photos and a to do list
Well, no need to have worried: I recovered my passport today, complete with a brand new visa. The extension expires on August 17th, three days after my flight to Darwin. This three week countdown has really forced me to consider what I what to do in Timor before I leave, and also what out of that list is realistic.
I suppose the first thing I should really consider is work… Lest it sound too cheesy, the past month has been a whirlwind of activity… The Ba Futuru staff were already conducting “Child Protection” assessments in Dili’s IDP camps for UNICEF when I arrived, which involved repeatedly touring several local temporary camps, setting up camp child protection focal points (usually some one living in the camps who volunteered to coordinate all child-related activities and services), conducting surveys to gage the number of minor residents, and ensuring that facilities were “child-friendly”.
While this was going on, we were promised funding to start doing educational programming in some of the camps, and had to write up a proper training manual for the project. Many long hours and full days at the design and copy shop later, the guides are now printed (in both English and Tetum) and beautiful! There are eight lessons in total with subjects including: human and child rights (and corresponding responsibilities); basic conflict resolution skills; trauma healing; anger management; and envisioning a peaceful future…. The lessons are fairly short, flexible, and generally active since the camps have many distractions and the kids there have short attentions spans. The staff here in Dili are working at two different IDP camps, called Motael Church and Bidau Orphanage, and our staff in the districts are working in three camps. Everyone returns to the office every afternoon totally exhausted, but the work seems to be going really well.
And, amazingly, many formal proposals and several weeks later, the promised money came through! We went to the bank on Friday with over $35,000 in cheques from various donor organizations, and the tellers were saying parabens, congratulations! It was great!
In the time in between the program guide editing and printing and proposal writing and site visits and Child Protection meetings and banking, I’ve been trying to edit and re-write sections of a manual on non-violent discipline for teachers and child care workers in Timor. That phase is fairly close to being finished, but the full plan is to write a corresponding training, and then facilitate the completed program with the staff so that they will be able to conduct the trainings themselves in the future. So… three weeks to organize a two-day training, and then two days to model the program.
No problem, right?
☺
Also on my list of countdown things to do is travel outside of Dili! There is so much of the country that I’d like to see, but the situasaun during the past two or three months has made travelling very difficult… roads were frequently closed, and there was always a fear that you would get stranded, unable to get back into Dili… But now that things are quieter, people are moving regularly, and even some of the buses out to the districts are running, there are definitely a few places that I’d like to explore.
Unfortunately, it will be difficult to go far, mainly because I don’t have my own transport and wouldn’t travel without a (preferably Tetun-speaking) companion. For instance, I don’t know that I’ll make it out to Jaco Island, a place over 6 hours’ drive from Dili, on the very East of Timor… it’s supposed to be spectacular… entirely made of fine white sand, and reachable only by a short trip across from the mainland in a local boat. Alas, that will have to be for next time. But, I do hope to get to Ata’uru, a large island directly across the water from Dili. Most people take a ferry there (which takes 2-3 hours), spend the night in Timor’s only Eco Village, and return home the next day with some snorkelling in between. Wish me luck finding some other people who feel ready for a couple of relaxing days out of the city…
Also on the list of things to do is to visit the tais market, to buy some traditional Timorese weavings. And it would be good to take some more photos of Dili… since no one really walks anywhere ever (for security reasons at first, and now just because it’s rather uncomfortable being the only white woman on the streets), I haven’t had many opportunities to play tourist in town with my camera!
So… it’s not an outrageous list. Wish me luck!
Bidau IDP Camp
I suppose the first thing I should really consider is work… Lest it sound too cheesy, the past month has been a whirlwind of activity… The Ba Futuru staff were already conducting “Child Protection” assessments in Dili’s IDP camps for UNICEF when I arrived, which involved repeatedly touring several local temporary camps, setting up camp child protection focal points (usually some one living in the camps who volunteered to coordinate all child-related activities and services), conducting surveys to gage the number of minor residents, and ensuring that facilities were “child-friendly”.
While this was going on, we were promised funding to start doing educational programming in some of the camps, and had to write up a proper training manual for the project. Many long hours and full days at the design and copy shop later, the guides are now printed (in both English and Tetum) and beautiful! There are eight lessons in total with subjects including: human and child rights (and corresponding responsibilities); basic conflict resolution skills; trauma healing; anger management; and envisioning a peaceful future…. The lessons are fairly short, flexible, and generally active since the camps have many distractions and the kids there have short attentions spans. The staff here in Dili are working at two different IDP camps, called Motael Church and Bidau Orphanage, and our staff in the districts are working in three camps. Everyone returns to the office every afternoon totally exhausted, but the work seems to be going really well.
And, amazingly, many formal proposals and several weeks later, the promised money came through! We went to the bank on Friday with over $35,000 in cheques from various donor organizations, and the tellers were saying parabens, congratulations! It was great!
In the time in between the program guide editing and printing and proposal writing and site visits and Child Protection meetings and banking, I’ve been trying to edit and re-write sections of a manual on non-violent discipline for teachers and child care workers in Timor. That phase is fairly close to being finished, but the full plan is to write a corresponding training, and then facilitate the completed program with the staff so that they will be able to conduct the trainings themselves in the future. So… three weeks to organize a two-day training, and then two days to model the program.
No problem, right?
☺
Also on my list of countdown things to do is travel outside of Dili! There is so much of the country that I’d like to see, but the situasaun during the past two or three months has made travelling very difficult… roads were frequently closed, and there was always a fear that you would get stranded, unable to get back into Dili… But now that things are quieter, people are moving regularly, and even some of the buses out to the districts are running, there are definitely a few places that I’d like to explore.
Unfortunately, it will be difficult to go far, mainly because I don’t have my own transport and wouldn’t travel without a (preferably Tetun-speaking) companion. For instance, I don’t know that I’ll make it out to Jaco Island, a place over 6 hours’ drive from Dili, on the very East of Timor… it’s supposed to be spectacular… entirely made of fine white sand, and reachable only by a short trip across from the mainland in a local boat. Alas, that will have to be for next time. But, I do hope to get to Ata’uru, a large island directly across the water from Dili. Most people take a ferry there (which takes 2-3 hours), spend the night in Timor’s only Eco Village, and return home the next day with some snorkelling in between. Wish me luck finding some other people who feel ready for a couple of relaxing days out of the city…
Also on the list of things to do is to visit the tais market, to buy some traditional Timorese weavings. And it would be good to take some more photos of Dili… since no one really walks anywhere ever (for security reasons at first, and now just because it’s rather uncomfortable being the only white woman on the streets), I haven’t had many opportunities to play tourist in town with my camera!
So… it’s not an outrageous list. Wish me luck!
Bidau IDP Camp
posted by melissa at 12:22 AM
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