In The Mountains of East Timor

In The Mountains of East Timor

One cannot have an experience like the one I had in East Timor and not be moved to record it so that others might discern some of the wonder of the people that have learned the art of endurance the hard way.

We had read about the destruction wrought on East Timor by the Indonesians before we traveled to that small new country about an hour’s flight from Darwin. When we stepped off the plane the muggy Dili weather hit us and we began to wilt in the heat. We had to pay to enter the country and handling US dollars again was a strange feeling for me, just as handling the colorful “monopoly” money of Australia was strange in 1974 when I arrived in Perth.

We packed our bags on a truck in the car park and then seemed to stand around for some reason that I was not able to make out. I went over to a small counter and bought a cup of coffee. Some children with very white teeth (people with black skin seem to have extraordinarily white teeth) tried to work a trick on me by asking me to give them a US dollar for an Australian dollar. I was happy to play along and to their delight ‘fell’ for the trick. The coffee was very good. The East Timorese are experts at growing and making coffee.

The truck and the driver were ready to go and we headed for the mountains and our destination. I was in the front with the driver as I was the oldest (60) of the university students who had come to this land to volunteer their efforts at teaching English to the children of selected schools high up in the mountains. The road was a real test of the driver’s skill. The monsoon rains wash out even some reinforced concrete bridges. We drove through some small but dangerous looking fast rivers that had their bridges washed out. The rest of the volunteers were in the back of the open truck. If it rained they would get soaked, fortunately there was a tarp over our luggage. There were many places where half the road had been undermined by the rains and fallen down the side of the mountain and the truck would try to slip by on the bit of the road that was still clinging precariously to the mountainside.

We met another truck on the way and half our volunteers moved to the other truck and went off to their town school up a different mountain. We moved on to Ermera and arrived after dark up yet another steep, washed out, broken-up road to the drive of the home of the Catholic Priest (“Padre” as the Timorese call him). He was our host and we were shown to our rooms. I was given a better room than the other volunteers (being the grandfather figure won out again). Also the Padre noted that I was having trouble with the steep stairs (I’m an incomplete paraplegic) and may have had pity on me (When my wife heard that I was an incomplete para. She said: “You couldn’t even do that right!”). I find paraplegia makes life interesting (especially in East Timor).

At dinner the Padre asked each of us about our reason for coming to Ermera. He established that we were all students at Notre Dame University in Australia. He had trouble believing that I was a student. Maybe they don’t have that many 60 year old students in East Timor. I admitted that I had three university degrees from the US, UK and OZ. However, those degrees were in Education and I was now going back to study Theology as a lay person. This really seemed to blow his mind. And then that I would come all that way to help out in the school as a teacher when I had been a lecturer at a university also seemed to impress him. The other volunteers also gave of their time to come and be volunteer teachers, and paid the cost from their own pockets. So, I didn’t see why I was so special.

Mass

In the morning we went to Mass at 6:30. Actually, I started down the many steps to the church at 6:A.M., as I was not sure how long it would take me to walk down those steps. Padre called us all up to the front and had us introduce ourselves to the packed congregation. I was glad that we had been called from our seats as I had inadvertently sat on the wrong side of the church. When I entered the church I was trying not to stand out and so slipped quietly into the first pew that came into my view. It was only after Mass had begun, that I noticed that I was sitting with the women. The men were sitting on the other side of the aisle. It was a bit late to change my position without calling attention to myself. However on returning from the front of the church after the introduction of the “foreigners” I was able to find a seat with the men of the community. There were about twice as many people standing as were sitting and the pews were all filled with parishioners. The Padre mentioned me by name in his homily. All eyes turned to look at me. I did not know what he was saying; as a matter of fact I could hardly make out any of the Timorese language he used in his sermons in the entire month that I was there. I do not have a good ear for learning languages. What he was saying could not have been too bad because the people seemed to be smiling at me. The walk back up those stone stairs was murder. When I got to the top I collapsed in a chair and asked one of the boys that lived with Padre (a boarding student) to make me a walking stick. He did a great job and the other university bloke in our group (Anders from Seattle) suggested a tennis ball for the top. This was a wonderful innovation as my hand did not get hurt on the end of the stick when I put my weight on it to help me get up and down those steps. All I had to do was put a small slit in the ball and push in the stick and there was a very serviceable handle. I still have that stick with its distinctive handle it is one of my favorite possessions.

