A TIMOR TALE

In the past few days I have been to Darwin and then to Dili in East Timor. I have been on interminable bone-jarring four-wheel rides on narrow roads throughout the new island nation. Taking some of the rice there that you donated to feed hungry kids.

I went to Dili and Bacau and Lospalos and Laga and Fuiloro in the extreme north-east. Near the Moluccas.

I gave a water pump to a village of 300 people who have not had access to water for two months and I met personally and sponsored two young girls to go to boarding school – where they will be housed and fed and taught – for three years.

One, Ofelia, is fifteen. Her father was killed by the dreaded militia in 1999. Last weekend was my first ever visit to East Timor. A physically beautiful country that reminded me of Jamaica or Kaua’i in Hawaii. And the people, especially the kids, were beautiful.

Remember: Sixty per cent of East Timorese people are under the age of twenty. Their parents, the older ones, were slaughtered by the Indonesians and the Militia when Timorese turned on their own during what they now simplistically call “the troubles”.

On the drive north from Dili to Lospalos you see again and again the burnt out hulks of places that used to be houses and schools and hospitals.

Shell after shell. Roofless, gutted, forlorn, relics. And you think: How can people be so vicious, so vindictive, so malevolent to their OWN people?

And the stories of personal bravery. The Timorese priest who stayed with another elderly Portuguese priest who just refused to leave his station.

I met girls who were raped as 14-year-olds by drug-stoked Timorese militia. That awful. I met a Catholic Sister who, somehow, hid more than twenty vulnerable young girls in a convent room, as drunken men were smashing at the front door.

She then led them safely into the mountains for weeks of sleeping under logs and trees.

As an atheist I have met some incredibly dedicated and committed religious people in recent days.

Met a lot of people living in wretched, hungry, primitive conditions too. But this little country, born in blood, I DO believe will survive.

And many of you can say, honestly and proudly: I helped. So thank you.

Wednesday, June 16, 2004

©Copyright Derryn Hinch 2004