their impoverished population. I would not be surprised if they really hated Australians.
The volunteer organisation I am with (Australian Business Volunteers - ABV) describes Timor-Leste as: …undoubtedly the poorest, most underdeveloped country we operate in and one of the poorest in the region. Even some well travelled ABV volunteers report experiencing culture shock on their first visit.
Oddly, the US dollar is the legal currency (with local coins) in Timor-Leste.
The electricity supply is described as ‘unreliable’. The power could go off several times every day, thank goodness, the clinic where I was had a stand-by generator. And it is suggested that letters mailed to Timor be addressed: ‘via Darwin, Australia’ to save mail going via Jakarta, or even to Lisbon - difficult because there is no ‘postal service’ as such, and, anyway, there are no street numbers.
Some statistics on Timor-Leste: Population: 850,000; 620,000 do not have electricity; 48% of the population are under 17-years-old; 46% over 11-years-old are illiterate; 560,000 have no radio or television - average life expectancy is just 57 years.
As an interesting (well, it is to me, anyway) aside - this assignment was my fortieth project for Australian Business Volunteers, over a period of twenty years (take out of that equation you are calculating in your head, a period of almost six years as I lived for nearly three years on Niue in the South Pacific and another three years in Papua New Guinea).
SO, anyway - The first flight was through Western Australia, north to Darwin; passing over some of this earth’s most barren terrain. You could fit Texas into Western Australia eight times! When the Dutch and Portuguese, then the British, accidentally bumped into those inhospitable shores in the 1600s they were bitterly disappointed; not realising that the hills run with rust there is so much iron; plus alumina, gold, diamonds and natural gas.
At check-in, they could not ticket my bag through to Dili from Darwin, and I had a very tight connection. I’d even driven to the international airport the previous day to collect an emigration card to speed up the process. As it turned out, I only just made the next flight from ‘domestic’ to ‘international’ because I already had a boarding card; but they could not take my luggage, that was to follow on the ‘next flight’ two days later - with most of my belongings, toiletries, etc, of course.
We were delayed leaving Perth because the ground crew could not disconnect from the bridge. Then in Dili, the crew took over half an hour just to wheel the steps up to the door - going back-and-forth many times trying to connect.
I arrived in Dili expecting to be met by the client or the local manager (but they had been given an incorrect arrival time) and hung around until everyone had departed and there was only one taxi left. I asked if he knew the way to my client and he said “yes” (I should have recalled what is referred to as the “Pacific yes” to any question). He drove for ages and deposited me at some premises, which he insisted was correct - of course: it was not! On advice from the staff there, I found a taxi and asked to be driven to the Australian Embassy - asked a guard who told the taxi driver where to go, and he took me to the Australian Clinic - wrong again! I spoke to a helpful guy there who told the taxi driver another destination! Wrong yet again. I then found the client’s phone number and got someone to speak to the taxi driver - so the staff drove to meet us outside a prominent supermarket. I was officially ‘missing’ by this time and I was told later that the staff had a photograph of me from my CV and they were touching the photo and praying to Jesus to find me - and that’s when I telephoned! I’d done my bit to support the Dili taxi industry…!
I was taken back to the airport two days after arrival to collect my bag. It was interesting to just wander into the luggage area of an international flight with no security around. My bag was not there. After wandering around and unsuccessfully looking for staff or an office, I went back to the luggage area and a woman was returning with my bag - she had included it with her own luggage - nice of her to realise and bring it back?”
The primary aim of my client (HIAM-Health) is to restore malnourished children to a state of acceptable health - including building some of them up physically so that they stood a chance of recovering from surgery. On the second day I was there, I was assisting the staff to compile a report for some surgeons from New Zealand who were there to operate on very young children who were born without an anus (called ‘imperforate anus’, where the infant is born without a normal rectal opening). We were going through the list and noting comments like ‘child since deceased’ or ‘not contactable’, etc. An aspect of the assignment I found difficult to deal with was the reports of infant deaths.
The level, and even basic awareness, of hygiene and the consequences are truly abysmal. Washing hands is unusual; kid’s snotty noses are ‘cleaned’ with fingers then they wipe their hands on their clothing. Diseases run through communities like a stream. The villagers do not use any toilet paper and don’t know about washing their hands - then they pick up their kids ... is it any wonder there is rampant illness?
When some remote villagers were offered toilet facilities, they declined as their habit was to squat over the pig’s pens with the pigs are underneath; mouths open. The rationale was: if they defecated in a ‘toilet’ - what would the pigs have to eat? Just imagine what that does to the food chain - pork anyone?