The next day was the big Sunday Mass including many baptisms. As I approached the church after my slow decent of the ‘stone stairway to the stars’, there was a large group of people waiting on the church porch. One of them came down from the porch and I thought he wanted to shake my hand so I said “Good Morning” in their language (Tetum). But he took my hand and kissed it. Then the whole crowd came up and started kissing my hand. I was flabbergasted and embarrassed. Nothing like this had ever happened to me before. Men, women, and kids were all taking my hand and kissing it. I just kept saying good morning to them and tried to make my way into the church. I think it was their way of showing respect (maybe they thought I was a priest, or a new Bishop). None of the other volunteers got this treatment. But the other volunteers were in their 20s. Elders are respected in East Timor. I sat in a pew and wanted to cry it was such an emotional situation for me. I wondered what God was trying to say to me (if anything). The reason I was able to find a place to sit was that there were not many people in the church and I soon noted that they were leaving; so I followed them out side. I saw an awesome sight coming down the main street (most of the people of the town coming to Mass). The throngs of people were dressed in their best clothing and those clothes were remarkably clean.

There were way too many people for the church to hold even though it was as big as the Cathedral in Bunbury, Western Australia. We all stood out in the blazing sun for two hours. The Padre used me as an exemplar in his homily (again) and I knew the kissing hand thing was going to haunt me for the rest of my days in Ermera. Religion is a very big thing in the life of the people of Ermera. I went to Mass each day for the month that I was there as I wanted to immerse myself in their culture and it was wrapped up in the church and going to Mass. If so many of the people could get up and go to Mass each day, then so could I (even though I seldom go when I am in Australia). Anders helped me up and down the steep ‘stone stairs to the stars’. I learned to love that boy for his many kindnesses to me.

A Ceremony Which Differed From a Mass

of life. At the school they had prepared a welcome for the foreigners who had come to teach English and live among them. I mention the ‘live among them’ bit because the Portuguese teachers that come out from Portugal (and get paid for their efforts) live in special air-conditioned comfort away from the people of East Timor. We were immersed in their living conditions and always had East Timorese around with whom we could relate and soak up their culture and joy

But I digress from the welcoming ceremony. Ceremonies are important to East Timorese and they like to take time over the formalities and do things with just the right amount of decorum. One is expected to be polite on almost every level of encounter but especially during ceremonial endeavors. Even in the daily church services the men traditionally sat on the right of the aisle and the women sat on the left of the aisle. We were given seats in front of the area with the Padre and the nuns and the principal of the school on our right. There were formal speeches in their national language and then greetings in English. Before we went into one of the classrooms there was to be an entertainment that some young junior high girls had been working on for our special benefit. It was a modern dance routine to a CD of American music that they had gotten from somewhere. The music started and had a strong beat to which the girls began their dance. The vocals came in and were obviously Afro-American doing a very loud chant along the lines of: “FUCK MARTINEZ, FUCK, FUCK, FUCK MARTINEZ”. Our small group of volunteers tried not to look shocked as we noted the peaceful smiles on the faces of the Padre and the nuns and the principle of the school. It was obvious that they had no idea what the words meant. The dancing of the innocent children continued as the words got more obscene. Suggestions on all sorts of sexual depravity were being screamed from the CD and we westerners were the only ones there who had any idea as to the meaning. The irony of the juxtaposition of these innocent people with their ever so polite culture and our loud gross sexual western music blasting away in the background was extreme.

We never told them and I doubt they ever knew of the extremeness of that clash of values that was wrought in that school on that day. That they would have been mortified is an understatement. It was not a proud moment for the West.

When we volunteer English teachers got on our own we discussed the irony of the event and the feeling that it just couldn’t have been happening in the setting of that school much less in front of the dignitaries from the local church. Not that we were prudes about dancing in general. As a matter of fact, after school a music and dance group was started up in the Padre’s house under the supervision of the Australian female volunteers (they monitored the music which was used). The sounds that emanated from the Padre’s house in the afternoon were of little voices shouting to the music: ‘Oh my darling, I love you!!”. Love is a word that all peoples seem to understand. I wish I had taken a photo of Padre trying to do some paperwork at his desk with all those young children dancing around him with laughter and joy bubbling up from their little voices.

