Friends of Suai

Co-ordinator of the Friends of Suai Pat Jessen, left Melbourne last weekend with the Chairman Bill Armstrong, to prepare for the visit of Port Phillip Mayor Rachel Powning. They will be there for the Independence Day Festivities and report that Alberto Barros the Co-ordinator of the Community Centre has organised festivities at the community centre on Saturday with a visit to the sub district of Fohoren to see Sr. Helen Nolen for lunch and visit to the schools and health centre. Pat also reported that the Fountain Gate School has donated library shelves and Suai resident Joni Chung, who is currently living in Melbourne has organised them for shipment with Rotary. Pat is going to screen the installation videos 'Unforgettable Selections from a Friendship' exhibited in the 'Connections Across the Timor Sea Exhibition' in 2010 in the St Kilda Town Hall Gallery. Director and Editor of Suai Media Space and the installation, yours truly Jen Hughes will upload the videos on Suai Media Space for you to enjoy.

Cruz Minarai group are making some lovely crafts including baskets and woven mobiles. Halibur Aikan Local (Halal) group have asked to learn some of these skills from Cruz Minarai. The project will support this exchange of skills. Haburas Maudemo make banana chips which are sold locally in Salele and grow vegetables are sold in the Suai market (photo). The Chefe de Suco of Maudemo is Maria Fatima who is the leader of the Haboras Maudemo group. In the photo at the group vegetable plot she is on the right. The project staff visit the groups regularly to give support, organize skills training, and help resolve problems that the group might face. Another group in Maudemo are Halibur Maudemo making tempe. Alita, the Project Coordinator is in the background. The Halal group make banana chips which are sealed in plastic packets to keep fresh for sale. They are also planning to start a fish pond. Filizarda, the leader of the Halal group, said that her role as the women’s representative on the Suco Council now has more meaning than before because can represent the views of other women and also inform them about the other women's issues in the Suco. (Suco - small village) Maria Fatima and Filizarda attended a women's meeting at the Friends of Suai community centre to discuss coordination with and support of the Gender Focal Point, who is the government's representative, to ensure gender issues are considered in all government programs. Taking Steps is an exciting new project with potential to reach out to more women. It is about women forming groups, sharing, learning and building confidence and leadership. FOS is commited to ensuring that funding for this project will enable the project to continue to support women of Covalima.

This was a very special event.  The Women's Project of the Covalima Community Centre together with  Alberto dos Barros, Co-ordinator of the Friends of Suai in Suai, took some 30 women from Suai to share information and ideas with other women's groups in Maliana. (It's rare for people to travel between districts in the poorer rural areas). Maliana is North of Suai (map) and North-West of Bobonaro in the Bobonaro district. The community centre car and the youth centre car, both donated by Friends of Suai and Rotary, were used to take women from Suai. This was an exciting  learning and sharing event for the participants.  In Maliana they saw the making of a fuel efficient stove made from local clay, the making of Banana chips, local pesticide production among other things.To visit one of the projects, the road to was a mess but the women decided they wanted to go regardless. They walked 16 kilometres to visit this village. The slideshow provides a small insight into the process and people involved.

