Goodbye Indonesia; hello East Timor

We met the Development and Peace BC solidarity tour group last week in Bali and are now travelling with them in East Timor.

Here is John Gabor saying goodbye to a friend in Bali:

And here are Dick and Dorothy Mynen of Prince George arriving in East Timor, which we all now refer to by its name: Timor Leste.

After we get through immigration, we're are greeted by the partners with Tais, traditional woven scarves:

Dorothy and Gail wearing ceremonial Tais that have just been presented to them.

In leaving Indonesia and entering East Timor we have moved from a predominantly Muslim country to one that is predominantly Roman Catholic. East Timor suffered under Portuguese rule until 1975, when the Portuguese left, finding the cost of maintaining a military presence in East Timor to be too expensive. Short days later, Indonesia invaded, and stayed until 1999. When an independence vote proved the East Timorese were massively in favour of independence, the Indonesians left, destroying people and buildings in a massive display of violence. The East Timorese have been trying to build a country ever since. "It's as if everything started in 2000," says one of the many foreign consultants assisting in that rebuilding. "There are few cohesive communities because of the massive human displacements of the last century."

The level of rural development is visibly different between Indonesia and East Timor: the difference in what people can achieve given stability and peace, and what happens in conflict.