Yesterday Simon was 2 weeks here already! At 1 week he was up to 7lb 3 oz, just, and ounce shy of hannah’s birth weight. Yesterday he weighted in at 7 # 12 oz. I am impressed and proud especially considering his milk comes from good timor food. No pizza milk, steak milk or icecream milk for him!
The past two weeks have been the expected rollercoaster of emotions. And, I have experienced minor setbacks physically as I haven’t followed my own good advice that I give to all my new moms in Duluth – rest, rest, rest that first week! Get someone besides your husband to help you that first week. Anyway, I am on the mend and laying around far more than I want to.
Did I mention dipers? We used disposables (even found huggies in dili at the sky high price of 14$ for 44, completely too expensive for most folks here) for the first week. But in the first week babies hardly pee or poop. My baby is I think, unusualy hydrated for Timor. I can qualify this as I have checked a lot of urine here in the clinic, as wel as asking patients about bathroom habit, and I would say that everyone is rather dehydrated. When we began using cloth diapers at one wek, it took us about 5 hours to feel like the diper system used by locals is less than ideal. People use these bib-like little units that actually do a good job of catching the poop but get soaked as soon as the baby pees. Blankets also get soaked quickley and parents peed on alot. Tom soon reminded me that Timor women who have babies stay at home, so getting peed on constantly is not a big deal.
But Tom and I are both going to be working again soon. We don’t want to walk around with wet spots all over our clothes really. I put out a desperate call to Libby on the first night of cloth dipering and have texted Deb and the Grandma’s hoping that we can soon get some hand down diper covers (mom already sent some dipers).
Now use your imagination for this one: buckets of dirty dipers, Tom washing off the poop by candlelight at 9pm after cooking dinner, cleaning up the kitchen and putting hannah to bed, and setting me up in bed with Simon.
Its march 2 and if the one computer in Timor telecom works and we’re able to get there hopefully we can post this this week. Martin, we still need some advice on why our laptop won’t work here. All the pc’s do!! I love to hear from you all and appreciate the prayers and thoughts. Keep it up!! Monica
To all of you friends, family and other interested readers who share this blog, THANK YOU for all your prayers , positive thoughts and energy, and well wishes for me during my pregnancy here in East Timor, and for the birth of baby Liddle. I do believe God heard all the prayers, and Simon Walter Liddle was born just as he was meant to be born.
In a nutshell, his birth was speedy, safe, and perfect, with the right people here at the right time.
The stats:
Born Feb. 15, 2010 about 1a.m. Timor time
3kg/6 lb 10 oz (big by Timor standards)
Full head of brown hair
Born at home in Lospalos with Daddy catching and Clinic Immanuel nurse Delfin assisting.
(and for you birth junkies in Duluth: about 4 and a half hours labor, with just an hour of hard active and about 15 minuts second stage. Born in the caul with a nuchal arm)
WHat Was It Like Having A Baby in East Timor?
Well…it was very peaceful. Very quiet as it was nighttime, except for me whispering an assortment of affirmations to myself to cope with labor. The electricity went out as usual at midnite, but I never noticed because I wanted candles for light anyway and already had them burning. Though we live in one of the mosth undeveloped countries in asia, we don’t live in a grass hut with a dirt floor. We are fortunate to have a bathroom attached to our bedroom. And, all the squating I did during my pregnancy and labor while using squat toilets was certainly helpful preparing me for birh. And, our tanki was full, so there was plenty of water for all our needs after teh birth, though we have no running waterh most hours of the day and nite. (after 6 months, I find my new normal quite comfortable)
As with Hannah’s birth, I feel extraordinarily fortunate to have had the people attend me for Simon’s birth here in Lospalos that I trust the most. I work with Delfin every day, an he is a very skilled and intelligent nurse. His bedside manner is also excellent. Tom called him as the baby was coming faster than it would take to get to the hospital at that point, and he arrived in, literally, a minute (he lives across the street at the clinic). Pastor Duarte and his wife Mery arrived minutes later, and held baby Simon, brought hot water for a bath, and talked with Hannah while Delfin, Tom and I took care of cord cutting, placenta, and baby exam details. When Simon and I were cleaned up and resting, Pastor Duarte said a prayer for us. This is our community, and we are so blessed.