Suai Market at the centre of town with lots happening in 2011 This year I set out with another full agenda and as usual we have too many stories to tell to share with you on Suai Media Space. In this post I want to tell you what Suai felt like this trip because its ten years since our Friendship began and seven years since I took on the role as coordinator for the Friends of Suai. I always look first to the market to see how much food there is and the variety of food available. From the little video here you can see what the market was like in 2000. People were living and working under tarpaulins that leaked when it rained and food was in very short supply. When I first visited Suai in 2005 the situation was better than in 2000 when people were hungry because crops had been burned and homes destroyed in 1999. By 2005 when I arrived there was still malnutrition and hunger and although there was food in the market it was still there in small piles and the variety was limited. This was not all due to the 1999 conflict. Floods followed by drought were affecting Covalima. In 2011 Covalima and the whole of Timor-Leste was affected by ongoing rain, the same weather pattern affecting northern Australia. The farmers have not had a suitable planting season for maize and rice, however the Saturday markets were plentiful with greens and other vegetables more than I have seen before.   The variety of food has improved and the quantity has improved. Also a greater variety of other merchandise was available including pots, pans, bike inner tubes, fly wire screens, plastic toys indicating their was more ready cash available for some. The number of people trading working and buying in the market had increased. The Covalima-Dili road (both roads) are in the worst state ever due to the rain, this is affecting the movement of the usual traffic, so there were less people coming to town. The wind down by the UN toward 2012 is being felt too with numbers of people pulling out of town and not all being replaced. There is a flurry of ‘development’ coming with the electricity power line being outside town and the Portuguese Telecom crew erecting a new communications tower. With the promise of the oil and gas supply base, a new wharf and revamp of the airport with talk of implementation of the Polytechnic plan for the ‘school of petroleum and tourism’ there is a strange anticipation in the air, although public information is slow to reach  the local community from Dili. Some of the international people were arriving on the UN helicopter or the MAF charter flight but generally it was quiet apart from some construction teams managing to brave the conditions. Government cars are numerous now, motorbikes are everywhere and there are regular buses to areas of  Covalima and neighbouring districts as well as to Dili and West Timor to buy goods.  There is more money in the community due to pensions and payouts by the government so the increased cash flow is showing with new houses going up and people have access to secondhand clothing on sale at the market. The iconic unfinished church in the grounds of Our Lady of Fatima School is changing shape too. The three-pointed façade has gone and some of the locals are not happy about that.  It is being built with local donations and church money and other funds and will become the main church in the town. In the slideshow are drawings by Australian War Artist Wendy Sharpe Christmas 1999-2000.  Another is a drawing by  Suai Loro Artist Natalino dos Reis titled 'Friendship'. You can see more of his art and the art of other Covalima artists here.  The third (Canossa Cow) is a photograph by Livania de Jesus. Cannosa Cow was taken in the Friends of Suai Photography Workshop in 2009. This and other photographs were exhibition in Connections Across the Timor Sea Exhibition held in the St Kilda Town Hall Gallery as part of our ten year friendship celebrations in 2010. The Suai Church rebuilt in 2010 was too small before it was completed with hundreds of churchgoers in the grounds each Sunday to take communion.  This is very significant for the people of Suai – read our story about it and see the paintings and drawings by Australian War Artists Wendy Sharpe and Rick Amor in here for more. Another landmark structure on the school grounds was a huge traditional house built with USAID money by local carpenter Felix Correira and the Bunak men from the mountains near Suai. Click on the thumbnail to go to interview with carpenter in 2000. Last year for some unknown reason this beautiful building collapsed.  Our local filmmaker Jen Hughes filmed it being built in 2000. You can see  interview with Snr. Felix Correira here. (video of building  to come)

Suai Loro is the area of land between the Timor Sea South of East Timor and Suai the largest centre of Covalima. Uma Lulik are the Tetum words for Sacred House. The Sacred House is the architectural home of animist culture in East Timor.

The following video was shot by Pat Jessen Co-ordinator of the Friends of Suai on her recent visit to Suai.

Pat: "The Uma Lulik Ceremony lasted for seven days in April 2011. The community had waited for seven years due to lack of funds. Suai Loro is a matrilineal society with  liurai-feto (female royal heads of community). Note the rich cultural heritage of the dancers and the beautiful ceremonial tais (handwoven textiles)".

You can see  photographs of the beautiful carpentry and carvings in the newly built Uma Lulik in Fohoren and read about it here in an article written about traditional culture by youth media students in a  digital writing and photography workshop funded by the Friends of Suai in July 2008. See Photographs of Fohoren Uma Lulik. Fohorem is in the mountains several hours drive from Suai over very rough terrain.

Balthasar Kehi, (a member of the Friends of Suai Committee ), tells us that originally Koba Lima did not include Suai because Suai had her own kingdom. It was the centre of the great kingdom of We Hali.

