Oh, The Places You'll Go!
The title doesn't mean we went anywhere extra special recently, but it just means that it's hard to believe we're here. And now that we've started to settle in more with the family and community, it's easier to relax and smell a few tropical roses.
As you could have already guessed, we are in Dili again. We just got in after bumming a ride with a large and very kind retired Dutchman and his much smaller but just as kind Timorese counterpart, both who loved to tell jokes. One of the jokes was telling us this morning that they decided not to leave for Dili for another two days. We believed them completely, but as you can see, we needn't have.
It seems we'll be moving along with the girls' soccer team soon. At a wedding festa last night - and that, my friend, is another story - a man told us he would talk to the head of the association about us and where they want the team to go in the future. Besides that, we're trying to take it slow. We can't expect to get anything done just yet except very small things like building relationships. And we do that by spending time with anyone we can - in the kitchen over a fire, at the dinner table over rice and modo, in the store across the street over a can of tuna for Kuku or at the soccer field surrounded my kids who tebe bola.
Well, the great news is we have two rolls of film we'll develop tomorrow and among other things you'll soon see what we look like now, what Kuku the dog looks like and what soccer practice looks like. But, to hold you over until then, here you go:
As you could have already guessed, we are in Dili again. We just got in after bumming a ride with a large and very kind retired Dutchman and his much smaller but just as kind Timorese counterpart, both who loved to tell jokes. One of the jokes was telling us this morning that they decided not to leave for Dili for another two days. We believed them completely, but as you can see, we needn't have.
It seems we'll be moving along with the girls' soccer team soon. At a wedding festa last night - and that, my friend, is another story - a man told us he would talk to the head of the association about us and where they want the team to go in the future. Besides that, we're trying to take it slow. We can't expect to get anything done just yet except very small things like building relationships. And we do that by spending time with anyone we can - in the kitchen over a fire, at the dinner table over rice and modo, in the store across the street over a can of tuna for Kuku or at the soccer field surrounded my kids who tebe bola.
Well, the great news is we have two rolls of film we'll develop tomorrow and among other things you'll soon see what we look like now, what Kuku the dog looks like and what soccer practice looks like. But, to hold you over until then, here you go:
First is our street. You can see there's a little sidewalk there. Rare in these parts. Second is Nucen, a local soccer team, before a game. Third is a bunch of pigs. Bek got this cute picture during training. These hairy things are everywhere.
posted by Travis Leger at 03:50
1 Comments:
Building relationships isn't small. It's huge.
We watched a movie last night (actually, two nights in a row, as we weren't sure if it would be appropriate for our kids to watch, but it was) called "Born into Brothels." It's about the relationship that a woman who was working in Calcutta, photographing the women in brothels. She formed relationships with the children, and taught them photography. She then worked to get them into boarding schools so that they could make something of their lives other than just being prostitutes like their mothers and aunts. It's very difficult for them to do anything else, and they carry a stigma because they come from sex worker families.
It made us realize that yes, a difference can be made! With a few people, you can make a huge difference. And if more of us just made that small difference, a huge difference would be made.
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