The Trapani's in Timor Leste

 Just prior to our English class we heard a large crashing sound outside. A truck that was carrying a large piece of equipment caught on an electrical line and ripped down the electrical pole. The live electrical wire was hanging down to the street. We could see sparks come from the wire as vehicles ran over it. If you look closely you can see the uncovered wire right next to the man's hand as he tries to lift the wire so it clears the truck that he's on.  I think this man was from the vehicle that brought down the wire. He is in the middle of the street holding the electrical wire.  Here are some of the motorcycle traffic on the street going over the wire.  The truck that brought down the wire did not stay there very long. As it attempted to move down the street there were other wires that were low. They have a man positioned on the piece of equipment and his job was to move the wire high enough so the equipment could fit under it. Sometimes he woul

We visited a water project in a district about 30 miles from our house. This was one of four villages where the project collected water from the water source and then piped into the village. In the village they had water faucets located as close as possible to groups of houses. In this Village there were 20 houses and about 100 people. The Water Source was a mile away up a hill and required about a 1 hour round-trip walk. We put in four faucets to service the 20 houses. This is Ermalinda Santos. She said that now that she doesn't have to make several trips for water each day she has had time to plant a garden. The water system has enough capacity that it not only provides drinking water but some water for irrigation. These are coffee beans. Not enough here is produce to sell to others. In some parts of the country there are larger coffee Farms and Starbucks is the major customer. A sanitation project was also part of the Water Project. Latrines were constructed and

The country has a parliamentary type of government. recently the ruling coalition failed and new elections have been scheduled. The last time this happened back in the early 2000s There was violence in the country. In order to prevent that the police have been stationed along all of the major rally routes. here is a policeman with a semi-automatic rifle who was stationed in front of our restaurant. The campaigns are very orderly here. There is a relatively short campaign season of only a couple of months. Rally's for the different parties are held on different days. This is a picture of a parade to the rally which went in front of the church on Wednesday. It is for the most popular party here in the city. The rallys seem like they're a lot of fun. Cars and motorcycles going down the street. There was even a few vehicles in flags from the opposition party but it did not seem to cause much friction. On Thursday after all of the individual parties parades were over th

As part of The Midwives National day we were asked to attend a mass that was attended almost entirely by midwives and midwives students. We were given guests of honor seats on the front row. Including setting on the side wings there were probably about 300 in attendance. The mass was given in Teton. We are asked frequently if people can take our pictures. People who we don't even know like having their pictures taken with foreigners. This happened quite a lot after the mass. In 1991 during the occupation there was a shooting of a civilians by the Indonesian military in this Cemetery. It is a national landmark. It is also a place where we all went after the mass to honor the a midwives who have passed away over the years. This is where we put flowers and lit candles in a general reverence and remembrance of those who have passed away. After the cemetery we went to the National Hospital. Which is the largest hospital in the country. At that time I symbolically p