July 26, 2009 3:54pm
Re: Thought on ET
It’s Sunday, and it’s a beautiful Sunday. I’ve had quite an adventurous last couple of days. This coming week will be my second week of Tetum classes in the morning. They have been very helpful and I certainly feel more comfortable speaking tetum but I’m still have a hard time figuring out what people are saying to me when they talk quickly (and when they talk slowly). The funny thing about Tetum is that it’s the product of Bahasa Indonesian, Protégées and Tetum. Which means that people count to 100 in tetum, tell you the price of something in Bahasa, and look at you as if you’re crazy when you try to bargain despite the language you choose. In addition, you can learn a word in Tetum but depending on who you’re talking to they may or may not understand what you’re saying. However, I am making progress in some sort of language because I’ve been talking with the students that are interning at the LOL office and they seem to have a general idea what I’m saying. Often I am too quick to just agree with whatever they say in reply and then they think I understand and then we usually end up standing there looking at each other until one of us just starts laughing and we’re back to square one. One of my favorite parts of the day has been sitting down with the three students after I get back from tetum class and having a little informal language class where I practice sentences in tetum and they practice sentences in English. I have to keep in mind that although it is very important that I learn Tetum, it’s actually more important that they learn English. And I think they get as much joy out of teaching me tetum as I get out of teaching them English.

Besides tetum, I’ve learned a lot about ET in the last couple of days. On Friday I was asked if I wanted to take an overnight trip to Los Palos for the graduation ceremony of one of our interns. There are two school in Fuiloro, Los Palos that are private schools that are run by the catholic church. The Sisters run one school that has an administrative, sewing and sisterhood track and a Father runs a neighbouring school that has an agricultural track. LOL operates one of its programs out of the Father’s school. Boys and girls attend both schools although all the boy sleep at the Father’s school and all the girls sleep at the Sisters’ school. Our secretary intern was graduating from the Sister school and it was a great opportunity to travel to the country side to support her and to see the agricultural school where LOL has one of its programs. As soon as I got the text (I was at tetum class at the time) asking me if I wanted to go as soon as I got back I jumped at the opportunity. We left as soon as I got back stopping just to pick up my toothbrush and a change of clothes for the night. The drive took about 6 hours and apparently it’s the nicest time of year (the dry season) to make the trip. Although the school is the furthest away of the three LOL schools, it has the nicest road so it’s the easiest to get too. Note, that although the road was paved most of the way there were pot holes the size of our truck, hair pin and cliff hanger corners and the width of the road was not big enough for two vehicles to pass without me shutting my eyes. When my eye weren’t slammed shut they were glued to the window as the scenery was spectacular. The beach was always at our side with the hills of the country rolling out in front of us. The villages that we drove through were small but always full of children playing outside with stray dogs, wandering pigs, and roaming chickens. It was refreshing to get outside of Dili and really see ET’s stunning countryside.

During the ride up I learned a lot from my boss and coworker about the history of ET and the current economy. What is especially interesting is the land ownership situation. Currently most land ownership is done in a traditional fashion where people live on the land that their family has lived on and everyone in the community knows that its theirs because that’s the way it has always been. However, due to the 1999 conflict and again in 2006 many people had to leave their properties and live in IDP camps throughput Dili and the country side. The last of these camps is closing down now as people are being moved back to their original homes, however, there have been disputes over properties rights as some people want to go back to land that may or may not have been theirs traditionally, or may have been theirs during the Protégées rein, but then was taken away from them during the Indonesian rein and then they wanted it back now that ET is independent. My boss was saying although this is confusing and there isn’t any documentation as to who actually owns the property there is surprising few land disputes after the IDP camps were dismantled.

However, the lack of proper ownership documentation is an issue for Timorese who wish to open a bank account and borrow from the bank as they do not own any collateral. My boss was saying that in Africa small group microfinancing has been very successful as say a group of women can get together and take out a loan to start a sewing shop and each woman has to pay back her loan and the peer pressure from the rest of the group has almost guaranteed that the loans will be paid back. However, the Timorese culture doesn’t seem to support borrowing of any kind, there’s a belief that it’s almost better to do without than to borrow.