The original name of Suai Loro is Suai Loro We Hali. The Tetun word Loro translates in English as sun. But it is also the most respectful title for a sacred king/queen whose main role, like that of the sun, is to enlighten. In English 'We' translates as water and 'Hali' as Bunyan tree. Suai Loro is next to the Timor Sea and the Bunyan tree is indigenous to it. The kingdom of We Hali was the biggest kingdom in the undivided island of Timor. The seat of power of this kingdom was in Suai Loro. You can read more about the division of Timor in an article by Balthasar here titled Koba Lima Suai.

More about traditional culture in East Timor...

Well 2010 is here, it’s the tenth anniversary of the Friends of Suai (FoS) friendship. We are planning a number of special events this year to celebrate friendship. The first municipal elections will be held in 2 stages across the country in 2010. There are high expectations that decentralization will assist development in the rural areas. City of Port Phillip is keen to encourage development of local government to Cova Lima district. Bill Armstrong, Chairperson of the Friends of Suai Community Steering Committee and I will travel to Suai in February to meet with counterparts and community leaders. We will be seeking feedback on both the good and challenging aspects of the friendship. We will be engaging in preliminary planning with local leadership for strategic directions into the future to be brought back to be considered by Port Phillip Council. Pat Jessen Co-ordinator

From Pat Jessen Co-ordinator Friends of Suai in Port Phillip:

Hi I am now back home in Australia after 3 weeks in Timor Leste. Simao Barreto, Coordinator of the Community Centre and I went to Baucau to visit the 4 Suai trainees at Info Timor. They had finished their first month training on Ubuntu office suite and PowerPoint and were ready to learn the technical side of refurbishing computers and internet.

From Pat Jessen: June 2008 This time I made the time to go to where the women were weaving their Tais (textiles) in the homes, villages and workshop. There will be a Timor Leste Women’s Weaving Exhibition, Forum and Market in September 2008. We wanted to ensure that women of Covalima had their work on display and on sale at the market at St Kilda Town Hall. We found the Covalima women weave beautiful & varied pieces across the district and between villages. The traditional futus, (weaving method of dying patterns) that have been handed down by ancestors continue to be woven into the fabric in each village with attention to dyes, colour, cotton & design. As well as the traditional weaving some new Thai looms have been brought to Suai by Timor Aid who are training young women on the new technique.

The Forum in September will discuss old and new methods and markets. We commissioned some new products including scarves and belts which were produced by the women's weaving group in Suai Loro village in great colours which we think will appeal to the local market in Australia.

For stories and photographs of the exhibition, and Forum as well as an article about the Tais  in the traditional  Culture section of this website Suai Media Space click here.

Summary key issues from visit to Suai E Timor 20 Feb – 03 Mar 2007 It was a very productive visit to Suai and enabled good face-to-face meetings with staff and commission of the community centre, youth centre and district administration. I met with community members and monitored projects funded by Friends of Suai/Port Phillip. Whilst the situation in Dili remains stressed the rural people continue their daily life with meagre resources and welcomed the friendship and support from Port Phillip.

• The new building for the community centre is a good swap and an appropriate building. The building has plenty of light, good size rooms and land where additional buildings can be erected if required e.g. traditional building for meetings outdoors. A five year lease through the department of land and property  with an option to extend is being developed with the district administrator.  The District Administrator agreed the community can continue to use the traditional meeting space at the old site and recommended a new structure at the new site best for the long term.

• The nursery agro-forestry project is a real success with 10,000 seedlings being planted out. The main focus of the project was the 6,000 seedlings at Lela village and a further 4,000 seedlings were distributed in other sub districts. The media team (see project album) at the youth centre are documenting this on video. The agricultural officer would like to replicate the project with the aim of a permanent nursery. A new proposal building sustainability to deepen the impact will be considered for the new growing season.

• Ten orphaned children plus one young man with a disability are recipients of Friends of Suai education scholarships. Approx $5,000 for the duration of their education has been earmarked by FoS.

• 300 locally-made chairs were officially given by Fos/Port Phillip (see slides) to the public secondary school during my visit. The students gave enthusiastic applause at the mention of an ongoing relationship with Elwood College in Port Phillip who are also keen to make the link.