From the sisters who volunteered to go to Timor-Leste, three sisters; Anne Byrne, Anne Kelly who had previous experience in war torn Uganda, and Diaan Stuart were missioned.
Anne Byrne and Diaan went to work in the Catholic Teachers’ College in Baucau while Anne Kelly remained in Dili engaged by local agencies, such as Fundasaun Alola that focused on promoting women’s rights to good health, education and employment. Anne travelled across the country offering support and resources to teachers, most of whom had never been trained.
In her final two years she was employed as an English teacher by various NGOs and government ministers. Anne Byrne used her musical talent teaching music for two years, while I was responsible for the professional development of staff at the College for eight years, before moving to the village of Gari-uai and opening the preschool there.
In early 2006, our plane from Darwin was a nineteen-seater with a packet of chips, a Mars bar and a can of drink for breakfast. Flying over Timor we saw that the country consists of high mountain ranges bisected by rivers forming deep valleys that are spectacular and which contrasted on landing with the devastation of Dili.
In Dili many charred buildings were a legacy of the Indonesian retreat. The road to Baucau was appalling and I remember thinking that I never wanted to travel that road again. Little did I imagine that I would be driving it regularly in a manual, four-wheel drive Hilux ute.
We discovered that the Indonesians had even removed the wires from the electricity poles and when we settled in Baucau, that they had also destroyed the water system. All the villages along the route had suffered major damage, some worse than others.
Other first impressions were the beginning of reconstruction, very gradually replacing the bamboo, grasses and reed homes with homemade concrete bricks, but retaining the outside cooking area. Women and children carried water in plastic bottles and washing on their heads to the stream. Children walked long distances to school while some school-aged girls missed an education as they cared for younger siblings while their mothers worked in the fields or markets. One child I passed each morning often used me as a distraction for her crying baby sister.
Food was seasonal, scarce and bought from the footpath market in the centre of Baucau. There was no running water apart from the springs and in the beginning, electricity came on between seven and ten if we were lucky. There appeared to be high unemployment especially among the youth yet despite this, we found the people were very friendly and so happy to have achieved independence but at cost.
Religion was important to the people and the Catholic Church was influential in all levels of society.
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