Our seventh month began with a very Timor-typical excursion; on 8 March, Friday, our colleagues told us that we wanted to go to Ermera, the home of Maria's teacher, at the weekend. Ermera is - you may remember - a district about 90 minutes outside of Dili. To get there you have to drive into the centre of the country, which means you have to drive up the mountains and on the other side is Ermera's capital Gleno.
The plan was to leave at 11am with a friend who has a car and a driving licence. In the end, we set off at 3pm because this friend surprisingly had some errands to run.
On the way, the resentment about her "little" delay was quickly dispelled and we laughed a lot. Maria and I told our "cucumber story": A few weeks ago, we found cucumbers in the supermarket that looked a little wrinkly, but still bore a resemblance to European cucumbers. I had actually been looking for cucumbers the whole time because I really like eating them, but somehow we never found any. So we walked home with our sweetheart and tried the cucumber - and were bitterly disappointed. In the truest sense of the word! The cucumbers were incredibly bitter and really not edible. Days later, we realised that cucumbers are seasonal here and look more like very thick courgettes than cucumbers. That still didn't explain to me what kind of European cucumbers I was getting and why they were so terribly bitter. So I asked Umbelina and after she laughed at me a bit, she explained that we had eaten "bitter melon". This is mainly given to children here (I think it's pretty mean) because the fruit is very rich in vitamins and is supposed to protect against illnesses such as Covid or flu. I don't know to what extent this is medically proven, but I can't recommend trying it either.
We bought various vegetables on the way so that we could cook dinner together later. I thought that was a very nice thing to do until we bought a LIVING chicken, which was later to end up on the barbecue for us. We learnt a lot about the landscape, about wild bees and coffee cultivation in really rough terrain (see pictures below). Before we could start cooking at Arsenia's house, we went on a little excursion and had a look at Gleno: the town is characterised above all by the large market square in its centre and the cathedral from which you can look down on the town. Gleno is actually more like a village than a town; in general, towns in Timor are often decentralised and consist of many small houses that have been built at a distance from the town, but still belong to the town. It was really fun to explore Gleno a bit and of course we took lots of pictures. In the evening, we cooked together, which was really special for us because we are not actually allowed to help cook. Normally we are always served and are perhaps allowed to help with the washing up at the end. I was all the happier when we were allowed to make the cucumber and tomato salad. Umbelina showed us how to peel and slice the giant cucumbers. It was really funny because it took us a while to understand how to get the hard skin off with a rather blunt knife. In the end, it was very tasty and we were able to handle the chicken, which was no longer quite so alive.
After the meal, we sat together for a while before going to bed because the next morning, mass was due to start quite early.
At 8am we went to the mass, where there were almost more dogs than people. The dogs were actually very nice - and obviously belonged to some people - but they were really everywhere. After the mass, the priest even emphasised that not everyone should bring their dog (Asu) because they really have no use in church. Very amusing: imagine if people in Germany simply brought their pets to church. Quite a mess!
When we drove home later, you could see how the relationship with our colleagues had changed and become closer. Umbelina confirmed this to me again in class on Monday. It's important for Timorese people to show initiative: they wouldn't just say "Please help me cook" or "Can you pay for some of the vegetables?". They are both too shy and too polite for that. But that doesn't mean that the "Malay" (foreigners) shouldn't help out. It seems as if it really meant a lot to our colleagues that we naturally helped out. I always find it very interesting how few words and how many deeds count here.
The following week we had a very special visit: Maria's dad flew over to have a look at Timor. The first and perhaps the worst thing he noticed was the heat. It's been super hot and oppressive for the past few weeks, when it hasn't rained despite the rainy season. Sometimes we forget that the heat is really tiring and exhausting. Maria's dad reflected this to us pretty well.
He was here for a week and we experienced quite a lot: he came on Saturday and on Sunday we went to Hera, a small coastal town east of Dili, where we looked at mangrove forests - I will hopefully be publishing an article about this in the Southeast Asia magazine soon, so you can look forward to it.
He then visited the CMTC on Monday and was given a very special welcome; there were songs, speeches and tais, the traditional Timorese scarves. I think it was quite absurd for him to receive such a reception, but greetings and farewells are very important in the culture here and have to be done accordingly.
We set off for Baucau on Wednesday. The journey is really nice because you drive along the coast most of the time and have a very picturesque view. You also drive through Manatutu, a very dry area in Timor, which is very sparsely populated.
