Beginnings of Science and Mathematics Teachers’ Associations, by Curt

SESIM, the science and mathematics teacher organization I work with here in the capital, is engaged in projects to augment science and mathematics curriculum as well as give teachers training in these subjects, all based around hands-on, experiential activities that link the students’ experience to the content of the curriculum.  We get small grants to work toward these goals with various groups of teachers.

One of the more interesting things we’ve been able to do with these small grants is support the formation of local teachers’ associations.  Two reasonably strong ones existed already in the districts of Baucau and Manufahi, each having a small thread of support from abroad.  In other districts, handfuls of motivated teachers meet informally.  We’ve now given seminars to three different groups of teachers, including the group in Manufahi, and started monthly gatherings with interested teachers here in Dili.  In two weeks we plan to give another seminar to a group of teachers in Oecussi, the district of Timor-Leste isolated in West Timor due to colonial history.

At these seminars and gatherings, we’re able to step a bit away from the national curriculum (although the curriculum is so broad that nearly everything we do is linked in some way) and just choose activities that will turn the teachers on to the joys of tinkering around with science and mathematics.  This composed the majority of my work in the U.S., so it is great to be doing it here.

We encourage the participating teachers to meet regularly for fun and exploration, as well as to learn together and improve their teaching.  We don’t yet have the capacity to support them with materials or money, but we can answer some of their questions and, perhaps most important, if they come up with some good activity, we’re in a position to develop it and include it in future trainings.  This is the “science and mathematics education clearing house,” or “idea central” role that I take part in when working at the Exploratorium Teacher Institute.  Yes, we come up with lots of good ideas ourselves, but the reality is that we skim the best ideas off of all the teachers we meet, and then distribute them far and wide!  No guild secrets in the world of teaching; only wide, open-source sharing!

The general scheme of most of our seminars starts with the teachers coming in to pick up their notebook and pencil. The two women on the right are SESIM trainers teaching the seminar with me.

After all are present, the event is given a formal start. The highest ranking representative in the relevant Ministry of Education department has a few words with the teachers, as do each of us. Director General Maia gives his encouragement to a group of mathematics teachers.

We often start by doing an integrated activity together with the whole group. Here we’re doing the famous “Person and Candle” activity, in which it is discovered that people and candles need the same thing to live. We don’t actually prove exactly what it is, but we see in the textbooks that it is oxygen.

Domingas collects observations (left column) and questions (right column) from the teachers after extended experimentation. We will not resolve all the questions, but we want to show that the student’s question is of paramount importance.

We always put on a big lunch. Teachers must feel respect if you expect them to pay attention at the seminar. Respect in this case translates directly to a full belly.

We try to have a group photo also. Here is the Dili mathematics seminar, with the participants holding up the basketry they found mathematics within.

Here I am droning on and on again… It’s actually more of a trick than usual not to talk too much, since many of the teachers are full of questions, and are keenly interested in the answers. But we let them know, again and again, that the real answers lie before them on the table of stuff they’ve just tinkered with.

Some of the mathematics got a bit hairy at that seminar. We notice that many teachers are drawn to the higher level concepts, probably to solidify their own knowledge. But the real trick is to hold the level down where the students can grab it, even when the curriculum is swirling high above.

For example, how many times do five people have to shake hands before they’ve all shaken hands with one another? Six people? Seven? N? Find some friends and figure it out!

Josefina is filling her basket with sand which she’ll use a graduated cylinder to measure the volume of. Earlier she calculated its volume with measurements and a formula.

There is an unbelievable amount of mathematics present in the basketry here. Nearly every concept in the geometry curriculum can be tied to the local weaving, as well as equations, sequences, series, and on and on. Note the five-pointed star on the left – how is that possible, when all the others are all six-pointed? Don’t ask Euclid; this is non-Euclidean geometry.

Here the teachers recreate the simple woven palm leaf fan, and find out it’s not so simple.

