It's getting very dry here

This is Janu. He assists us in all of our English classes. He comes to almost everyone. He translates for us when there are some difficult concepts. He was a student in the prior years English class.  He is a graduate student of the University and is starting a business Consulting with local farmers.

He recently got engaged but has not married due to the dowry required for his future wife. The dowry can be as much as a few thousand dollars which can be almost an entire years salary. So instead most couples just live together and eventually have common-law marriages.

What makes him so interesting is his commitment to helping with the English classes. He receives no salary or compensation. He helps out 4 days a week. He just keeps on coming.

Janu`s fiance has a side business where she makes these small Frozen popsicles called icees. They are a combination of milk, sugar and surprisingly a string bean. She sells them for $0.05 a piece. So occasionally we buy about $2 worth and hand them out to our English classes. The students love them. They are quite a treat here. For Cheryl and I the string bean ruins the taste.

This is our 6:00 English class. They are a fun group. This week they wanted a picture before they left for home. It is remarkable how bright they are. They hear an English phrase one time and they can usually remember it

One of the largest rivers in the country runs to the sea about a half mile from our house. Now that it's the dry season it has been reduced to the small trickel. During the wet season it can be a hundred yards wide. Because there is almost no water storage here and no irrigation the summer months are usually times of famine for most of the people that live in the rural areas.

As church was getting started today this man by the name of Jasper showed up. Fortunately he had excellent English. He has lived in Australia for a couple years and knows a little bit about the church. He sat in sacrament meeting and said he would come back next week.

This is Eden. Her children are James, Rico and Nicole . She is a single mother that that operates a laundry business, a cleaning business, and a party supply store. The middle child Rico has a learning disability that cannot be corrected here in Timor leste. So, she is sending her children to live with their grandparents in the Philippines so that Rico can get the proper education. Because of expenses she will probably only see her children twice a year at most for the next couple years.

It is surprisingly common here for families to be separated. Because employment is so difficult often a family member has to leave the country to find work wherever they can.