Just a quick note to update folks on the baby. He was born early Monday morning at 1am on Feb 15th – same as Hannah’s birthday! His name is Simon Walter Liddle. Walter is after his grandpa Miller, who served in the Peace Corp in Tanzania in the 1960’s and Monica just thought up Simon and it seemed perfect for him! He is 6lb 10oz and 19″ long and is healthy and well. So is Hannah and Monica is doing well too. I’ll let Monica retell the story later…Our gratitude for all the prayers and support of all our friends and family.
It is February 13, and 2 days away from Hannah’s 6th birthday. She just lost her first tooth 2 days ago. It also happens to be 2 days away from Hannah’s little sister/brother’s due date….an unexpected addition to our initial plans to come to Timor last spring/summer. Pastor Kathy just laughed when we told her our situation (thanks for keeping our secret for so long, Kathy), and said, “Oh, God does have a good sense of humor!” Teasing that we are handed a lot of things at once: the opportunity to live in East Timor as missionaries, doing the work we felt/feel called to do, and blessing us with another child, at the same time!
I have received the spread of responses to having a baby here in East Timor, and, for choosing to stay in Lospalos and have a Timorese midwife attend me for birth. My parents have dealt with the mixed emotions of excitement of receiving a new grandchild, and the disappointment and fear of having me so far away, and in Timor. I have met many malay (foreigners) here in Lospalos and also in Dili, and they all are a bit surprised that I do not want to go to Dili Hospital to have a baby (even though it is a 5+ hour drive). It seems that here, in ways, I am dealing with some of the same psychology I dealt with in my practice in Duluth…..fear and distrust of Birth.
To be sure, I am not taking my situation lightly. I liken the possibility of the need to drive to the hospital in the city of Baucau to this: helping women in Grand Marais, a 2 hour drive from Duluth, and the Big Hospitals with emergency capacity. Like in Grand marais, there is a small hospital here in Lospalos. Cuban docs and Timorese staff, including 6 or 8 midwives, are available. Baucau has resources I might need, but probably won’t.
Mostly, I feel fortunate and blessed that I have had a healthy pregnancy (yes, even here, in the two-thirds world). In a ddition to the midwife who will attend me here in LP, I will have the support of so many midwives: Jana, Deb, Caralee, Gail, Jacinta, and others. I appreciate and look for your continued prayers, friends, as the birth day draws near. Monica
When we came to Timor I didn’t know much about what I’d be doing. One friend very experienced in mission work said something like, “if you can be patient and flexible, God will find a use for you.” Really good advice and sometimes hard to follow! Teaching English came up right away when we got to Lospalos as something the church community wanted for the church youth and clinic staff. I’ve been working hard to put together a practical program mainly focused on practicing how to speak the language. Recently we’ve also been doing a little writing. I like it because I also like to study the Tetum language and it gives me lots of opportunity to do that as well as develop friendships with people.
The students began their studies in October. The first two papers students have written are about their “typical day” and “something you know how to do.” Below are two short essays which also give a glimpse into the lives of the people in Timor.
The Life of a Fisherman
Asala is a member of the IPTL Church in Teino, a fishing village an hour away from Lospalos. He comes to Lospalos during the week to study English at Immanuel Church. Below is his reflection about his life as a fisherman.
“The good time to fish is at night because at night we can get a many fish. Frequently, we also go fishing in the morning but sometimes we must care to prepare the tools of the fishing because very important like hook, rope, dragnet, oar, petromax and special boat. In the sea we shall be up against many problems like the wind, the wave, the rain and also the flow but it isn’t new one for us. As fishermen we are already invulnerable/immune from that, but we must be careful because sometimes weather is good and sometimes not. In my life the sea is like a bank for us because from it we can get money to support the family needs. We go out at 8:00 and come back at 6: 00 in the morning.”