Mountain Views and the Inspiration of the Holy Spirit

Each day, when I reached the top of the ‘stone stairway to the stars’, I sat in one of the chairs on Padre’s front veranda and looked out at the view again. In the clear light of day the lines of mountains stretching away to the horizon in all directions was magnificent. The rain forest that vegetated them was so green and lush and the sky was so blue that it was breathtaking. The small huts and houses that dot the landscape do not give one the feeling of the large number of people that live in the area of the town of Ermera. The large numbers of people who attend the three Masses held on Sunday give a clearer picture of the numbers of East Timorese that live in the area. One may wake to the sound of the bells at 6:AM or the bells calling the population to the 6:30 Mass. With the ringing of the bells the numerous dogs in the area howl in answer and when their clamor starts to ease one hears the clear cry of a thousand roosters crowing. This all happens with the gray fingers of dawn just reaching across the sky. There is just enough light for me to make my way down the long stone steps with the help of my walking stick and the handy shoulder of Anders (the volunteer from Seattle). The girls in our group chose to give weekday Mass a miss but I feel they missed out on some of the contact that I had with the people of East Timor which made my time there so memorable. An old dog came to Mass every day. He was Padre’s dog and he would lie in the back of the church and go to sleep. His snores would punctuate the good Padre’s sermon. One day the person sitting next to me gave me a nudge and informed me that the Padre was asking about me. It seems the Padre wanted me to walk up to the front of the church and address the congregation. He had given me no warning and I didn’t know exactly what he wanted but I walked up the centre aisle as seemed to be his want. When I reached the pulpit he leaned down and told me to tell the people there gathered what the importance of God was in modern times and that I might care to start by telling them about why I had come to East Timor. I was caught off balance and thought I might begin with a conversation that my wife and I had while enjoying a sundowner in Western Australia. I began with the words: “My wife and I love each other very much” and the Padre translated that for me. The congregation broke into laughter and then applause. This was not what I expected. I fear that the Padre’s translation might have been more along the lines of: “My wife and I make love very much”. That might explain the reaction of the congregation. Now I was really flustered, but did the best I could mumbling something about the joy of God that I could see that they had in their hearts.

At breakfast (after Mass) I asked him why he had put me on the spot like that with out any warning to prepare something. He just smiled and said he was depending on the Holy Spirit to help me. It reminded me of the story of the German Lutheran minister who was always meticulously prepared for his sermons. A friend suggested that his delivery might be improved if he left that preparation to the Holy Spirit. One Sunday he decided to try this tactic so he did not prepare. When he stepped up to the pulpit the Holy Spirit spoke to him and said: “Frans, Frans du bist foul gevasen” (or as we might say: “you have been lazy”).

Meal Time and Stories

I brought some Black Bush (Bushmills whisky) to the Padre for I had heard he liked a good drop of the doings. He shared it with us at evening meals. One night the conversation turned to the value of blessed objects and Sacramental grace. I remembered the time when I was in the American army as a chaplain’s assistant; when a female soldier came in and asked for a rosary. I gave her one from the box near my desk, then she asked if it was blessed. I said that I didn’t know and then I asked (being from a Lutheran background), what the difference was between a blessed one and a non-blessed one. She replied that a blessed one brought you more luck. When I later related this discussion to the catholic chaplain he said: “It is people like her that give us a bad name”.

The Padre countered this story with one of his own. It seems that a very rich man had come to the priest of a village and asked for his dog to be baptized. The Priest did not want to offend the rich man who was generous to the church, but Baptism of a dog was not church policy, so he went to the Bishop with the problem. The Bishop thought over the situation for a few days and then called the priest back to his office and asked: “Do you think the dog would be interested in Confirmation as well?” The Padre’s smile at the hunger of the Bishop for money was infectious. Padre’s dependable, second in command (Fr. Abeto) was studying to be a priest. Fr. Abeto was our official host and I called him “Big Boss” to his delight. Big Boss sat at the foot of the long dinning table and Padre sat at the head. Each meal was begun and ended with a prayer. Padre or (big boss) Abeto would choose one of the ‘visitors’ to lead the prayer.

