As we drove last evening, men were playing volleyball with old-but-still-good nets, kids were playing soccer barefoot in the dirt. Others were lounging on porches in the shade.  I thought to myself, people really know how to enjoy life here.  And then I thought some more. You know, there is something worse than having too much to do, and that is this: having nothing to do.

While last nite on the television in our hotel room I heard that the unemployment rate is still nearly 10% in the USA, here it is 7 times that.  And while statistics are arguably unreliable here, it is painfully obvious that there are far too many people with no path to opportunity.  Too few jobs, too few higher ed/college opportunities.  At the same time, I am finally here long enough to be able to tune into something else going on: a lot of teenage sex.

Not surprising, really. Teenage sex happens everywhere (even right there in front of you, if your not paying attention!), in rich countries and poor countries alike. But the scary truth here in this conservative barely-modern and mostly catholic country is that very few young people know anything at all about sti’s and hiv.  Nothing.  They do, however, have ways of inducing abortions without medical help, and these practices happen regularly, I was told last week by a 22 year old unmarried woman.  HIV has made its way out here to Lospalos, East Timor.  In September, I will teach HIV and STI education with the church youth here.  The young woman Ispoke with suggested we open it upto the “other” (read: catholic) young people in the community. We concurred that although the catholic church would likely not want to speak with teens about anything to do with sex, except abstinence, that the catholic youth would be just as interested as the protestants! Imagine that.  My young friend used the phrase “just close your eyes” to describe the madres and padres approach to sexuality.

Anyway, I am worried there is a crisis brewing.  The absence of information, combined with the hormones of teens and a lack of much else to do can make an easy path for HIV.

So, we are in Baucau, tapping into what is going on in the rest of the world. HMM. Seems fairly good, here, for the most part.  Nice weather, unlike the (global warming induced?) floods in Pakistan and heat waves in other parts.  Our work is meaningful, albeit frustrating and saddening at times.  We started a malnutrition program 3 weeks ago.  We have identified 30 people (including 3 old folks), mostly under 5, who are mildly to severely malnourished.  When they live reasonable close, they come every day M-F to eat some protein rich foods that we cook each morning.  The kids get weighed every Friday, and if they gain a pound, we send them off with advice and a check up in 2 more weeks.  It is both incredibly gratifying and incredibly saddening to see these little ones and their moms and grandmas, holding them, feeding them mung beans and milk.  i want to let all the moms know how proud I am of them that they are bringing their children in so diligently.  But, I don’t have the words, so I just smile, nod my head, and notice them each as they sit.

There is a pregnant monkey in the monkey cage here at the Pousada hotel.  She has been laying around all day, and I am wondering if she is close to giving birth.  I am keeping my eyes on her while we are here.

Today here in East Timor we are celebrating two members of the community who will soon be on thier way to seminary in Indonesia: Alberto and Ayung.  As i write, women are cooking the freshly killed pig on the cooking fire. Vegetables are being prepared and of course we will have rice.  I asked Ayung if I could by cake from one of the shops to celebrate.  One small cake costs $5, so its a bit extravagant.  I am happy to treat for such an important celebration!

This morning Alberto knocked on our door about 9:30am. ” Doctora, can you help me?” he asked as he came in and sat down. His leg was bloody and he was limping.  He had run into a dog while riding the  motorbike, and tore the skin off a nice bit of his leg.  I shooed him over to the clinic to clean him up. 

He was cringing as I washed his wounds, trying to make sure the gravel was sufficiently cleaned out.  I decided to spray some lidocaine on, which eased him quite a bit.  Fortuneately he didn’t need stitches, as he is leaving soon.  I’m sorry he will be limping around, though, as he mentally and physically prepares for his journey.

Alberto and Ayung are both around 20.  They have been supported through International partners of the Protestant Church of Timor Leste to go to Seminary in Indonesia for 5 years.  They know mostly nothing about where they are going, except that the school is in Kalimantan, otherwise known as the island of Borneo.  They won’t plan on coming home for the 5 years, as it is too costly.  They do not know the name of the school they are going to, but these things have all been arranged. 

On June 21, they will leave Timor by bus or truck for a 10ish hour harrowing drive to Kupang, Indonesia/West Timor.  They will get on a plane to Jakarta, then another to Kalimantan, and start their new life.  I suspect they will each bring a bag of personal belongings the size of a student school backpack, with a few clothes, maybe a comb and toothbrush.

We will miss them, but we are inspired by their courage, and hope their journey will fill them with the energy and drive to come back here, home, to continue as spiritual leaders in Timor. Send them your prayers!

Monica

Our last month here in Timor has been a little like that. We’ve had close to a month of near constant rain. We’ve joked more than once that we feel like we are on an expedition. I suppose “journey” is a more appropriate spiritual metaphor, but its not as gritty as our experience sometimes feels! When my mom was just here she suggested we start a ministry of drying clothes! All in all though “EB” has remained good and it was wonderful to have my folks here to share in some of the fun. They were able recall some of my old jargon for dealing with such conditions: “never stops” and “it just doesn’t matter” being two favorites. We were also able to teach them the meaning of the Tetum word “aat” – which means broken, messed up, ruined, or otherwise very lame. My hope is that they will appropriate it into colloquial English in Minneapolis. We are thankful that they made the journey as we had plenty of time to catch up and share stories and news.