Planting Corn
Mary is from Kupang, Indonesia (the Western end of Timor) and is a member of Immanuel Church in Lospalos. She is also a student in our English class. Mary is a seminary graduate and soon to be an ordained pastor in the IPTL. In addition to her pastoral work, like many Timorese, she is also a farmer. Below is her reflection about planting corn.
“Before I plant corn first of all I must clean my garden. After cleaning, I must wait for rain because if not rain, I am not plant corn. At the same time wait for to rain I prepare seed corn when it rain to plant. Usually after plant, I weed and clean my garden because in the garden too many weeds. After cleaning I wait for crop to harvest my corn.”
A few weeks ago I was in the “toko” (shop) right beside our house buying something and I saw a peculiar sight on the shelf – a black and gold 12 oz can with the word “Guinness” written on it. Imagine my surprise and joy; sometimes you can’t get rice or clean water in town but you can get a Guinness! Wow! Yesterday another miracle happened. We were at dinner with some friends from Samoa who told us about a family right near our house that makes fresh bread every afternoon. That was great news because up to now I’ve not been able to find good bread in the mornings, which is unusual in Timor. Usually one can walk out on the street and find fresh, warm “paun” in a basket or box for sale. That or a guy comes riding a bike or walking each morning yelling “paun, paun, paun” and you jump out of bed and run and buy some. Until now though I’ve been buying the only bread I could find near our house which is sort of like Wonder Bread except in the shape of a roll and could well be imported from a Sam’s Club in Minneapolis. Now I can get my bread in the evening and have my favorite Timorese breakfast the next morning – fresh bread and local coffee!
Christmas in Timor
Along the roadsides throughout Timor people have been building nativity scenes for weeks. They are made of bamboo, wood and various grasses. Additional touches are loud speakers and lights to turn on when the electricity comes on at night. At Immanuel church we started on the 23rd with a trip to the small Protestant Church in Illilopa. This village has only about a dozen Protestant families, down from Indonesian times when it was full every Sunday. Nowadays the church is largely empty and has no pastor, so each week a few from Immanuel go there to hold a service for the few folks who come. This afternoon there were more who came since it was Christmas (actually Dec. 23). As usual the service was held in 3 languages; Tetum, Indonesian, and Fataluku the local language. Often times older people speak only the local language, so most of the time there is translation of some kind going on.
Outside the church at Illilopa is a bell which calls people to worship on Sunday. The bell is an old bomb from the World War 2 period when the Japanese invaded Timor and fought the Australians and Timorese for 2 years. The bell is reminiscent of the bell at our local church, Peace United Church of Christ in Duluth, MN. There we have 3 bells from war ships, once part of the destruction of humanity which now signal the start of worship each Sunday. Each time we hear them, we are reminded that one of God’s hopes for the world lies in the transformation our weapons of war into instruments of peace. (Is 2:4).
On the morning of the 24th we loaded up the truck with about 12 youth and drove down to the village of Livie, on the sea about an hour and a half away on the road to Dili. Like the church in Illilopa, this church does not have a pastor and has been largely abandoned, in fact today’s service was the first held in 5 years! About a dozen people came, half of them children. After the service a few of us went to a members house across the street where a family member has been sick for a long time. We prayed for her health and I interviewed her about the illness so I could inform Monica about it. Next time we pass by we’ll stop and Monica can consult with her.
Christmas eve services at Immanuel Church in Lospalos started somewhere between 6 and 7. At last minute request, I did the opening prayer in Tetum, the youth did all their performances in Indonesian and Tetum, and recent seminary graduate preached for about 45 minutes in Indonesian and it was translated to Makasse. The clinic nurse sat next to me and translated the Indonesian into Tetum!