Baucau, on the other hand, is the second largest city in Timor with just under 20,000 inhabitants. It is divided into two halves: the "old town", which was built by the Portuguese, and the "new town", which is perhaps 25 years old. We paid a visit to the other Canossa school, where the last volunteers worked. The CTID, Centro Treinamento Integral no Desenvolvimento, is a school for young women who receive lessons in cookery, hospitality, English, administration and housekeeping within a year so that they can later work in hotels or restaurants. The school is significantly larger than the CMTC because it also offers boarding places.
It was very exciting to get to know such a different school and I was really pleased to see that the MISEREOR projects go beyond Dili and are also in more rural areas.
Apart from that, Maria's dad was able to see a lot of Dili, even though it was really hot.
Palm Sunday finally came on 24 March, which was a big highlight for me. There were real palm leaves! The whole street was decorated with them, the main aisle in the church and everyone had a palm leaf in their hand. There was a small procession and blessing and then a normal mass. Nevertheless, I thought it was very special because it's just a lovely feeling to celebrate Palm Sunday with real palms.
Over Easter we travelled back to Baucau to visit Inge. Inge has lived in Timor for over 20 years, is married to a Timorese man and has children. She works for MISEREOR as a "dialogue point" between Misereor and the local partner organisations.
So we set off very early on Maundy Thursday to take the bus to Baucau. When we arrived at the bus station, it was very chaotic; countless men tried to get us onto their bus so that they could fill it up and then set off. We then took a seat on a bus and had to wait for about an hour until it started and the bus was really full to bursting - young men standing in the aisles, everyone else squeezed onto the seats. The journey itself was quite pleasant and we were able to catch up on some sleep. At some point we realised that we didn't know where to get off and asked a woman next to us. We tried to be inconspicuous because we didn't want to be embarrassed in front of everyone else. But the end of the story was that the whole bus - including the driver - pondered with us how to interpret the address that Inge had sent us. There were a surprising number of possibilities for just one address and in the end we called Inge, who was passed round the whole bus on the phone until we were simply thrown off the bus. It all worked out and we were then picked up by Inge.
Addresses are actually a rarity here; although there are street names, they are hardly ever used. People mainly communicate via neighbourhoods (which I find really confusing because some of the neighbourhoods are very large and it's not always clear where one part begins and the other ends). It still seems to work somehow, without street names or house numbers.
We had a really nice, very relaxed time with Inge. We went for a lot of walks - something we hardly ever do in Dili and really miss. Unlike Dili, Baucau is much quieter and cooler. It is quite high up and you are often rewarded with a really fantastic view when you go for a walk - you can find pictures below!
We were lucky enough to meet her family; Inameta, her daughter, Asamu, her son and her husband, Constantino. We played Rummicub in the evening and ate Skittles - which is very reminiscent of German game nights. When we had Käsespätzle on the penultimate evening, we really didn't want to go back and just stay with her.
On Saturday, Inge and Constantino then showed us "Lafaek diak". "Lafaek diak" (The Merciful Crocodile) is a non-profit NGO that runs a normal clinic and a maternity clinic in Triloka, a very small, very remote village. LINK
They are supported by the Kindermissionswerk - part of the Sternsinger money goes here! Constantino is the director of "Lafaek diak" and endeavours not only to maintain the two clinics, but also to teach the local people a more comprehensive diet. Next to the maternity clinic is a large field with all kinds of vegetables and he also has cows - even very special, expensive Timorese water buffaloes, which I find very pretty. It was really impressive how the organisation, or Constantino, built two clinics out of nothing. They also have a scholarship programme and support local young adults who want to become nurses or doctors. They can study in Baucau and gain practical experience here. It is very well thought out and very integrated into the community of the village, which is very much in keeping with Timorese culture and helps people to accept the clinics - especially the maternity clinic - better.
We spent almost the whole day there, looking at everything, eating coconut, boiled peanuts and corn and trying to spot the cows in the tall grasses from the vantage point.
The absolute highlight came in the evening, it was already dark and we were about to leave when one of the cows went into labour and gave birth to a really super little calf. It was very special and very cute!!! A bit of an Easter miracle.
After a very relaxed and peaceful weekend, we travelled back to Dili with Inge on Monday. It had finally rained again in Dili, but it was still much hotter than in Baucau. We quickly freshened up and had lunch before going to a museum with Umbelina, our colleague. It wasn't a normal museum, but was located in a former prison that was misused as a torture centre during the Indonesian occupation. It is now an exhibition space and archive and a lot of research is being done here into the war crimes and how they were committed. It was shocking and made us think a lot. Not only that there were so many atrocious acts of violence and crimes committed by the Indonesians (or the Timorese militia) against the civilian population, but also that so much of the history does not reach the Western public and is not recognised as the crimes that were committed - I would like to say at this point that these were by no means random, individual acts of violence, but rather a systematic attempt to frighten and intimidate the population and undermine any protest.