These teachers are making rainbows with their squirt bottles, which have dozens of pinholes punched in the lid. That’s the solution we found to no running water; back home I do this with a garden hose. Note the big spectrum on the wall behind.

The bright spectrum on the wall is formed by a mirror in a bucket of water. In the foreground the teacher projects another sort of spectrum – an interference spectrum from a DVD – onto his notebook. Both are powered by the tropical sun, reliable even during the rainy seasons as long as you pull off your experiment in the morning.

Tracing the chicken’s digestive tract is always a popular activity. Though the teachers have butchered hundreds of birds in their lives, only now do they learn what each organ is for. The meat is always taken away for someones’ supper.

The chemistry team has developed the old classic volcano activity to new levels. This shows how they dig it into a mound of dirt, and combine the baking soda and vinegar/soap solution using a tube running off to the side. High drama, but unfortunately, there are no volcanoes on Timor to draw comparisons with.

There is a lot of limestone here in Timor, and it fizzes with a reaction when you put it in a cup of vinegar. Use homemade palm vinegar and you just may have the quintessential local science activity.

These chemistry teachers have a lot going on: a reaction is blowing up the balloon on the bottle, there is a layered bottle of oil and water in the foreground, and they are now creating layers of sugar water with the syringes, each layer with a diminishing concentration of sugar, and thus a lesser density.

These physics teachers are finding centers of gravity. High school teachers attend the session of the discipline that they teach, but junior-high teachers teach integrated science, so they choose the session of their interest.

In the center you see a balloon (the earth) covered with a black plastic bag (the ocean). The lemon on the left is the moon, tugging at the ocean with its gravity to create the tides. The complication intensifies when the orange on the right (the sun) is considered as well, also tugging on the tides.

Junior-high teacher training -Curt

Earlier this month the teacher-trainer group I’m working with gave a training to junior-high science and mathematics teachers from around the nation, mostly from 7^th grade.  The new national curriculum and textbooks for 7^th grade were released last year, and most teachers in most schools are now following it.

The science in this curriculum is integrated among the science disciplines.  Each year 7^th, 8^th and 9^th graders are to get a bit of more info and a bit more depth of understanding into astronomy, geology, physics, chemistry and biology (including human body, animals, plants and other life as well as environmental studies).  I think it’s not a bad system, but it’s totally new to Timor.  Teachers here are used to the Indonesian system which has life science and physical science offered separately in the junior-high years, taught by separate teachers.  In addition, the national university and all other universities with teacher preparation programs have only departments of biology, physics and chemistry; nothing at all to prepare teachers for teaching integrated science.

The result is a lot of teachers scared to teach and unsure of how to proceed, which results in many of them falling back even more firmly on the chalk-and-talk, lecture-and-listen system that is so ineffective.  Our group was asked to focus on this level for just this reason.  There are approximately 350 teachers at 220 schools at this level, with no other in-service resource to support them.

Mathematics continues to be an enormous challenge for most teachers at most levels; statistics and plenty of anecdotal evidence show that young and old alike are on the whole unable to apply mathematical tools to life’s problems.  Recently a story was told to me about Timorese doctors who had returned from abroad with a degree in hand and sat for a test with the following problem:  4% of births are assisted and 6% are cesarean at the local hospital.  If there were 100 births this month, how many were cesarean?  Thirty percent answered correctly.  Others have told me stories of upper level finance bureaucrats still unclear on the concept of percentage.  A recent study, unnecessary in my view, showed Timor-Leste’s elementary student levels in mathematics extremely low.