The two local languages most common here are Fataluku and Makassae (though there are several other smaller languages). Unlike Tetum, which is an “Austronesian” language like Indonesian, Fataluku and Makassae are both“Papuan” languages, originating from the eastern end of the Indonesian Archipelago and having nothing in common with Tetum, though Fataluku it is a very simple language so loanwords from Indonesian, Tetum and Portuguese are used with it. Fataluku is spoken by most of the people in the Lautem district of Timor, the far Eastern end of the island. In the Western part of Lautem district, most people speak Makassae, so in Lospalos about 20% are ‘ema Makassae’ (a Makassae speaking person). With the exception of older people, most people in Lautem now speaks at least some Tetum, one of East Timor’s two national languages (the other is Portuguese). Throughout East Timor, linguists estimate that about 80% speak Tetum as a first language, or fluently as a second language.
A week ago, Saturday afternoon, the clinic was officially closed, a grandma brought her 1 year old granddaughter to us who had been playing with a rooster, and attacked by the rooster. She had chicken scratch marks on her face and head. As Delfin, the clinic nurse, was gone at the time, I asked Tom to help me with this child. I cleaned her bloody face off, and found 3 wounds that needed to be stitched.
As you may know, I have stitched plenty of perineums for my birth clients. But faces: well, let’s face it, everyone sees your face , every day, for your whole life. I have stitched an earlobe in the past, but this was going to be my first face repair, and on a 1 year old at that.
Fortuneately, Delfin walked into the clinic just as I was preparing to inject some lidocaine (numbing medicne). He jumped in and helped the grandmother hold the child still for this procedure, while Tom took the easier job of handing me gauze and other items.
Within a relatively short time, the little girl’s face was clean, a stitch under the nose, and 4 facial stitches were secured. She was sent away with tylenol and antibiotics, and told to return on Monday for a checkup.
Tom was ready to leave the room well before I told him I was done with needing his help. Delfin, unshaken, helped me wrap up. there is a wonder to working in an environment where the daily suffering is such that, to help, you turn off your senses to the sounds of crying, terrified children, and just get the job done. And, I will say, we do not have to dehumanize the patient, the person, to do so. Gentleness and kindness are almost always possible. Delfin and the rest of the clinic staff have mastered this, much better than providers I have seen in other places, both here in Timor and the States.
How’s the girl? healing well, last I saw her.
I’ll try to attach pictures soon.
Monica
The past few years on Thanksgiving Day we’ve gathered with my family or good friends in Minnesota for turkey, potatoes and all the fix-ens that go with it. We all love the meal, but the best part is always the fellowship, and since many of us like to cook, we also like the preparation. This year was different since we’re not in the United States. This year I spent the day preparing land for a community garden project with the youth and pastor of Immanuel Protestant Church. When the rain starts we will be planting corn, beans and pumpkins. Next spring, during the dry season we will grow vegetables.
Our plot before we began cultivating it.
Earlier in the week we’d begun by cutting down some trees on the land beside the church. Our ‘toos’ is about 30 meters by 20 meters. Today’s work started out by chopping up the remains of the trees with machetes and setting the branches aside, while keeping the larger ones for fencing and housing material. The ‘katana’, or machete is the most commonly used tool here for most anything having to do with agriculture or the forest. The tool is not like your typical machete. This one is shorter, heavier and has a blunt end which is used for digging up weeds and splitting bamboo.
Clearing the plot.
After we chopped up the branches we used brute force, leverage and team work to move the massive trunks out of the way. Then we commenced clearing weeds and turing the soil by hand with hoes. The hoe, or ‘enxada’ is a heavy tool with a sharp edge, it along with the ‘ai-suak’ – like a crowbar yet heavier and straight – is used for turning soil and digging things up. As a carpenter, I’m used to manual work so I know how to perform a strenuous task all day, but the past few months I’ve been teaching English so the work was hard on me; by the end of the day my hands, having gotten soft already, were sore.
