Some of the farmers at the grafting workshop held at Nefomtasa in the province of Oecussi
Thursday, May 19, 2005
Postcard from Timor Leste
How did we finish up in East Timor? I read ‘East Timor’ by James Dunn, which detailed the betrayals of East Timor by Australia over a 40 year period, starting with the withdrawal of troops from ET, leaving the East Timorese to face the brunt of the Japanese fury on their own, to Gough Whitlam giving Indonesia tacit approval to invade and acquire ET as an Indonesian State, to Howard standing by and allowing the massacres of ET by the militia, until public opinion shamed him into acting. We discussed the concept at an intellectual level, that there must be something we can do to make a contribution to ET.
Then we had an ex-student from Eltham college, one of Digby’s students from the 80s who spent her honeymoon at Cape Tribulation. Sophie is an activist specialising in social justice for East Timor. She supports a women’s weaving co-operative in ET and helps them sell their stuff in Australia. Her visit galvanised us into action. A search of the internet gave us four leads to follow up, where we may be able to use our tropical fruit expertise. The best lead came from Caritas, with an invitation from them to visit East Timor to explore how we could work with their ‘Women in Gardening’ project which was located in Oecussi, the ET enclave which is located in West Timor on the north coast – a rugged mountain province of 30,000 people living in remote villages and still slashing and burning as subsistence farmers. Caritas were looking to extend the gardening project to fruit trees. The villages grow maize, and then store it but the supplies run out before the new crop comes in – could fruit fill the gap in the food supply.
Oecussi is a 12 hour ferry rid from Dili – the area is so remote that the militia were still rampaging and killing people here long after Interfet had taken control of Dili. A teenage boy smuggled a written note hidden in his thongs and walked over the mountains through west timor, continually harassed by the militia to bring the request for help to Cosgrove. Each person we met had their own personal story of violence and trauma. In Oecussi every house in all the villages were burned by the Indonesians. Caritas provided the roofing iron and poles, and the building teams to rebuild 4000 houses in the Oecussi enclave.
The first night after we arrive we are on the ferry and heading for Oecussi. The next morning Digby is presenting a workshop to the facilitators of the project, training them in basic grafting techniques. Everything was translated into either Indonesian or Tetum or the local language. It was a ‘train the trainers’ scenario. The next three days saw us taken by four wheel drive high up into mountain villages on terrible roads. Digby ran workshops for the farmers, with more and more of the teaching being done by Cornelio as his confidence and knowledge increased.
We did have some time to ourselves – we visited the island of Atauro and climbed the highest mountain – Mt Manucoco. We visited Bacau. We lounged around Dili and ate at restaurants existing to service the UN presence.
What stands out?
The human face of the trauma – which is a very strong presence in every family today – is in such contrast to the friendliness and the appreciation and welcome we received. You wouldn’t know that so many of this population had been slaughtered only five years ago. How could they be so happy now? We felt so safe. One of our drivers had received 9 machete slices to his skull in the Liquica massacre in the lead up to the referendum and had been evacuated to Darwin and the Perth where he had operations and recuperated for 6 months before returning to Dili. While he was in Australia he learned enough English to be able to drive tourists around and communicate – this is how he now earned his living.
The big Expat scene – which is so similar to theExpat scene in Samoa (and other places I expect) with bars, Australian beer, and many restaurants. The UN presence which was the main economy has been reduced from 9000 to now only 150 people. You still see the UN cars all over the place, but their departure will mean less money flowing to the locals.
The lack of tourist infrastructure and awareness. This is a green field. I felt I was in Nepal 40 years ago before anybody went there to trek. There are great opportunities to have an amazing adventure holiday in ET. But in 2005 we are the only tourists – we only meet aid workers.
The Women in Gardening project was a highlight. They were so thrilled to see us and made us feel really appreciated. We now have some good grassroots links here to the program co-ordinator and the team of facilitators who work in the villages, and we will now look at concrete ways we can support them, with the supply of seeds, the development of training materials, training the trainers and mentoring the team as required, as they need new skills. We will try and help them develop their vision for the villages.
We discovered that Digby has a remarkable resemblance to Xanana Gusmao, the president of ET, very revered. As we drove into the villages people were waving and calling out 'Xanana' thinking the president was visiting their village. This provoked much hilarity in our car, especially when Digby played up to it with the royal wave. People were saluting as we drove by!!
We intend to go back in 2 years time.
Then we had an ex-student from Eltham college, one of Digby’s students from the 80s who spent her honeymoon at Cape Tribulation. Sophie is an activist specialising in social justice for East Timor. She supports a women’s weaving co-operative in ET and helps them sell their stuff in Australia. Her visit galvanised us into action. A search of the internet gave us four leads to follow up, where we may be able to use our tropical fruit expertise. The best lead came from Caritas, with an invitation from them to visit East Timor to explore how we could work with their ‘Women in Gardening’ project which was located in Oecussi, the ET enclave which is located in West Timor on the north coast – a rugged mountain province of 30,000 people living in remote villages and still slashing and burning as subsistence farmers. Caritas were looking to extend the gardening project to fruit trees. The villages grow maize, and then store it but the supplies run out before the new crop comes in – could fruit fill the gap in the food supply.