We received a small grant from UNESCO to carry out trainings for junior-high teachers, and we decided to use this as an opportunity to run a pilot program that we could show to donors interested in supporting a larger-scale program of the same sort.  We structured the pilot program as follows:

• We invited the science and mathematics teachers from one school in each of the 13 districts of the nation to attend a week-long training.
• During the week we taught them with hands-on, experiential pedagogy, and encouraged them to think about how they were learning themselves through this pedagogy.
• We presented a dozen or so hands-on activities directly related to the curriculum, all using simple materials that the teachers would be able to access locally at their schools and which make links to their students’ daily lives.
• We asked teachers to sign a “declaration” stating that they would return to their schools and teach three of these activities in the next three months.
• We plan to visit as many of the schools as possible during that three-month period and work with the teachers as they teach these activities.
• After three months, we’ll have them all back for another 3-day training during which they’ll report back on their experience teaching these activities and the students’ response.
• We’ll then teach them 3 or 4 more activities and send them back again with similar expectations.
• In October we’ll call them back for a final training with a few more activities.  By then we’ll hope to be planning the large-scale training taking into consideration all we’ve learned from the pilot.

The week-long first phase went great.  The vice-minister for basic education opened the training, imploring the teachers to look for more effective ways of teaching.  We witnessed the majority of them turn on to our “new” pedagogy (actually old as the hills), and most seemed very excited to try it out.

We have realized that nearly all the teachers like to learn this way themselves, but hesitate in applying it with their students.  It is a huge step up for them to make it happen in their schools.  Obstacles abound, and it is undeniable that doing good education is inevitably harder than mediocre education. Still we hold as our top priority that teachers see this hands-on, applied, real element of teaching not as special, or peripheral, or something to do as time or opportunity allow, but rather as absolutely essential to effective education.

If all goes well, we’ll get funding for a scaled-up version of this program by the next school year, which will begin in November.

Teachers walking out a number line sketched on the tiles while doing basic arithmetic problems with positive and negative numbers.

Compasses are called for in the textbook but unavailable in the districts. We solved the problem with kabob sticks, rubber bands and a pin.

Exponential powers with chayote cubes: the top row is the powers of 2: 2 cubed, 2 squared, 2 raised to the 1 power, and 2 raised to the 0 power. The bottom row is the powers of 3.

Here I’m urging the teachers to learn mathematics from their grandmothers’ weaving knowledge. Looks like I could use some more coffee.

The teacher in yellow knew how to make a tetrahedron with a palm leaf, a skill I’d been wanting to learn for a long time. Timorese use this Platonic solid and many other shapes to cook rice for festivals. We all learned it from this teacher.

Teachers are categorizing everyday mixtures here: solution, suspension, colloid,etc. Some were consumed soon afterward.

Chickens are readily available to dissect. Even though everyone here has slaughtered chickens before, most have never followed the digestive tract and wondered at the function of each organ. (Each time we dissect a chicken,one of the teachers takes it home to eat afterward.)

In front of the digestion system diagram, we see a solar eclipse in progress. It is a well-known but often ignored fact that it is impossible to understand the motion of the planets without experiencing it in three dimensions.

Tara Bandu – a Broad-based Timorese Social Contract

(by Pam) I attended a Tara Bandu ceremony in Atsabe, Ermera District, a four-and-a-half hour, rough-and-tumble car ride from Dili. Until recently, Tara Bandu has been traditional law decided by local elders and passed on orally within a region to regulate relations between people and the environment, and between people and groups.  Drawing on strong animist beliefs, the consequences of breaking a Tara Bandu law, while often regulated and enforced by traditional leaders, could include terrible misfortune and acts of nature against the offending party.

While 98% of Timorese are Catholic, lulik  or traditional animist beliefs run deep.  Many Timorese view Tara Bandu as more meaningful and effective than the new formal written laws, many of which run quite counter to traditional practices. I have heard plenty of disconcerting stories about traditional leaders resolving cases of violence against women with no regard for current law, ie. a rape case resolved by having the family of the man pay a small fee to the woman’s family or the woman having to apologize publicly for not doing her wifely duties, provoking domestic abuse.

