{"id":5843,"date":"2011-05-09T15:49:27","date_gmt":"2011-05-09T05:49:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.suaimediaspace.org\/friends-of-suai-port-phillip\/?p=5843"},"modified":"2011-05-10T15:34:26","modified_gmt":"2011-05-10T05:34:26","slug":"suai-market-lots-happening-2011","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.suaimediaspace.org\/friends-of-suai-port-phillip\/2011\/05\/09\/suai-market-lots-happening-2011\/","title":{"rendered":"Suai Market & Covalima – Lots Happening 2011"},"content":{"rendered":"

Suai Market at the centre of town with lots happening in 2011<\/strong><\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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<\/strong> 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.<\/p>\n

In 2011 Covalima and the whole of Timor-Leste was affected by ongoing rain<\/strong>, 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<\/strong> and other vegetables more than I have seen before.\u00a0\u00a0 The variety of food has improved <\/strong>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<\/strong> indicating their was more ready cash available for some. The number of people trading working and buying in the market had increased.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Covalima-Dili road (both roads) are in the worst state ever due to the rain,<\/strong> this is affecting the movement of the usual traffic, so there were less people coming to town.<\/p>\n\n

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