It can be difficult comprehending the high level of ignorance in the society about basic hygiene and even sex education. Information we take for granted has to be taught. Possibly because of the strong catholic influence (although, like most everywhere, it’s tempered with local superstitions) youth can be completely ignorant as to where babies come from - and a girl can be truly shocked when she becomes pregnant. Villagers just have no basic understanding of the concept of physiology or fundamental hygiene and nutrition.
While I was there, there was an epidemic of measles rampaging through the village communities, resulting in the deaths of young children - and probably many more unreported. I heard stories of vaccinations provided by Indonesia that were ineffective. Plus, in order for the shots to work, there should have been a follow-up, but that never happened so it was all a waste of time and medication. Then there were stories of kids getting the vaccine AFTER they had contracted measles - and that just made them sicker.
The question of ‘language’ in this troubled country is another confusing aspect. Their local language is Tetum (or Tetun). English is common among the more educated … but the language used in official procedures can still be Portuguese (which is only understood by an estimated 5% of the population!). Even the national anthem can be sung in Portuguese - strange singing your national song in a foreign language? Then throw into the mix Bahasa from the years of oppressive Indonesian occupation. Apparently, it is not unusual for one short conversation to be in three or four languages: Tetum, Portuguese and Bahasa, plus English. I was downloading a manual for the clinic’s digital camera and had to choose a language, I was guessing ‘English’, but the unanimous preference was for ‘Indonesian’! A United Nations guy advising on the Justice system was telling me that he saw an instance of a woman who was in court and sentenced to 14 years jail (not sure what for), but she had not understood a single word of her trial and the result! The rationale seemed to me to be for the ruling clique to hold on to power by keeping the masses uninformed. About half the adult population are still illiterate, but it was 90% at the end of Portuguese rule, so the Indonesians did some good by building many schools.
One day a family turned up at the clinic with a severely malnourished child (and what we would call ‘rickets’) - they spoke a local language that none of the staff could understand. The mother had an interpreter, who brought along her own two children; and the clinic accommodated and fed them all.
Another time a woman came in with a very tiny malnourished baby, two more shy, very young siblings hanging onto her shabby dress and what looked like an 8-month ‘bun in the oven’. Then there was the woman who arrived with her three young, skinny, malnourished children and was accepted into the program. Then the father turned up and took his son home; objecting to his family even being in the clinic. The next day, the woman acceded to her husband’s objections; left and took her two kids - the clinic staff were concerned that the three children would surely die; purely through lack of basic nutrition!
There are over 100,000 malnourished children in this tiny country and surveys show that 80% of women of childbearing age are also undernourished. Of course, being malnourished at a young age hinders both physical and mental development - and the cycle of ignorance continues. Besides suffering from malnutrition, about a third of the kids in Timor have tuberculosis. The health centre I was helping had to screen every child for TB before accepting them; otherwise there is the obvious alternative of spreading the disease throughout the centre.
The operation has been nurtured by a dedicated local gal (Rosaria), mentored and guided by an enthusiastic Perth woman (Jill) who has been primarily responsible for raising the considerable funds to construct, equip and operate the clinic and try to initiate efficient, modern procedures. It is a rare privilege to meet a person who has literally personally saved many lives and actually made a difference to a country - especially being a single mum with four kids herself.
The centre takes in malnourished children and their mothers (and other family members) and gives them a health check, accommodation and a healthy diet (breakfast, morning snack, lunch, afternoon snack and dinner). But, most importantly, they also give them rehabilitation, education and advice on nutrition and hygiene, plus how to operate their own effective ‘home kitchen garden’. They then monitor the kids and their circumstances with a home visit twelve weeks after they leave the centre.
What they are basically aiming at is the laudable goal of ultimately educating an entire population to change their basic thinking and feed themselves and their kids with nutritious food in a hygienic environment.
Once a month, the staff takes a risky trip to an island off Dili to take basic food and supplies to villagers suffering from malnutrition.
I’ve never done this before, but I was so impressed by the challenge and devotion by this small band of dedicated individuals (35 staff) that I’d be obliged if you could have a look at their website and, hopefully, find it in your compassionate heart to send them a donation so they can continue to save hundreds more very young lives - MANY THANKS. http://www.hiamhealth.org/ http://www.hiamhealth.org/donations.html
This is an example of what the health situation has come to….a few years ago; a 12-year-old Timorese girl died a slow and painful death in a village. Her parents applied traditional medicine; but to no avail. She would never have even been a statistic if a doctor had not seen her body and performed an autopsy. He discovered that she had literally suffocated because her stomach, oesophagus, trachea and throat had become swollen with 25-centimeter (10-inch) long roundworms that choked her as they searched for food. Her life, and who knows how many others, could have been saved with .10¢ tablet.