The Timorese organization Kdadalak Sulimutuk Institute (KSI) has been working with grassroots communities in Ermera district for more than a decade.  KSI staff  were key to organizing the current Tara Bandu, which brought together traditional leaders, government officials, church and community groups.  They identified a gap between the traditional and the modern that was working against each and increasing conflicts.  By working together to educate local and traditional leaders on current law, and find common ground between these leaders and civil society on matters that aren’t directly covered by national law, they built a social contract that strengthens national laws – such as the domestic violence law – while also acknowledging and empowering local traditions and traditional leaders.  The organizing committee for the Tara Bandu includes all 52 Village Chiefs in Ermera District, other traditional elders, local and regional church leaders, KSI and an Ermera-based human rights organization.

Ermera’s Tara Bandu forbids the cutting of trees or the burning of land without permission, forbids all forms of domestic violence, and puts monetary limits on local brideprices and funeral ceremonies. This last issue of financial limits is hotly contested by some Ermera residents as going against long-standing traditions, but local and national leaders alike consider these lavish expenses a major contributor to the poverty and annual hunger cycles in the district, one of the very poorest in Timor.

As the only foreigner at the event, I was given a front-row seat.  There as a witness and observer, I appreciated the opportunity to learn and was extremely impressed with the broad-based, grassroots organizing that KSI demonstrated.  The event reminded me of the critical importance of finding local solutions that take into consideration cultural traditions, beliefs and capabilities at the local level.  Over the past decade, so many new laws and initiatives have been shaped and driven by international agencies and foreigners.   Tara Bandu in Ermera is a home-grown initiative that has taken significant steps toward establishing common ground between imported and local wisdom.

The Elders gathered to welcome the national and district level officials.

Traditional dancing opened the event.

“Ema boot” (the big folks) gave speeches calling for unity in implementing Tara Bandu.

The only woman to speak, this National Police rep spoke about the need for more community-based policing.

At least 500 people sat riveted by speeches from the President’s Office, Ministry of Justice, Sec. of State for the Environment and the Catholic Church.

Ermera has the lowest rate of school attendance, particularly for girls.

After all the speeches, local elders carried out a traditional ritual which included sacrificing a pig and reading its entrails (which luckily confirmed that the Tara Bandu is a great thing for Ermera).

Me with the KSI organizing crew.

These women pulled off a meal for hundreds and organized the ceremonial logistics. According to those I spoke with, Tara Bandu is good for girls and women.

Land and Housing Rights

(by Pam)  Over the past month, massive rains have flooded the Aitarak Laran community, a stone’s throw from Trocaire’s office where I work.  The flooding and major damage to many make-shift houses along the canal has been blamed on the slow and misguided work of a company hired by the government last year to build a new bridge in this area.  Local members of Rede ba Rai (the Land Network), partners of Trocaire, have been working for years now to assist the hundreds of families squatting on public land in Aitarak Laran and other parts of Dili. Less than a week ago, they negotiated with the company responsible for the flooding a US$20,000 settlement for 192 families whose housing was damaged.

Successes like this strengthen the movement for land justice in Timor-Leste, and show the current strength that exists.  Over the past few months, I worked with the Land Network assisting with their submission of a 3-year grant proposal to the European Union. In the process, I learned a great deal about their work and key issues around land and housing that Timor now faces.  Below are a few examples of major cases the Land Network members have worked on (photos from Rede ba Rai).

After the extreme violence of 1999, close to 200 families found shelter in the former Brimob (Indonesian riot police) headquarters.  In January 2011, 175 families were forcibly evicted  and many moved to a site in Aitarak Laran. Families are not asking for claim to the land, but with nowhere to go, they are asking the government for a process that recognizes their humanity, and the provision of alternative housing or monetary assistance to secure other housing.  Local non-profits (members of Rede ba Rai) are helping families find ways forward on a case-by-case basis.

