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. Someti...

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...

This is the sunrise from our morning run. Every day is almost like this. Best sunrises ever We eat out about 5 days a week. Eating out isn't too expensive. This is the road home. We are buddies with all the kids. They're all very friendly. I had another meeting with the u.s. ambassador to Timor-Leste. This time it was with me and only 5 other people. The Ambassador wanted our impression of security and problems in the nation. I was really out of place. The other three Worden all were associated with larger companies and had been in the country for 3 or 4 years. I guess the important thing is that now I have a relationship with the Ambassador in case there are future needs. This is the water tank at church. Because the water pressure is so poor all buildings have to have their own gravity fed tank so that water will consistently flow. Whenever we have any activity at the building we first have to plug in the pump so it starts to refill the tank. The country hasn...

 Cheryl and I visited a rural Village about 2 hours away from our home. Fortunately the road was pretty decent. This is a village that has been selected to receive garden equipment, seeds and training. The construction of the barn and the fencing are common in the area. Everything is made out of local materials.  We were given the seats of Honor on the tarp. I was the third speaker. My speech of course had to be translated.  Like all of our projects we were given a ceremonial meal of gratitude. This is what Cheryl had to eat for the initial snack. Later on in the day we had another Meal which was mainly rice, fish, chicken and beans.  After the meal I was able to view the kitchen. This is where the meal was prepared. Those are baby pigs.  The meeting started out with us being presented with ceremonial gifts. Cheryl is wearing the tais that we all received. On the left hand side of the table are green leaves with some sort of white powder...

The US Embassy is only about a block from our house. It's a pretty big walled compound that has the ambassador's residence, the embassy and some utility buildings. There's a lot of embassies here in this city and this one is by far the largest in terms of total land area. It is just across from the beach so it has a great View.  The picture is of the ambassador's residence.  It is so large that it serves as ofices also.  The interesting thing about it is that there is only a total of 200 US citizens in the country. I was asked to be on a committee of business and organization leaders that would have responsibility for strategic planning in the event of a natural disaster or civil violence. I was asked to be on the committee as the leader of our church on the island The lady on the far right of the picture is the ambassador. She sat in during our meeting and participated. There was about 20 people in the meeting. I'm also on another committee that will me...