Christmas Honeymoon

Thank you to so many of you for your gifts that gave us a great honeymoon.  We spent Christmas day in Java exploring Hindu and Buddhist temples.  And New Years eve on the streets of Bali with drumming and fireworks.  When it started pouring rain soon after midnight it just added to the celebration.  In between and on either end we explored steaming volcanoes, rainforest, beaches, and Yogyakarta.  We watched a turtle come to lay eggs on the beach, biked through rice fields, walked through endless cultivated hillsides, talked politics with Muslim women, experience the Balinese kecak and trance dances and shadow puppets, ate food you just don't find in Montana, smelled cinnamon and clove trees, indulged in Javanese massage, and stayed at the "Honeymoon Guesthouse" in Bali.  And Laurie got her blood pressure taken; it was normal.  After amazing travels we returned to Timor Lest and remembered that we also live on a tropical island.  We had one day before going back to work that we spent on the beach, eating breakfast, kayaking, and playing frisbee, not bad.  Some pictures over on the right.  Thank you all for your support in so many ways!  We feel so lucky to have had this chance to explore Indonesia.  Love, L&C

Merry Christmas 2008

To our wonderful friends and family,

Two thousand eight has been a big year for us and it wouldn’t have been remotely as fun and exciting without you. Thank you. We miss you a ton and are incredibly grateful for your love and support. Here is a quick recap of our year that started in sub-zero temps in Montana, then got warmer, then hotter, until the tropical monsoons of East Timor finally provided just a bit of relief.

January—below zero
We got engaged in below zero temps during a full moon ski near Lolo Pass outside Missoula. We climbed up to the top of a clearing, sat in the snow, and celebrated with alpines and frozen champagne, talking and laughing in the moonlight. Finally we skied back to the car where we realized we’d been out in the sub-zero temps for four hours and never felt cold...

February—the snow is just getting better
Chad flies to Baltimore for an all day interview with CRS, an organization we’d barely heard of.

March—great skiing in the mountains
Chad heads to Memphis to present at the American Society of Applied Anthropology conference. A few days into the conference he gets an email offering him a job with CRS in East Timor. Chad calls Laurie. Laurie tries to look up East Timor in her 1990s era atlas but despite an index that takes up half the book, East Timor or Timor isn’t even listed. We madly research East Timor and try to decide if we want to move to a small tropical island nation in southeast Asia that just became a country in 2002.

April—starting to warm up
We learn that East Timor has had recent unrest including Feb 2008 assassination attempts on the Nobel Peace Prize winning president and the Prime Minister. On google earth we see internally displaced people camps in the capital, a result of violence in 2006 and 2007. Also on google earth we see beaches ringing an island with a mountainous interior of peaks close to10,000 ft. Chad accepts the position. Then he defends his dissertation, the culmination of five years of hard work and we leave with friends for a week of backcountry skiing in Canada.

May—spring time in Missoula
Chad graduates with a PhD and Laurie finishes nine years of work with incredible colleagues and students at the University of Montana Wilderness Institute. Laurie spends ten days floating the Missouri River with a great group of students to complete her year of classroom and field teaching in the Wilderness and Civilization program.

June—getting warmer
Chad is the best man for Adam and Erin’s wedding and we spend most of the month celebrating with them and hosting Chad and Adam’s raucous college friends. Laurie’s womens ultimate team wins the Eugene Solstice tournament. Yeah Special Forces.

July—85 degrees
Chad goes to a week-long training for his new job. We get married on an incredibly beautiful day on the banks of the Missouri River in Montana. We’re surrounded by wonderful friends and family who make us feel really lucky through and through.

August—90 degrees
We have our wedding reception in Caras Park in downtown Missoula with an amazing community of family and friends. And a few Hells Angels. We leave for nine days of backpacking in Glacier National Park. Back in Missoula, we get ready to move to East Timor, which includes painting our house the day before we leave. On August 31 we get on a plane for San Francisco, Seoul, Singapore, Bali, and finally, Dili.

September—95 degrees
We land on a tropical island that looks really different than Montana and listen the global financial crisis unfold via BBC radio.

October—100 degrees
Chad gets acquainted with a non-grad school work routine. Laurie looks for work; experiences unemployment. We practice Tetun (ami hanoin kona ba imi barak). We get scuba certified and proceed to explore the oceans and mountains of our new home.

November—100 plus degrees
We spend election “night” (our mid-day) at the US Embassy with a festive crowd of people from all over the world. Laurie finds a job working on the natural resource component of a water supply project. We have fresh fish for Thanksgiving dinner and spend a long weekend on the beach of Timor’s first and only national park.

December—95 degrees, 95% humidity
The rains finally come and cool things down a *little.* Thunder storms boom and nativity scenes go up every 100 meters complete with bamboo, thatched roofs, hip hop music, and an occasional Christmas tree. We spend a full day walking from the mountains to the ocean dropping over 1000m (about 4000ft) in 25km (about 15 miles). We experience our first Timor flash flood.

Now we’re packing our bags for our Christmas honeymoon in Indonesia. We miss you and are wishing you a wonderful Christmas and New Year.

Love,

Laurie and Chad

New Slideshow -->

Check out the new slideshow of our life on a tropical island including such highlights as—Chad’s new attire, Laurie helping the fishermen, playing with the local kids on Mt. Matebian, an industrious salt-making family (it’s an amazing process, we currently have a lifetime supply of salt we bought for a dollar), cows grazing by the ocean (this isn’t Montana…), and Laurie on the ferry with President Ramos Horta looking over the railing behind, he’s wearing the white shirt and has the camera… After taking this sneak photo a plain clothes security guy with a big radio told us that we could just ask the President for a photo. With the security guy's "encouragement" we went up to say hello and ended up having a really nice conversation with the President on topics ranging from East Timor’s history to Obama to the future of the Millennium Development Goals. It was awesome.