Another major land case in Dili relates to the land on which Timor Plaza, Timor’s first mall, was built in late 2011.  While many families took monetary settlements from the company, a few individual land-owners chose to take the case to court. The company was found guilty of illegal expropriation of land, but the case remains in an appeals process.

Outside of Dili, communities are working to strengthen communal land systems and protect communal rights which were largely denied under the Portuguese and Indonesians, but which date back to pre-Portuguese times. Communities are also facing growing threats of government-led expropriation of land for mega-development projects including an oil refinery, electrical generation facilities and a southern corridor highway.

The government’s eviction of 175 families from the Brimob site happened at 4am.

One family at the Brimob site. Eviction notices were given to community reps, not families, and were in Portuguese, a language essentially no one understood.

The harsh reality of eviction. Graffiti in background says “This land belongs to the people.”

“Against Eviction” With passage of a land law expected this year, more and more families feel vulnerable to forced evictions.

Landless children unite and call for justice for the Aitarak Laran community!

Families evicted from the former Brimob site took their case to the Ombudsman for Justice and Human Rights.

After police helped evict families, a Timor Plaza bulldozer razed families’ homes.

The people want land and housing, not the Plaza!

Timor Plaza gives no benefit to the powerless people.

More science teacher training -Curt

In January the group of teacher-trainers (SESIM) and I gave the largest training we’ve ever given.  For two weeks we trained  65 teachers from the four eastern districts -  one 10th grade teacher each in physics, chemistry and biology from each high school – on how to do hands-on lessons with their students based on the new national curriculum.  The group was the most challenging we’ve seen.  They pressed us daily with great questions about our activities, and developed many of the activities to higher levels.

Many of the teachers had not previously learned nor taught using this sort of pedagogy, and while most were eager to try and happy with the outcome, some were dissatisfied.  After all, with this sort of lesson, you always run out of time before addressing all the questions that arise.  Often you can make a clear connection between the theory in the textbook and the pile of stuff on the table, but sometimes it’s hard to come to a single solid conclusion.  Answers lead to more questions until they are swirling thick in the room.

We explained time and again that questions are good!  Far from something to be afraid of, questions are signs that students are actively learning.  Even he best-prepared teacher will not have every answer.  Students don’t need a pat, precision answer to every question that crops up.  What they need is the confidence to go looking for answers themselves.

Most important of all, the textbook is full of answers and information that was arrived at through precisely the process we use to do these activities.  Science knowledge is obtained thanks to someone having a question and pursuing its answer.  It makes sense then for students and teachers both to have a go at it themselves, to see how understanding can be gained from direct observation of real stuff.  This often leads to a greater skepticism of information in print, which is quite healthy for scientists and people in general.

The biology section analyzed the nutritional content of various common local foods. Posted behind them you can see elaborate posters they created showing the parts of cells from different organisms.

We did crude chromatography on the pigments of various leaves. The different pigments, dissolved in alcohol, creep up the filter paper to different levels, exposing their different colors.

The bio group also led an integrated science activity in which we made bread – a local staple introduced by Portuguese colonizers – and studied the effects of different amounts of yeast, sugar and flour. Mixing these ingredients in balloon-capped bottles also makes clear how much gas is produced.

Chemistry teachers made batteries from various local acidic and basic solutions. This one is made with juice from the bilimbi, a sour local fruit used for pickles and condiments. It created enough current to light up the little LED flashlight.

The layered columns in these cylinders were created using only colored sugar water. Different concentrations of sugar make for different densities, which in turn determines the level of floatation.

We studied molecular structures by making models using bamboo skewers stuck into chunks of potato.

Our physics group discussed Newton’s three laws of motion in relation to throwing rocks. Here a teacher is throwing a large rock and a small rock to the same distance, thus giving them both the same acceleration. He had to give the larger one a larger force to achieve that acceleration, so F=ma.