Those meals at Padre’s house were gentle and enjoyable all the more for the excellent food that was prepared for us by Luis the Padre’s cook. Luis worked in the most abysmal conditions by our standards. His kitchen was a small black hole of a place with an extremely small wood stove on a bench that spat more smoke into the confined room than it sent up the stove pipe. How he did the excellent work that he did in those conditions is a mystery to me. I took it upon myself to keep him in candles so that he could at least see what he was doing. Further, I kept Luis in supply of his favourite (clove) cigarettes. We would sit when he gave himself a break and I would pretend to smoke (like the famous president I don’t inhale). We did not know each other’s language but there was a sense of comradeship as we relaxed in each other’s company. I heard a story about our Padre Domingos Soares which was told to me after we had left his table for the last time. We were being driven back to Dili and the driver (who was from another town) spoke of a great courage; it seems that an Indonesian military person called the Padre for an interview. A gun was pointed at the head of the Padre and he was told that he was not to have a Mass on the next Sunday. The Padre did not argue and left the presence of the Indonesian officer and went back to his work. The next Sunday Mass was celebrated as always. No one came to kill Padre. No one knows why the threat was not carried out.

The School

Padre took us up to the school for our first days teaching. We were introduced to the principal and the other teachers and the Padre left as we were shown the school timetable which meant little to us as our Tetum (East Timor’s language) was not good enough to interpret the times and the years and the rooms to which the students were assigned. In the end we were led to our various classrooms and we entered our workplace for the next month. There were too many students in most classes for the number of desks and chairs. For the most part two desks would be pushed together and three students would share the two chairs and the two desks. It was not unusual for there to be four children sitting at the two chair/desk set ups. There were more junior high students than there were high school students. Of the four languages taught to each student, English was held in the least regard. Tetum, Portuguese, and Indonesian were given higher status as they were needed more for trade and cultural and historical ties. The students only had copybooks into which they copied what the teacher wrote on the board. The teachers had books but the English books were very poor as they were written by an Indonesian who had a poor grasp of English. The texts were full of stories the purpose of which seemed to be national propaganda for the state of Indonesia. East Timor inherited these texts when the Indonesians left and they are not in a position to replace them at the moment. One wonders why some Australian or American University English Department couldn’t spend a few weeks coming up with something vastly superior in terms of Junior High and High School texts in English which reflects the culture of East Timor. Most of the work could be done by University students. It would be a snap. Such a project would be of little cost and of great benefit to the world’s newest nation.

Teaching Innovations

Before coming to East Timor I had taught myself enough Tetum to play a little game with the hand splayed in front of the class. First I grasped the thumb and said in Tetum: “Dad says, don’t touch the baby”, then grasping the index finger I said: “Mum says, don’t touch the baby”, then grasping the middle finger I said: “Brother says, don’t touch the baby”, then grasping the ring finger I said: “Sister says, don’t touch the baby”. Then I repeated the whole thing in English with the corresponding fingers. Then, with the hand still splayed in front of a chosen student, I asked, in Tetum: “Where is the baby?” In each case the student reached out and touched the little finger. I reared back dramatically and exclaimed “DON’T TOUCH THE BABY!” This made all the students, including the chosen one, laugh and we had set the stage for a bit of fun in English class. Being that they had a good grounding in the religious aspects of the Catholic denomination of the Christian Church, I was happy to incorporate some of these aspects into my teaching of English. I would write on the board: “IN THE NAME OF THE FATHER, AND THE SON, AND THE HOLY SPIRIT – AMEN” Then I would go over the words for pronunciation using my walking stick as a pointer. Then I would motion the class to stand. I would not begin until all were standing properly at their desks. Then with hand touching my forehead I would intone: “In the name of the father”. If they did not repeat the phrase I would repeat it with a touch more emphasis. They always repeated it the second time if they had not done so the first time. There was nothing slow about these students. Then I went through the traditional crossing of oneself while intoning the words: “In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit – Amen”. While they were still standing I would give them a pregnant pause and then sing Amen in the fashion of Sydney P. in “Lilies of the Field”. This they joined into with great enthusiasm, repeating each Amen with more and more gusto. When a nun passed by the room I was going through my flash cards with the students with all the words in English that we had covered so far in the lesson. I took out the card with ‘SISTER’ on it and asked the nun to enter the room and then used her as an exemplar of ‘SISTER’. Then we did the catholic crossing of our selves in English and ended it with the special Sydney P. “Amen”. The nun smiled and asked me the name of the movie from which the song came. I couldn’t remember it at the time, but when I got home to Australia I asked my wife, who knew it straight off (my wife knows everything).