Also see photos of Timorese fishing boats and gardens, and our hike up Mt Manu Koko on Atauro Island just north of Dili (and our break on the decent eating coconuts on the side of the road).

I guess what these photos don't show is Chad going to work every day (he really does) and Laurie looking for work every day (she really does and has a few good leads at the moment).

This afternoon we're going to buy our plane tickets for a Christmas honeymoon in Java, wow. It doesn't seem remotely like Christmas here but the local kids have begun setting off fireworks occasionally which apparently is a Christmas tradition in East Timor.

Timor Highlights

Highlights— sitting on the beach under the moon, incredible sunsets, brilliant snorkeling, speaking Tetun when it’s working, lots of local veggies all the time, climbing mountains, learning about the world of international aid/development, meeting interesting people from all over, Timorese coffee, breakfast on the beach with friends...

Tough things— not knowing the language, missing all our amazing friends and families, the oppressive heat from 8am to 6pm, the brutal history of Timor and the current struggles Timorese face...

Funny things— chickens are ENDLESSLY crossing the road here, for no apparent reason, I’m not kidding, it’s really funny (and goats, pigs, and dogs as well), families of 4 on motorbikes everywhere, the city’s tree pruning efforts (climb the tree below the power line and hack branches with a machete until ragged stubs of branches remain, Australian accents (gudonya), the traffic cooperation and noncooperation at the broken stoplights, the lack of any credit card infrastructure so even when buying a plane ticket we have to use cash...

Where We Spent Election “Night”

On November 5th (yup, 5th) we headed down to the US Embassy at 10:30am to see the results come in. Vermont and Kentucky had been called but everything was still on the table. We joined a noisy crowd surrounding a projector and screen that showed the AFN (Armed Forces Network) and CNN depending on which was coming in. Timorese staff served coffee and asked if they could get Obama buttons (they could until they ran out). The mood was high and kept getting higher, at times it might have even felt a bit like the Union Club. Seeing Montana in the yellow for so long had us cheering (we were alone in this) every time the Montana results came up. After Obama’s speech everyone cheered. Then went back to work. We were so elated and also missing election night in contrast to our election mid-day, one of the disadvantages of being 16 hours ahead of Montana time.

The Timorese we’ve talked to are Obama supporters but they also say they are so impressed with McCain’s speech. In this new democracy (since 2002), there is plenty of tension among parties, which permeates everyday life here. The largest party (but one that isn't part of the ruling coalition) is threatening to pull out of parliament and an upcoming "peace march" by the same party has people worried about more violence. Thus McCain’s message of support for Obama really stood out to people. For now I’ve haven't pursued the follow-up discussion with folks, about the reality of US partisanship, and instead let us all enjoy the feeling of this election for awhile. See the story below written about our election night.


2008 Elections Celebrated in Timor-Leste: "The U.S. has shown us all a lesson!"
November 4, 2008

Ambassador Hans Klemm hosted an Election 2008 reception at the residence. It was attended by over 200 guests, including American citizens, representatives from diplomatic missions in Dili, Timorese and international NGO representatives, Deputy Prime Minister Jose Luis Guterres, members of the Cabinet, members of parliament (MP) from all parties, and local media representatives. Campaign memorabilia from the State Department's Global Publishing Systems was in high demand by the guests and ran out by the end of the event.

Americans supporting both parties traveled to the event from throughout Timor-Leste and reacted with hugs, tears of joy, and cheers as the results were announced. The mood was festive and marked by unity and patriotism by the American community, and admiration by Timorese guests. Timorese officials remarked "The Americans (from both parties) fly the American flag, not party flags;" "The U.S. has shown us all a good lesson in the democratic process;" "The candidates demonstrate America's greatness in both victory and defeat."

Today's edition of the Suara Timor Lorosae (Timor's largest newspaper, circulation 3,500) underscored the U.S. tradition of accepting democratically elected results in its headline: "Barack Obama Chosen to Become President of the United States; McCain: 'Obama is my President'"

Timor Leste’s President on Obama’s Election (Excerpts from Statement)

The perspective from Timor’s president who recently sat one table over from ours at a small open air Lebanese/Thai restaurant on the beach.

(President of the Republic and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, José Ramos-Horta, congratulated today the president-elect of the United States, Barack Obama, and the American people for the historical election of an Afro-American from a humble background to hold office as President of the United States.)

"The new American president must realize that the era of American and European supremacy is over and should take steps to build a new and stable international framework by inviting China, India, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Brazil, Mexico to join the G8 and by leading the process of reform of the United Nations that would include the expansion of the Security Council with new permanent members such as India, Indonesia and Japan, for Asia, Egypt and South Africa, for Africa, and Brazil and Mexico, for the Americas. These are crucial tests for the new president of the United States."

"To president elect Barack Obama, his wife Michelle, their children and the rest of his family and close friends I extend my warm congratulations. I also congratulate the American people for this historical event."

Laurie's Morning Run East of Dili

We are really lucky to live on the edge of the busy part of town.  After 20 minutes running, or a shorter bike, we can be pretty much alone in the mountains or along the beach on a weekday.  Here are some photos from the morning I took a camera along.  I always say asalaam alekum to the Pakistani peacekeepers at the checkpoint and talked them into having a photo with me this day.  Part of the run often includes herding some goats.  I still think it's funny to see the goats, pigs, chickens, and cows hanging out by the ocean...  Right now it's still really dry and hard to imagine everything being green but apparently soon the rains will come and everything transforms to lush green.