Here the physics teachers are lined up with their homemade inclinometers, ready to measure the angle to the top of a rocket’s flight. We also measured the time the rocket spent in its flight, then compared heights resulting from the two calculations.

We came up with a good way to make a little pulley for use with force experiments in the simple-machines unit. It’s constructed from the neck of a water bottle, two bottle caps, and a bamboo skewer.

Home improvement projects -Curt

Pam and I have been super busy, me with our biggest training to date, she with a short contract to help the national Land Network, local organizations working to ensure people’s basic rights to land and housing.  So, naturally, we have loads we need  to share on the blog, but since we haven’t had time to get any of it down, here are some photos of our new solar hot water system!

The fragility of the human body makes the water we pump from Dili’s aquifer feel quite chilly, even as the air temperatures sizzle up into the 40s (100s F). One thing Timor has plenty of is sun, so it makes little sense to use other forms of energy to heat water here.  As usual, the problem is how to store the energy, and we are solving that problem by changing our behavior.  We shower while the sun shines (after making hay, so to speak).

This length of tubing is enough for more than one shower, and in 20 minutes or so, the water’s hot for another shower.  At mid-day you have to turn a bit of cold water on to avoid getting burned.  The hot water rushing from this little beauty feels all the better because it’s free and plentiful – actually if you get out of the shower before you’ve drained the hot water and it begins to turn cold, you’re wasting energy!!

This is the heating coil -25 meters of black plastic pipe on our roof under the scorching sun.

These are the two flexible tubes leading into the bathroom window, through the green mosquito net. (Window on the left is featured in the next project.)

Two able assistants under the papaya tree pass me up tools on the end of a string.

Water comes into the bathroom at lower left, until recently just to fill up the little tank, used to wash and for reserve when the electricity goes out. White pipe now splits it up and right. Two valves determine if the water goes up and through the hot water system, or straight to the shower.

Was it sunny enough to get a hot shower? We’ll soon find out. We’ve had plenty warm showers even on cloudy days.

Another project I’m proud of: remote action window cover made of scrap wood and plastic. It’s not clear why this window is so high and unreachable by normal methods. Closed position shown here, on those days in the really hot months when the AC is operating in the kids’ room.

Open position here, achieved by pulling a string on the other side of the room, for when the fan is cool enough. Two strings going down and out through the mosquito net are connected to weights hanging on the side of the house that hold it tightly closed.

And finally, my fully collapsing bamboo and scrap wood towel drying system, cost $1.00. Big fan behind me can be directed at the rack for maximum effect. (Half-naked is my preferred attire here in the tropics, once I’m out of reach of the mosquitoes.)

The road to to work in Dili -Curt

Pam and I both work in central Dili, about 4 miles from our home.  We’re able to bike in to work regularly, and it’s a beautiful path since we follow the beach road most of the way.  Here are some pictures I got while biking a couple of weeks back.

We’re near the end of a quiet cul-de-sac. The road is paved but erratically.

Turn the corner and go under the mango tree. Once a ripe one fell right in front of me.

The main road goes left but we usually take a short cut through this little ditch.

A left turn at the garbage heap reveals the ocean in the distance.

The beach road is smooth and new. The pier visible is for petroleum ships to dock and pump their load into the giant tanks of the Indonesian company Pertamina.

Looking back over my shoulder shows Atauro in the distance, the larger of two peripheral islands in the nation of Timor-Leste.

Nearing the peer, the road loops around Pertamina, but on a bike you can go down to the beach…

and under the peer. At high tide it gets a little dicey.

Coming back up to the road you pass giant drainage culverts. As in the U.S., storm drains dump straight into the sea.

Back on the beach road, you try to stay out of the way of the motorized commuters.

For better or for worse, other countries have procured many of these choice, ocean view lots for their embassies. First you pass the Mexican embassy, then the enormous U.S. Embassy, shown here, then a dozen others including China, Japan, Korea and Malaysia.