The lack of proper proof of land ownership and a culture that does not support borrowing has contributed to the lack of economical development . Surprisingly ET imports almost all of its rice and the food in the grocery stores all imported. The vegetables that I buy from the local markets are local, however the eggs and milk are not (except in Los Palos, apparently they sell local eggs, some from the agricultural school that LOL supports), the rice is not local because the government buys it internationally and then sells it to the people at a subsidized price. As a consequence it is cheaper to sell the imported rice than to grow it locally and then sell it. There are a number of NGOs here that I know are in the ‘food security’ sector. These organizations are trying to prevent potential disaster if there is a drought or a flood and the crops are ruined. The vegetables and fruit in the market are all similar products of the weather and harvest, thus with a lack of diversity in production many people would be out of jobs and without food if the crops failed. The grocery stores target the international community so the prices are very expensive and local people never shop there.

We came home from Los Palos Saturday afternoon after attending mass in the morning then the graduation ceremony and then doing a quick tour of the Father’s agricultural school. I was very impressed with the agricultural school. The school owns about 200 acres and consists of a small milking operation, a pig breeding operation and a chicken hatchery. Currently the chicken hatchery is the only operation that is making a profit and part of the reason why is that there is a lack of confidence in the profitability of the diary operation. The pigs are currently being raised and then sold/given to the local people so that they can raise them and then possibly sell them back to the school so that the school can deport the meat.

An interesting observation in the whole operation of this part of the agricultural world is that all the pigs, chickens and chicken feed have been imported. Now that the school has pigs they will start breeding them and hopefully will have to import less and less. However, growing crops for feed, such as chicken, cow and pig feed is not part of the agricultural mind set. Because growing corn for cows/chickens rather than humans has not been pursued it is difficult for the local people to create large chicken/pork/beef/diary operations. I was talking with the head of the USAID cow fattening project and he mentioned that feeding animals, ie taking the food to the animal rather than letting the animal roam the countryside in search for nutrients, is an idea that hasn’t really developed here. Thus people have chickens, but the chicken walk around and peck at the ground and eat whatever left overs they can find. This gentleman was also saying that his cow fattening project suffers because so often the families that have the cows that are supposed to be fatten and then exported to Indonesia, are slaughter prematurely because the family needs the money at that moment in an emergency.

In addition to a missing animal feed market, there is also a missing slaughtering market. There are no formal butchering practices and as a consequence the meat that is sold is not standardized in anyway. Although meat is not eaten often among the locals, it would be an interesting experiment to have a practicing butcher that could standardized the cuts and then even sell it to the grocery stores that target the international community. There are many many pieces to this puzzle but what I really like about the LOL project is that it starts somewhere. Although these students may never own their own diary farm they will have experience caring for animals and will understand the basic operations that are needed to make a profit from farming. These are skills that they can take home to their own family farms.

We got back from Los Palos around 8pm Saturday night. Sunday morning there was the annual First Lady’s Cup funrun 10k race. Almost every expat in Dili had signed up along with a number of local timorese. I’d say there was over 400 people present, some running, some walking, some just watching. The race went from the government palace building along Beach Road for 5km and then back. The first 10 men and first 10 women received a metal and a flat of canned orange juice. LOL represented very well, my boss finished within the top 40 of the men (the race was dominated by men, many of which were in the UN armed forces) and I finished 8th out of the women. The coolest part was that after the race the actual first lady, the Prime minister’s wife, who is Australian, was the one giving out the metals and flats of orange juice. I have only been here 2 weeks and I have already kissed the first lady on the cheek! The Prime minister was there as well in his running gear, as was their child and body guard. It was such a cool experience but the best part was certainly just competing and making LOL proud.

Today is Monday and I’m back in tetum class. I did learn something interesting today, I learned that in Tetum when you tell the time you either say the hour exactly or you say the hour and a half. For example, if you wanted to meet someone at 12 o’clock you would say “tuku sanulu resin rua” but if you wanted to meet someone at any time between 12 o’clock and 1 o’clock you would simply say “tuku sanulu resin rua o’balu”. ‘O’balu’ just means ‘a half’, it doesn’t matter whether you want to meet at 12:01 or 12:59, you always just say '12 and a half’. I’m sure there are ways around this, but it certainly is not clear and our teacher kept on telling us that ‘the hour is the only thing that matters here’.
Welp, off to bed I go! Much love,
mariesa