The other side of driving in rural Timor-Leste

This was taken on the return to Dili. The conditions were even worse on the trip out.

Driving through rural Timor-Leste

I accompanied the consultants we hired to conduct an analysis of the financial services available to farmers and agribusinesses, and we traveled to a few different rural towns and villages in the south of the country.

Dili coastline

This is the view from the parking lot of the USAID office. The water is visible from our conference room.

Travel in Timor-Leste

I took a recent trip to the southern coast of the country, and on the way down, this road crossed a river bed that still had a river in it. Fortunately, it dried up for the return trip, but the video would have been a bit more dramatic if we were fording a river.

Making tais

One of the traditional crafts produced in Timor-Leste are tais (pronounced like "tise"). These are hand-woven fabrics, usually worn during ceremonies and sometimes you see older Timorese wearing them as their normal clothing. It's also traditional for honored guests to receive a tais the size of a scarf as part of the welcome ceremony. The woman in the picture is weaving a tais using a shuttle that she said had been in her family for several generations. We could see how smooth it was from years of use. The house was raised on stilts, and her workspace was beneath the floor.

Villages in TImor-Leste

The same week as the trip to Maubisse, I also traveled with a woman from Peace Corps who was assessing the situation for a possible return of Peace Corps Volunteers to the country. This was my first time to see life in rural villages in Timor.  Some Peace Corps Volunteers are going to have some nice places to live and work -- for Peace Corps Volunteers, that is.

Palm trees are good for more than just coconuts

During an interview with a community group, I noticed a guy climbing a palm tree. I wasn't sure what he was doing, so I went for a closer look. He was tapping the palm tree in order to use the sap for palm wine. He seemed pretty comfortable up in that tree.