It was a very low tide on this day, and I saw people out picking stranded sea creatures out of the coral near the shore. This is a free source of protein for many families in Dili. On the tiny peninsula in the distance you can see the giant statue built in Indonesian times, called “Cristo Rey” (Christ the King).

All along this beach road fish mongers shoo the flies away from their fresh wares.

As you near the old lighthouse, you turn off the main road…

and follow a gravel path along a drainage canal.

Kanko, a common leafy vegetable loved by Z is cultivated in the canal.

Then you come to one of two main road crossings. Coincidentally, the CR-V on the right is nearly identical to our car. The man selling lettuce from a stick over his shoulder is just out of view on the left.

Just across the main road Pam turns left one block to get to her work. I continue down the canal road, now paved.

Crossing another main thoroughfare…

and going past a mini-market…

I then turn left at the “no left turn” sign (there are many advantages to riding a bike.)

The Ministry of Education is approachable from the back down a set of residential alleys.

This is the back gate to the Ministry compound, fortunately open today, completing my short cut.

My trusty steed tied to the tree.

These are the steps I ascend to get to the office of the Timor-Leste National Commission for UNESCO where my desk is.

This is the main building for the Ministry of Education and the cars of some of the better-off functionaries working there. In the afternoon I’ll travel this path in reverse to return home. The trip one way takes about 20 minutes.

Christmas vacation

Here are photos from our Christmas festivities. School and work for us all starts again on Monday. Happy New Year!

P sang his heart out all in Portuguese for his school’s program. Those other two blondies to the right of him are Portuguese.

Z’s school had a Christmas party on the beach. Her group sang the Jackson 5′s “Give Love on Christmas Day” to all the families gathered.

Elaborate life-sized nativity scenes spring up all over Timor this time of year. There is a contest for the best one, and some have lights, viewing seats and sound systems. In Maubisse, there was one that played hard rock Christmas songs that boomed the whole town until the electricity went out.

Despite widespread poverty, commercialization is also rampant here, with plastic Christmas trees and gaudy Santa figures everywhere. Here, we see the baby Jesus being strangled by a string of cheap colored lights.

We succumbed, but only just, by purchasing a tiny plastic tree with a string of lights. Then we realized we could have a big one if we just chalked it on our concrete walls. Frosty was soon in place as well.

Z and Curt repaired and souped up P’s old broken remote control car and gave it back to him.

Classic gifts from Grandma and Grandpa. Now we can take family rides around our neighborhood.

Our neighbors threw a nice party with secret-Santa gift exchange and lots of food. Our community here is quite diverse. In this photo the nationalities of Italy, Australia, Canada, Holland, USA and Timor-Leste are represented.

After Christmas we headed for the central mountain district of Maubisse for a few days in the cool highlands. We stopped to check out these rice paddies on the way up. Elaborate irrigation systems, all run by gravity alone, distribute the river across the wide valley.

On one of our short hikes we found these horses. The small horses here are still an important means of transport for people and supplies.

We stopped into a traditional sacred house. The architecture was impressive, but required a lot of big trees.

Sometimes these houses are off limits to everyone except holy people, but the attendant at this one welcomed us in and encouraged photos. This is the arrangement of sacred artifacts.

Just next door to the sacred house was another little pavilion apparently built by a local Christian youth group. Traditional animist beliefs and colonial Christianity are often seen overlapping without issue here.

Beautiful cool rain came down for a few hours every afternoon.

The daily rains wash tons of topsoil from the mountains and swell the rivers.

We found a cart by this river and two willing beasts of burden.

We were back in Dili for New Year’s Day. We played with the neighbor kids on the beach a block from our house. Timor’s volcanic island Atauro stands majestically with cumulonimbus in the background.

With no snow to be found, we embrace the sand. The beaches here are all the more attractive to us in the cloudy, rainy season.