After our time in Lospalos, we had a mini vacation in Baucau and Dili. We dropped off my folks at the airport on Monday afternoon and then had some meetings and errands in Dili. We didn’t leave for Lospalos until 4:30 pm so we slept in Baucau – a 3 hour drive from Dili. We got back to Lospalos on Tuesday at 8:00 in the morning pleased to see that some serious sun and wind had set in. Monica went to work right away and I spent the morning cleaning mold off the ceiling of our house. That afternoon we hooked up a new system for the clinic microscope: a 12 V car battery and inverter that will allow the lab tech to do her work during the day instead of having to wait for the electricity to come on at 5 or 6 in the afternoon. When the electricity comes on at night she can plug the inverter in and recharge the battery. It felt like a small victory to see the lab staff looking at tb and malaria smears during the day!

Lospalos has been a wilderness experience for them.  No laundry facilities, no regular electricity or running water.  No refrigerator. and most of all, no cell phone or internet access to speak of.  I realize just how much I have gotten used to this, but am refreshed in memory of my first few months here, when the lack of these creature comforts was true hardship.  

David and Lorene have been wonderful, and in my opinion, their stay is much too short.  Everyone here was in awe that they were only going to be here a little over a week. (Not a month or 2? people asked)  That speaks to how we all gauge time, I think.  In Timor, things move slowwwww; in America, we are always rushing. Imagine, when was the last time you took a month to do anything leisurely? Would you do it now?  

Anyway, out here in the wilderness, I realize a whole month has gone by and I haven’t written an email. that is because I have not been to a computer.  And, Simon, Hannah and I spent our first several days alone without Tom 3 weeks ago as he was a chauffer around Timor for some guests of our NGO, Fusona (church NGO here in Timor).  I had all the women around me taking turns with Simon, and of course Hannah loves and is loved by all the community here.  So, my single parenting turned out to be very low stress.  Could I ask for more?

I have begun teaching in earnest of late.  I am beginning a mini-school here with the staff to build their capacity as health care providers.  None of the 5 women have been to nursing school.  Some have taken trainings in laboratory or pharmacy, and 3 have worked at this clinic for an average of 10 years.  Yet, when I asked them what a normal heart rate was, no one could tell me, nor did they know where your heart exactly was located in your body.  OK, maybe I am too demanding, maybe you are saying to yourself, geez, I don’t know the answer to those questions either.  Well, when someone has worked in a clinic for so long, treating very ill people at times, I do think these are fair things to know, and I do think someone should teach these staff about medicine.  So, I am.

We began last week with an overview of anatomy and physiology of systems (digestive, nervous, etc).  Then a class on cell biology.  Next was microbiology (bacteria, parasites, etc).  They were all in disbelief at first when I told them we all have lots of bacteria on and in our bodies all the time, even when we are healthy.  A good conversation about bacteria and worms in feces followed, with some more eye-opening information.  I am starting to tap into their consciousness about how hygiene and sanitation play a leading role in health issues here.  At least I hope I am.

Time to sign off, more soon!

Monica

Simon and Hannah and Monica are all well. The clinic staff has had some changes so Monica is busier but also happy to be able to implement some needed changes. I am doing a lot of child care and fitting in some English tutoring and handy man work in the clinic.

We are excited to have a visit from my folks this week.

Monica is back working full time and I’ve gone from “Mr. Tom” to “Mr. Mom,” doing house chores and taking care of kids with little time for much else, but loving every minute of it (ususally). About three times during the busy morning I take Simon over to the clinic to nurse and carry him back or sit on the front porch with friends and talk. I also sneek off to the internet to read the news in an effort to rekindle my obsession with current affairs after having taken a 6 month break from the world. Hows Obama doing? Ugg….

Simon is just great though. He’s huge for Timor. Yesterday Monica saw a 6 month old that weighed less than him which was a stark reminder of the malnutrition in the world.

Thats the news from Lospalos.

Not a very conventional life, but look who his parents are, eh.  So, here in Dili for the first time in 2 months, it is Saturday, and we have spent hours at this internet cafe.  We skyped in the am, then went out to lunch across the street at LiLi’s, our favorite buffet.  For around $10, we each get a bowl full of vegetables and meat of our choice, heaping pile of rice, and sweet ice tea or whatever we want to drink.  All the high-enders can afford to eat there.

Today, a mute guy came in selling adress books and journals.  He laid 4 of them in front of me, then in a combination of sign language , facial expression, and attempted vocalizing, informed me that for 1 dollar, i could buy one.  also, that he could eat, if I bought one.

“lakohi” I said, and finally brushed him away.  Soon, hannah said, “the people at that table don’t want to vbuy any either.”  Tom and I had a brief conversation about stress.  I realized we are both, in our own ways, experiencing the impact of being surrounded by a whole lot of suffering.

You know the saying, giv”e a man a fish he will eat for a day, teach a man to fish, he will eat for the rest of his life.” Well, I hope to be training those fishermen and women.  But, I found myself looking around LiLi’s resteraunt, hoping the guy was stil around.

Pretty soon, he comes back, and this time, asks Tom to buy one of his books.  We look at each other, and come up with a lot of different things we could use them for.  So we bought five.  The mute salesman made 5 bucks, enough to eat for more than a day, and he was happy.

Now, I am back in the internet cafe, it is going on 4 oclock, Hannah’s been talking in tetum to some local teens, playing games on my cell phone, and Simon has been sleeping all afternnon.  Soon, Hannah will go to a motel pool with Tom and friends, and I will go enjoy some time in front of a fan at our friends’ house before dinner.

Just a day in Dili.

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

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.