Oecussi is a 12 hour ferry rid from Dili – the area is so remote that the militia were still rampaging and killing people here long after Interfet had taken control of Dili. A teenage boy smuggled a written note hidden in his thongs and walked over the mountains through west timor, continually harassed by the militia to bring the request for help to Cosgrove. Each person we met had their own personal story of violence and trauma. In Oecussi every house in all the villages were burned by the Indonesians. Caritas provided the roofing iron and poles, and the building teams to rebuild 4000 houses in the Oecussi enclave.
The first night after we arrive we are on the ferry and heading for Oecussi. The next morning Digby is presenting a workshop to the facilitators of the project, training them in basic grafting techniques. Everything was translated into either Indonesian or Tetum or the local language. It was a ‘train the trainers’ scenario. The next three days saw us taken by four wheel drive high up into mountain villages on terrible roads. Digby ran workshops for the farmers, with more and more of the teaching being done by Cornelio as his confidence and knowledge increased.
We did have some time to ourselves – we visited the island of Atauro and climbed the highest mountain – Mt Manucoco. We visited Bacau. We lounged around Dili and ate at restaurants existing to service the UN presence.
What stands out?
The human face of the trauma – which is a very strong presence in every family today – is in such contrast to the friendliness and the appreciation and welcome we received. You wouldn’t know that so many of this population had been slaughtered only five years ago. How could they be so happy now? We felt so safe. One of our drivers had received 9 machete slices to his skull in the Liquica massacre in the lead up to the referendum and had been evacuated to Darwin and the Perth where he had operations and recuperated for 6 months before returning to Dili. While he was in Australia he learned enough English to be able to drive tourists around and communicate – this is how he now earned his living.
The big Expat scene – which is so similar to theExpat scene in Samoa (and other places I expect) with bars, Australian beer, and many restaurants. The UN presence which was the main economy has been reduced from 9000 to now only 150 people. You still see the UN cars all over the place, but their departure will mean less money flowing to the locals.
The lack of tourist infrastructure and awareness. This is a green field. I felt I was in Nepal 40 years ago before anybody went there to trek. There are great opportunities to have an amazing adventure holiday in ET. But in 2005 we are the only tourists – we only meet aid workers.
The Women in Gardening project was a highlight. They were so thrilled to see us and made us feel really appreciated. We now have some good grassroots links here to the program co-ordinator and the team of facilitators who work in the villages, and we will now look at concrete ways we can support them, with the supply of seeds, the development of training materials, training the trainers and mentoring the team as required, as they need new skills. We will try and help them develop their vision for the villages.
We discovered that Digby has a remarkable resemblance to Xanana Gusmao, the president of ET, very revered. As we drove into the villages people were waving and calling out 'Xanana' thinking the president was visiting their village. This provoked much hilarity in our car, especially when Digby played up to it with the royal wave. People were saluting as we drove by!!
We intend to go back in 2 years time.
Saturday, April 09, 2005
Seedling Durian produces fantastic fruit
The Mangosteen season has come to an end. The Salaks have finished. And there are only three Durians left. These three Durians are rather special - the tree was destroyed by Cyclone Rona and all that was left was a stump - the graft had gone. I planted another grafted tree beside the tree so that we could use the rootstock to graft again. Now it has fruited as a seedling and the fruit is fantastic - a wonderful gift for us as it has fruited much later than all our other trees and it appears much creamier too. So viva la difference - it gives us more variety for our tastings, and an extended Durian season.
Thursday, March 10, 2005
Cyclone Ingrid threat
They said it was the first time since 1918 that a category 5 cyclone had threatened the Queensland coast and it was heading our way, with destructive winds forecast in 24 hours with winds over 320 kms per hour. I walked through the orchard that afternoon and looked at all the fruit on the trees. It was exactly 5 years since we had been wiped out by Cyclone Rona - you can see some of the photos on the farm section of our website. I thought - tomorrow all this will be one big mess - and we will be back to square one again. I'm getting too old for this now - I remember that it took 3 months of solid clean up to get the orchard back on its feet and we had to have a huge replanting program to fill in the gaps. Now it was going to happen again.
The good news is that during the night the cyclone veered north and has crossed the coast north of Cooktown. So we are lucky for now. But it still might come back. It has been raining all day without stopping which is nice.
The good news is that during the night the cyclone veered north and has crossed the coast north of Cooktown. So we are lucky for now. But it still might come back. It has been raining all day without stopping which is nice.
Digby is elected as President of the Rare Fruits Council of Australia
I think we might have bitten off a bit more than we can chew. Last weekend Digby was elected as president of the RFCA and I am now the secretary. This role is to bring all the RFCA branches in QLD together to work out how we can best share information and promote rare fruit. We have put forward a vision of building a website and moving to technology to overcome distance and communication problems. Many members are not computer literate so this will be a challenge.
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