On jungle gyms and coconuts

Curt got a bunch of rope and bamboo to inspire the kids, and it worked.  They’ve built several versions of jungle gyms now, with more ideas afoot.  On Christmas eve, the neighbor girls came calling to play with Z and they noticed the coconut tree the jungle gym is anchored to.  It was harvest time.  The other lower anchor is our verandah’s corner post.

(We’re trying a new format here:  click a photo and you should get a “gallery” sort of view, so you can scroll through them one at a time. )

P on the first version, a bit wobbly

The girls playing on the new jungle gym

Posing for the mama-razzi

Anticipation

N grabbing the first branches

N twisting the coconut off like a seasoned expert

Score!

Fruits of victory

Trocaire: Working for a Just World

In mid-October, I was lucky to find a part-time position with the small Irish aid organization Trocaire (www.trocaire.org) which has been supporting partners in Timor-Leste since 2000.  Among many local organizations, Trocaire is described as the best donor organization around because of its commitment to genuine partnership and solidarity.  It works in Ireland to raise both money (mostly through Lenten boxes in churches) and awareness (via churches, classrooms and public campaigns) to support human dignity, peace, justice and sustainable development in poor countries around the world.  And in countries like Timor-Leste, it works to share information and networks as well as money.

My colleagues at Trocaire Timor-Leste

Over the past 12 years, Trocaire has followed a mandate to support the development of good governance: transparency, accountability, justice and democratic processes.  Trocaire’s partners in this include the HAK (Law, Human Rights, and Justice) Association, Radio Timor Kmanek, PRADET (Psychosocial Recovery and Development in East Timor), the NGO Forum (the umbrella group for national and international non-governmental organizations), and La’o Hamutuk, which many of you know already because of my long-time connection.

Trocaire also supports sustainable livelihoods (food security), which translates to partnering with organizations working to increase local food production, decrease products lost to pests, and help communities develop action plans to minimize the negative impact of natural disasters and climate change.  Given the importance of land and just land policies to sustainable livelihoods, Trocaire also partners with several organizations working on land rights’ issues, including education and advocacy around just land policies.  Trocaire’s partners in this work include, among others, Permatil (Permaculture Timor-Leste), the Land Rights’ Network (Rede ba Rai in Tetum), KSI (Kadadaluk Sumulituk Instituti), Haburas Foundation, Belun, and Laifet (Labor Advocacy Institute for East Timor).

The Land Network is helping communities raise their voices about just land policies. (Photo: Trocaire TL)

Ines of La’o Hamutuk – “Liberation means all Timorese have access to land” (Photo: Trocaire TL)

Testing soil PH is key to ensuring healthy soil and increased harvests (Photo: Trocaire TL)

Drums are a new and effective way to keep pests from eating stored grains (Photo: Trocaire TL)

I am using Permatil’s A Permaculture Guidebook from East Timor to get my new garden going.

Sadly, due to the Irish economic downturn, Trocaire will be closing their Timor-Leste offices within the next year. Several other small international agencies like Trocaire will also be pulling out, and on the other side of the size spectrum, UNMIT (the United Nations Mission in East Timor) is currently packing up.  Some in the international community are seeing Timor-Leste as a problem solved, as a success story, and saying it is time to move on to where there is greater need. It is an interesting time to be here, arriving just as so many internationals are preparing to leave.  Many friends here are trying to anticipate what the impact of the departure of so much international support will be.

Many statistics relating to Timor-Leste’s economic situation are deceiving. While current income from oil and gas sources is quite high, this income is time-limited and despite various formal commitments to invest and save a large amount of these sums for future generations, those in power are succumbing to the temptation to spend now.  Petroleum and gas revenues currently fund 89% of the current national budget, and yet most predict that by 2025, the oil and gas reserves will be dry. With one of the highest birth rates in the world, Timor-Leste’s future is precarious at best and the reality on the ground is far more complex than most statistics let on.

La’o Hamutuk’s current economic analysis – the oil money is going fast!