Too Little Too Late

During the second week in East Timor I took Padre aside and asked for his help. I told him that a friend had heard about the terrible things that the Indonesians had done to the East Timorese and wanted to help. When he heard that I was coming to East Timor he gave me some money to give to someone who had suffered under the Indonesians and could use the money. I asked Padre to help me find such a person. He asked how much money we were talking about. I told him, and he declared that it was too much for one person and then recommended that I divide it between two widows one of whom had also lost sons in a massacre. These women were later “defiled” by the Indonesian troops. I went and did as he suggested. The homes of these women had been destroyed by the Indonesian troops and had yet to be repaired. I hope the money helped to restore their shelter from the elements. They brought in a neighbour who acted as an interpreter. He told me that they were grateful for the presents. I had put the money in envelopes and taped them to boxes of Lion’s Christmas cakes, which I had brought with me from Australia. I think they were thanking me for the cakes. I had written on the envelopes: “From Australia – Too Little Too Late” I hoped someone would translate it for them after I had taken my leave of their homes. I didn’t get to see their faces when they found the money. But then it wasn’t about my seeing them open the envelopes. It was about helping where it was needed. I took a photo of them with the cakes and the envelopes. I had read that, when giving gifts, it was customary to say: “Something for the children”; I said this in Tetum and said good-by and left. I never saw them again.

A Great Find and a Bit of Motivation

While snooping through the teachers’ cupboard at the school I found some old Junior high school English Examination papers. I took a class set and used them in all my classes to teach English. Even the high school students had trouble with them. These students did not know how to respond to true and false questions, nor did they know how to answer multiple choice questions. They had not been taught the technique of it. I had fun introducing these concepts and having them practice in class. I told them there would be a prize for the student who did the best in each class. I offered $10.00 and an English/Tetum phrase book as a prize in each class (fortunately I had brought enough of those phrase books to meet this need). The money would have been very useful to their families. They worked very hard to do well in preparing for this difficult examination. The preparation took weeks and the examination was held on my last two days with each class. I saw much learning going on in this exercise of educational effort. Of course we all applauded the winners in each class enthusiastically. I was feeling quite proud of myself for this academic achievement when I waved good-by to my last class as they stood on the veranda of the school and waved to me. I then slipped on a small stone and fell flat on my face in the mud. Oh how the mighty do fall.

Kindness and Self-Motivation

Even with the walking stick I had trouble with the uneven or slippery surfaces. The East Timorese students were very helpful and nearly every day a different student would offer to carry my book bag to or from class. I have not noted Australian or American students being that helpful. Students would greet us with a smile and the traditional “good morning” or “good afternoon” or “good evening” whenever they passed. They were always extraordinarily polite to us and at the same time full of the joy of life.

There was something special about these students. Some times teachers would be taken out of school to teach in a town that was even worse off for teachers than Ermera was. The volunteer teachers from OZ would fill in as best they could but there were often still classes without teachers. I would walk by such a class on my way to teach the class I had been allocated and when I looked in through the window I would see one of the students up at the black-board explaining a topic as best he/she understood it and the other students would be copying down the information in their copy books. Again I would have to muse whether an American or Australian class would behave like that in the event that a teacher did not show up for class.

The boarding student boys who lived with us were always doing little things without being told. They got the generator going when the town power supply failed or they would wash the Padre’s four wheel drive (he really needed one on the roads he had to travel daily to take Mass to the people in the out lying districts). The boys kept their own meagre supply of clothing immaculate.

When it was time to leave most of the volunteers had tears in their eyes, for they had grown very fond of these monetarily poor but spiritually rich East Timorese people. I will always carry with me (in my mind’s eye) the view of those numerous, happy, black faces in Mass surrounded by plaster replicas of very white European Saints. I have no doubt that there were many black saints in that congregation. It was an honor just to sit (or stand) with them in that very special country.