Two things in particular have stuck in my mind here: firstly, I was really shocked by how many details (i.e. the violent acts of the Indonesian army or Timorese militia) simply remained hidden from me despite really extensive research and many conversations with friends here. On the one hand, this certainly has to do with the fact that there was little journalistic work and little subsequent research. On the other hand, I believe that the Timorese have a very different way of dealing with the past. In conversations here, I often had the feeling that people were indifferent to the Indonesians - perhaps even "grateful" in some respects; the Indonesians have built schools and infrastructure on a large scale, very different from the Portuguese, who only educated the nobility for 450 years and only so that they could communicate with each other.
I was surprised more than once at how little they looked back into the past and how much they looked forward into the future. And at the same time, there are also places like the prison in Balidi, where many people, some of them volunteers, want to solve crimes in order not to suppress the past, but to come to terms with it. Overall, I was really shocked at how little international interest there is in the region and how difficult it is to access good information about Timor-Leste's past. For example, the current, newly elected President Prabowo Subianto of Indonesia was a senior general in Timor-Leste. According to our guide, he was involved in numerous massacres (including the one on 12 November, which I have already written about). I have not checked to what extent this is true. In any case, he was deployed in Timor-Leste and is the ex-son-in-law of the president/dictator Suharto, who ordered the invasion of Timor-Leste at the time.
I don't think we can even begin to imagine what this means for the people of Timor, who not only have a former general in their neighbouring country who has caused damage to their country (in whatever form), but who is also in a dynasty with the invader Suharto.
The other thing that sticks in my mind is that Umbelina went there with us. In a country where people don't like to talk about the past, it means even more when someone puts themselves in such an uncomfortable situation for you. It really meant a lot to me because it gave me so many important insights and I always felt throughout our time that I didn't have a true, accurate picture of Timorese history. We thanked them more than once.
The next morning, quite surprisingly, we went to Suai. Inge offered to take us to Suai because she had to visit Misereor there. We really wanted to see the south coast anyway, also because the 8-hour drive there shows us so much of Timor. We drove through mountains - up here it was suddenly only around 10 degrees! - and through rice fields where it was flat again. We saw a lot of "Karauw Timor", Timorese water buffaloes, which are really pretty (see pictures below!). We drove past many uma luliks. These are sacred houses that the family alliances build together and hold ceremonies and celebrations there; there is usually a leading family that looks after the sacred house. However, all decisions concerning the house are actually made democratically. The houses are not only very pretty, but also super practical; during the day the roof cools the house and still lets the wind through, at night, when it can get chilly, the roof warms the sleeping people. In other words, they are much more thermally efficient than the hipped sheet metal roofs. Suai is located in the south of Timor, directly on the coast, and has a surprisingly good infrastructure, as the aim is to attract oil companies to extract the oil off the coast. So far, however, there are no oil companies here and so we were the only ones using the motorway. Just imagine; a motorway with not a single other vehicle!
After 8 hours of amazingly smooth driving - as you know, we've had some very different journeys - we arrived at the monastery in Suai. The Canossa Sisters not only have a convent here, but also a boarding school for hospitality and administration students. It is a very large complex with several residential buildings, several kitchens and right next to Suai Cathedral.
We received a very warm welcome with tais and traditional dances. I was particularly pleased because three of my postulants, whom I had taught until December, have been living here since January. It was so nice to see them again and catch up.
We spent most of the next few days out and about with the postulates, helping with the cooking and exploring the area a bit. We went to the beach and had a look at the south coast. I then inconspicuously asked about crocodiles. Suai is known for having lots of crocodiles and I had wanted to see some the whole time. Floriana, one of the postulants, then spoke to the driver, who drove us to a swampy river. At first I only saw "stones" in the water. When a Timorese threw something into the water, the crocodiles suddenly came swimming up - three of them. It's actually very rare to see any because there aren't many crocodiles left in Timor. So we were really very lucky! We weren't able to enjoy the last few days in Suai quite as much because I had quite an upset stomach and could hardly leave the room. This is also part of an authentic travelling experience in Southeast Asia - whether in Suai or Bali.
As you can see, our seventh and penultimate month in Timor was again very eventful and exciting. I am very grateful that I am feeling more and more secure and I really realise how confident we have become here - we are already familiar with some of the difficulties and can now deal with them so much better. It's even nicer that we now know the problems but haven't even begun to discover all the nice, exciting things!
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