Building a Fence
Midday we stopped for lunch. Our meal was standard Timorese fare: rice, cooked greens, corn with beans, and “ai-dila matak” – the papaya fruit cooked as a vegetable before it is ripe. It is therefore very bitter, which is a hallmark of East Timorese food. Aside from the unique taste, the bitter foods, especially the leaves of the papaya plant are also medicinal, used to both prevent and treat malaria. Along with that was “ai-manas” – a chili based hot sauce that accompanies almost everything. About 8 of us sat down to eat together, but before we ate we prayed together as we always do. We gave thanks for the food and asked for God’s blessing on our food and prayed for people who don’t have food. We also gave thanks for our work.
Breaking Ground and Planting Crops
Like most people, I’ve done my share of work that didn’t feel like a ‘blessing.’ Fresh in my memory are days driving to work in the dark to build a house in the snow and near zero temperatures of Duluth, Minnesota! Yet, meaningful work is something God intends for us (Gen. 2:15, Eccl. 3:13, etc.) because there is dignity in work, and dignity is God’s desire for all humanity. Work and education give tremendous hope and purpose especially in a place with such a traumatic recent history of violence and poverty.
Ironically, despite the fact that I’m on the opposite side of the globe from my home in Minnesota and working with people who don’t know what the Thanksgiving Holiday is, it felt like one of the more authentic Thanksgiving Days I’ve had in a while. After lunch those of us working in the field went back for a few more hours despite the fact that it was “loro manas” – the hot time of day. We swung our hoes until late afternoon, chatting occasionally about the project while listening to the kids playing and singing nearby and went home hot and tired but full of life – and gratitude!
Caralee was just here for a visit in Lospalos. Caralee was in Timor together with us last year, and it was a sweet treat to have a friend come and slide right in, not surprised or afraid of the heat, the insects, the toilets, the lack of electricity. When she and Jacinta (her Aussie friend/midwife/nurse) arrived last Sunday, the water wasn’t running, and the tanki (the water storage container in the bathroom) was running low, but we all managed to find what we needed to bathe, flush, and clean the dishes with, until it turned back on again Monday afternoon. Not exactly how you hope to welcome a visitor: sorry, the water’s not on; but, there you have it. We are lucky to have running water in the house, truly, as most in Timor carry it from near or far for everything they need.
Caralee and Jacinta were welcomed to spend time helping out in the clinic on Monday. A good thing, as we saw 130 patients, and we were short staffed by 2 people. As they’ve both been just in Bali, their Indonesian language skills made them assets for the day, and the week, actually, as they stepped in much of the time, and were invited back by the staff!
I love the clinic. I always have an assistant to help with translation, and I love these women. They are hungry for knowledge, know very much by practice alone, and are very sincere and kind to the patients. Lots of worms here in Timor: moms come in complaining of the child/ren pooping worms, or even vomiting worms. fortuneately, there is medicine for this! Sadly, every day I see very malnourished children. Mothers either don’t have the money to feed children, or don’t understand how frequently they need to feed their non-breastfeeding 1 year old. Painful abscesses come in; or rather, children adn adults with big, swollen infections, from the noses to the eyelids to the feet. The naturopathic physician has a real appreciation for simple antibiotics in this environment.
So, Caralee got to see lots of this. Also, a 55 year old woman with a uterus the size of a basketball. I sent her for an ultrasound, and the results came back to me: ” a great uterine mass”. Hmmm. I knew that without the hightech USG. So, I will consult with dr.Dan in dili, and I am thinking the woman may have tuberculosis. this would be better than the alternatives, as we can treat TB just fine here.
I was treated to a blessing ceremony/dinner last night by Caralee, to celebrate the coming baby. All of you in the birth community in duluth were present, via candles lit in your names! I appreciate all the prayers, well-wishes and support over these next months as we prepare for yet another transition, Baby number 2! Hannah is ready. By the way, she is speaking Tetum very well now. Time to go, lots of love, Monica
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Westerners in Eastern Asia