Atauro Island



This is our Hut on the beach

At night the mosquito net surrounds the bed

We traveled to Atauro Island for a groundbreaking of a dormitory that LDS Charities is building for a job mentoring program. This is an island about 25 miles off the coast of Timor-Leste. The island is probably the most primitive and poor area of the entire country. It has a population of about 8000 and is only subsistence farming.

We took a chartered boat over to the island. It was the size of a large water ski boat. When we hit the open sea it was exciting. The boat bounced around quite a bit.

We stayed in a hut on the beach. It had no air conditioning and the only electrical was solar and a battery. The island only has electricity about 5 hours a day.  The bed had a mosquito net over it. It was built to take advantage of the sea breeze. We did not feel much of the sea breeze and so it was a little uncomfortable sleeping.
The hut did have a great hammock on the porch.  The ceremony we were involved with took only about an hour and we were on the island for about 30 hours because of the boat schedule so we had a lot of time just to hang out
This is one of the streets through their town.
This was their weekly market day. All of the villagers on the island gather at the market to exchange goods. The boat came in that day from Dili and so items are brought from the main island to sell here.
Dried octopus and fish. We did not purchase any. When you walk through the market and see all the poverty you are overwhelmed with gratitude that you were born into a country and society that has so much.
Instead of snowball fights they have seaweed fights.
We traveled home on the ferry. The ferry was donated from Germany a few years ago and is a pretty nice boat.
We were on the top deck so we could get more air.
The boat was packed. Even the stairwells were filled with people.
This was a picture of the village dignitaries for the humanitarian project.
As part of the ceremony we got to put ceremonial stones in the foundation.
The building will be housing for young adults to be mentored at a business that is on the grounds. The citizens of the island are almost totally cut off from the world. No internet. And very little news or information reaches them. It's very difficult for them to understand modern commerce and capitalism. The mentoring program is designed to help the youth gain skills so they can function in the modern world.


Comments

  1. Hutchings FamilyMay 14, 2019 at 9:44 PM

    So you see the poverty which is worse that the poverty you are already exposed to on your island! Just amazing that they live as long as they do. When you come home we will all look very fat to you and you will think that we are all very wasteful and have way too much stuff!!! When our boys came back to the United States from their missions, especially our Taiwan boys, they said we were all fat! They were so skinny!!! Thinking of you! Hutchings

    ReplyDelete
  2. The Trapani's in LiberiaMay 14, 2019 at 11:07 PM

    When we look at Facebook and pictures of back home it is noticeable that everyone is a lot heavier than they are here. Maybe one out of a hundred people here are not thin. I've gotten used to always being the biggest guy in the room. It's going to be quite an adjustment when we get home. We do feel small when we see Australians. Generally they are large people.

    People here don't throw away anything. Our maid goes through our trash each week and takes out the stuff she finds valuable. She saves all of the jars and the old clothes and shoes that we throw away.

    ReplyDelete
  3. PaulJuly 31, 2019 at 9:56 PM

    hey guys, when you come home you're going to freeze!

    ReplyDelete

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