Judy Blackman’s Story: Her Return Visit to East Timor (Final)

This is the final part of Judy’s story of returning to East Timor for a visit, with her grandson Tim. Did you enjoy it? I thinks it’s a beautiful, gentle story about a grandmother and her grandson going on a journey together. I particularly liked following it in serialisation, rather like stories use to appear in magazines.

There was a very formal welcome to the Assisi School  at Fatuberliu with a ‘Welcome’ banner strung high across the entrance where Tim and I were presented with a beautiful hand-woven scarf which read ‘Assisi School and Mudgee High School’.

After that we walked through a guard of honour of traditional dancers, then a marching band in beautiful red and white uniforms, followed by all the students in their school uniforms.  We felt like the Queen and Prince Philip!

This was confirmed through the full morning of welcome speeches, musical performances and the like that were presented in the packed school assembly hall, full of the senior students.  The junior students crammed around the windows, peering inside.

I was addressed as ‘Your Excellency Mrs Judy’ and Tim as ‘Our Dearly Beloved Brother Tim’.  We had taken gifts (a lap top computer etc.) and were formally thanked for these. After the speeches we were handed a mike and told ‘you make a speech now Mrs Judy’ and ‘you make a speech now Brother Tim’.  Just as well we both have the gift of the gab and used to public speaking!

All this was all followed by a magnificent luncheon - like a banquet really - followed by meetings with the teachers and others.  Before we left the school a week later there was a similar formal program of speeches, musical items, choirs etc. taking a full morning.  We were again put on the spot with ‘Mrs Judy you sing now’ and ‘Tim, you play the music’.  How glad we were for the times when Tim plays the piano at our house and I sing along!

When I finished my song the whole school erupted in applause as they had done when I told them that Tim had got a job and saved the money for his own fare and expenses over there.  This was a new concept to them because though poor, children do not work for money until they have finished school – their father supports them until then so they were amazed at what Tim had done.

During the week at Fatuberliu Tim addressed all the senior classes, met with the Student Representative Council and teachers.  I also met with teachers, classes and particularly enjoyed time in the kindergarten class.

These little tots were amazing and their singing wonderful. After they had sung in Portugese to me I was again put on the spot by ‘Mrs Judy you teach the children a song in English’. I very quickly came up with ‘If you are happy and you know it clap your hands ….’

There is no concept of Occupational Health & Safety so the playground equipment included a cement slippery dip that was something to behold and that no child has been injured on. (I wonder if by protecting our children from every danger as we do in Australia we are also stopping them from developing problem solving skills.)

Apart from spending time at the school, with the students in their boarding houses in the evenings, listening to music, and enjoying time with the nuns and brothers, we also visited families and did some local sight-seeing.

We went to a beautiful lake where a crocodile had eaten a child (but left it’s heart on the shore) and to the magnificent Weberek beach. We visited a family with a deaf and dumb child who the family referred to as being ’silent’ (which I think is a lovely way of explaining it) and also to the Agricultural College at Natabura which I thought would be of great interest to my husband, Philip.

I was astounded at how many personal experiences and skills became useful during our stay:

• Being able to speak publicly (which Tim does every week at the Mudgee High School Assembly and I do as a lay preacher and with my work)
• Our musical skills, such as they are
• Being able to play table tennis (which I usually do with Sr. Alice, a nun in Mudgee)
• My relationship with Sr. Alice which meant that I (as a Protestant) felt very comfortable staying in a convent
• My knowledge of farming
• Communicating with non-verbal people, as I do through my work in Mudgee
• My experience last year with a Franscican Brother from India who stayed in our home prior to World Youth Day events in Sydney
• The ability to relate to people from all backgrounds.

It was like all these things were being put to good use.  Who could ever deny there is a ‘bigger plan’?

The time at Fatuberliu was life changing for Tim.  He left Australia thinking that at the end of next year he would study to become a lawyer, but after Fatuberliu he said ‘Grandma, I am going to become a teacher – and a very good teacher - because I have seen what a good teacher can do’.

He has also made some wonderful friends and will help us financially support one of them through Dili University.  How proud I was when he said, ‘Grandma, I heard you saying to Br. Nico that you would pay Marciano’s way through University - I want to help with that’.  This is a lad who will be working to help pay his own way through university here in Australia.

I could go on for hours about our other experiences – in Dili, at Hope Orphanage, Gleno and meeting Br. Nico’s family who are very poor and yet insisted we eat with them in the dim candlelight. Sufficient to say they were equally inspiring and amazing.

‘Chance meetings’, like the one with Kirsty Swords-Gusmao and Sister Susan Connelly (whose father grew up in Mudgee and whose uncle worked with my father). She invited us to a concert being held in the President’s Palace to launch the new School of Music.

We have wonderful photos, but most of our trip is indelibly recorded in our minds and will never be forgotten.  Of course, I hope to go to East Timor again and Tim, though back at school, is also working part-time at the restaurant saving up to return to Fatuberliu at the end of Year 12 before he begins university to become a teacher, as he promised the students and teachers at Assisi School.

Thank you Judy for sharing your story with all of us here on WomensNook.

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