Carmel O’Connor - GIG 2005 – East Timor

It was an absolute jolt to see the pain and hunger, coming face to face with children suffering obvious malnutrition. I was stunned to see the extent, still so evident, of the destruction which had been planned and conducted so systematically by the departing militia in 1999.

East Timor remains the poorest country in East Asia. More than one in 10 children born there today are likely to die before the age of five.

I discovered that it costs only $4 per month, plus $12 boarding fee, to send a teenager to agricultural college where they are taught, at tertiary level, subjects such as crop production, vegetable farming and how to manage herds of cows and pigs.

Another school for girls teaches them computer skills, music, sewing and cooking and opens up their social skills.

Without such education, these girls are destined to follow in their mothers’ footsteps, having families as large as eight or nine children and living in abject poverty.

An uplifting moment of my trip was later to turn to tragedy. We were delighted to see progress on the building of a Pre-secondary school in the remote and impoverished community of Osso Huna.

Osso Huna is typical of most East Timor communities. There’s no electricity, no postal or telephone services, the roads are atrocious and there is little in the way of health and sanitation services.

But just weeks after we returned to Australia, Cyclone Daryl, as a ferocious category three, hit Osso Huna and demolished the partially built school.

It’s absolutely heartbreaking. Construction had reached an advanced stage. Now all that effort and materials have been lost. Whole walls have collapsed breaking many concrete blocks and destroying the steel reinforcements.

The losses include materials that need to be replaced – concrete blocks, sand cement and reinforcing rods, not to mention the lost labour and the transport costs from the block factory in Dili.

To sum up, the visit has been a rewarding experience, giving me the opportunity to experience another culture and to meet and obtain an understanding of the needs of the generous, loving, hospitable and resilient East Timorese.