My client benevolently invited me to a Rotary dinner and this guy was the guest speaker http://wheel2wheel.tv/home.php the next night, she kindly invited some local business and aid-related people around to the health centre for a tasty Aussie barbecue - interesting conversations ensued at both gatherings. A week or so later, the world president-elect for Rotary came to Dili for a visit - what an amazing place to choose for a very limited destination world trip travelling from his home in India on the way to his inauguration in Chicago.
It’s strange, the situations you get used to….as you can image: I’ve endured a range of conditions and circumstances working in Third-World countries. With this one I was actually staying in the Health Centre in most comfortable conditions, but there was a variety of noises. Often there would be children crying and/or screaming (I just considered that was better than them dying); or neighbours playing loud music at 4am, or operating a noisy chain saw. Sometimes at night, all the neighbour’s dogs would start choir practice and when they went home, what sounded like hundreds of roosters would start signalling well before dawn. The combined cacophony of the cockerel chorus would become so copious that you could not distinguish separate fowls yodeling - just a continuous noise. Some early mornings, the dogs and roosters would combine for a canine and cockerel choral concert. They had a bore for water for the clinic and the pump was located just outside my room door - so that added to the ambience as it went click-pump-click, still, as they say: ‘you get used to anything’. To access the office, I walked through the area where the kids and mothers were located - a regular sight was exposed brown boobs on display - with a child attached to the pointy end.
Also had to get used to sleeping in a narrow single bed - can’t recall when I last did that!
After each assignment there is a bunch of reports and submissions for the record and one of them asks if the volunteer learned any new skills. I always record that my tolerance level has increased, yet again. Situations that would have driven me to distraction years ago (staff jabbering loudly to each other in the office, general ignorance, assurances that are never kept, promised material or information that never arrives…), now don’t bother me one jot!!!
Here’s a true tale to give you an indication of how we need to be careful with language and descriptions: Staff were instructed to create a computer file on the desktop and keep copies of emails. So: they acquired a lever-arch file, printed out all the messages, added them to the file, and placed the file on top of the desk - now, you just can’t argue with that logic, can you?
Here’s another tale that may tickle your funny bone.... Until 1999, the sight of a white person here was unusual as the populace was oppressed by Indonesia, who did not want any outside reporting on the conditions. Then a few white people came after the Indonesians were evicted. ANYWAY - a white guy was walking along and a breeze blew off his hat - which he did not realise for a while.In the meantime, a woman had picked up his hat. The guy realised and turned around, saw the woman with his hat, and started running toward her yelling "my hat". The woman took off, running like hell and screaming in fright - the basic translation in Tetum of "my" is "come here" and "hat" is "f**k" - she thought that the guy wanted to rape her and she was off like a startled rabbit.....we were convulsed in fits of laughter with that tale being told, with appropriate actions, in broken English....
Part of my brief was to instruct staff in the use of computer programs. With some it would take constant repetition and they still could not grasp basic concepts. One could barely operate a mouse [We are talking here about staff that ran from the kitchen, screaming in fright, the first time they were shown how to light the new gas stove - they are still frightened to change the gas bottle.] With others, the experience was most gratifying as their eyes would literally get wider and wider, and their smiles broader and broader when they could grasp basic ideas like Excel automatically calculating columns of data for them - or how they could create a formula to calculate information they needed. Another time, I showed a guy how to repeat headings when printing a long Excel form - the look on his face was truly priceless. Sometimes you can really feel that you ARE making a difference!
For the first three weeks, I saw virtually nothing of Timor (apart from riding around in a taxi when I arrived and attending a couple of Rotary dinners at night). Then Rosaria offered to take me around Dili so I saw the foreshore and we visited the Cristo Rei - a 27-meter (88-ft), Rio-type statue of Christ overlooking the bay, donated by the Indonesians - probably an endeavour to placate the oppressed Timorese. It’s accessible by climbing 500 steps; I negotiated most of it, but declined to tackle the last very steep bit up to the statue. I did not fancy a repeat of being paralysed and medi-evacuated out…anyway; my insurance policy specifically states “no exertion at altitude”. A few weeks later she took me to another impressive statue of Pope John Paul II - who visited Timor in 1989.
When you live in places like Timor for a while you tend to become pessimistic about the real value of international aid funding. You could not drive anywhere in Dili for more than a few minutes without seeing a white vehicle with UN painted in large letters on each front door; more often than not it would be a new-looking LandCruiser - Toyota must really LOVE the United Nations.
There are foreigners everywhere - some on very handsome salaries, like an ‘Administrator’ listed at US$15,000/month (while a local policeman is on $100/month, then there’s ones like me on zero) merrily creaming off the aid money that reports would indicate is actually going to help the impoverished country. Plus all those office staff in their head offices in New York or Geneva, or wherever, receiving wages, paying high rents and operating costs to back up those in the field and producing self-congratulatory reports about the ‘millions’ in aid money they are distributing to the needy … oh really?
Have a look at just one aspect leading up to independence - the budget for United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor during 1999-2002…..
Salaries of military personnel - US$220 million
Salaries of civilian personnel - US$199 million
Salaries of international staff - US$112 million (monthly average of US$7,800 per person)
Dental care for military personnel - US$7 million
Laundry cost of military personnel - US$2.1 million
Drinking water for military personnel - US$3.65 million
Salaries of local staff - US$5.5 million (monthly average of US$240 per person)
And all that’s before a single, solitary cent actually gets to alleviate the problems of local health, or education, or malnutrition, or poverty, or whatever. Sure, they definitely get SOME benefit, but….?
There ARE glimpses of sunlight among the obvious malnutrition with despondent mothers and sobbing tiny children. Like a cheeky little brown boy who ran up to me every time I walked through the public area, a huge smile on his face and hand outstretched wanting me to shake his hand!!! The other parents would grin and laugh at his/our performance.
But that was quickly countered by the news of a former malnourished child who had left the centre physically fit; only to die a few months later - from measles - on his third birthday. A few weeks later, his mother was back in with another malnourished child!
A few weeks into the assignment, my primary client, Jill (from Perth), went home leaving just me - and the 35 staff - and the crying kids….which was absolutely fine as training could continue. The basic problem was the immensely, frustratingly slow internet connection and the impact on email contact. OK, I’ve had to deal with some pathetic internet connections before, but this one was, by far, the worst I’ve ever experienced. It could take over an hour to send a small attachment, over five minutes just to swap between the ‘in’ box and ‘sent’ box, and the connection would continually drop out and you’d have to start all over again. Well into a long wait to send a document; as likely as not, the power would go off and disconnect the router. I got used to trying at 2-4am when there was less activity!! I needed to send a PowerPoint presentation for potential donors - started trying to send it at 3.15am - damn thing dropped out, unsuccessful, at 8.30am!!!
The exceedingly laid-back island of Atauro, lies 25km north of Dili and a large ferry, donated by Germany, takes just over 2-hours each way every Saturday - leaving around 9am and returning around 4pm. I travelled across with four staff members. Who knows what will happen in an emergency as all passengers had to access through the huge front entrance, that can handle roll-on-roll-off vehicles, then up or down one narrow staircase - we had to wait over half an hour as the queue shuffled along before we could disembark! We had a rustic lunch on the beach and visited the HIAM ‘office’ where they have coordinated a programme taking food supplements to over 2,500 malnourished children and mothers over a few years.
The disease situation was brought home even more when two of the staff came down with meningitis and, later, ABV’s In Country Manager and an ABV volunteer contracted malaria.
I’ve been bestowed a variety of honorary ‘titles’ over the years - in Timor, the respectful address to a woman is the prefix ‘Mana’ (‘older sister’) as in ‘Mana Jill’; for a man it is ‘Manu’(‘older brother’), as in ‘Manu Bevan’; although the Tetun/English dictionary also uses ‘manu’ for various forms of birdlife. Many of this lot of some 36 staff (aged in their 20s -30s) started calling me ‘daddy’ and even ‘my daddy’ - it caused some merriment when some of the little kids (patients) would call out what sounded like ‘papa’ to me. I’ve have been a bit busy to father THAT many!!!
I went with a visiting Aussie doctor (Wendy) who has been helping in Timor for many years to a location called Daru to see a monument to the Australian soldiers and the hundreds of Timorese who helped them and were killed by the Japanese in WWII (many in retribution for helping the Aussies, after the Aussies left).
SO - an early flight for just one hour from Dili to Darwin. That was followed by over five boring hours waiting in the basic Darwin air terminal. Then nearly four hours just to get further south to Perth. Gee, I just don’t understand people who say that they “enjoy travel.” Back to the mundane:, bills, paperwork, home maintenance, housework……..and COLD!
Photos on this link - then click on <Slideshow>
https://picasaweb.google.com/BevanLibya/DiliTimorLeste?authkey=Gv1sRgCLety5Tr-cyqbA