10 March: At 3.22PM today, 10 March by Caesarean section after a very long painful labour (19 weeks) the Ministry of Health Timor-Leste produced a Memorandum of Understanding for HIAM Health. The infant has a few handicaps (no funding support from the Ministry of Health) but regardless of this setback we are expecting good growth and development to occur.
Rosaria and Director General of the Ministry of Health signing our MOU
March 9: We spent the whole day at the ruins of Madalena’s hut trying to salvage what we could. We worked in the hot sun all day but we were so focused on what we were doing that I forgot to reapply sunscreen. Now I am nursing the second worst sunburn I have ever had (my daughter Tywen could tell you about our worst). I think my nose will probably drop off in the next few days.
But Hey! Look on the bright side… Mica is unhurt which has to be better than anything else… we have the very strong possibility that the President will come through with USD $80,000 and the skin will grow back on my face… ssssort of.
Tomorrow at 3pm we are to sign our Memorandum of Understanding with the Ministry of Health. We have been informed that we must bring afternoon tea for 20 persons. We are obviously going to have an audience for the auspicious occasion.
For all of you who are annoyed at me from time to time because I do not keep enough contact please forgive me. Anyone who wants to come and help me streamline things a bit please feel free to come and assist me here.
PS: A little trivia…
I went to show a visitor around the centre which included a trip to the veggie garden and low and behold in the chicken pen was the huge gas bottle that I was looking for. It’s a three man job to carry it but no one knows how or why it is there… just have to remain one of life’s little mysteries I guess. 
PPS: Flu has been circulating through everyone here. Sinus, throat infections and coughs… but thanks to some vitamin pills that were given to me when I was last in Perth, I think I have manage to beat it. It started in my system with swollen glands in my neck and throat and moved to my ears, then a small amount of a cough but within 48 hours it was gone. These are great pills… everyone else is on antibiotics. Sorry! If you are interested contact Jenni Thompson @ fit2retire@gmail.com. The vitamins are called Juice Plus.
March 8: Received a frantic call at 4pm this afternoon from Madalena, via a friendly Timorese policeman’s mob. She was very upset something terrible had happened. Some of you may know that I adopted a widow and her three children back in May 2004. They are totally dependent on me for survival. They live in a bamboo and iron hut on a dirt floor in a small village near the Santa Cruz Cemetery. A huge tree with a girth that would take two of us to link arms around fell at the side of her house. Madalena was on the font veranda and Mica who is 6 years old was asleep on her bed. If you can see the mosquito net in the picture you will see where she was lying. The tree fell into the side of the house less than one metre from Mica’s bed. The entire shack caved in around her. Near her bed was a strong wooden chest that I had had made for them about 18 months ago, so that they could keep the food that I brought for them from thieves who constantly entered her shack when she was not there to steal her food. As the shack caved in and the roof came down, Mica’s survival was a miracle. The old iron bed she was asleep in belonged to her parents; she was born in it; truth be known she was probably conceived in it. It held up and between it and my chest the roof was supported enough on a beam between the two items and she came out unscathed.
Rosaria, I and several staff rushed around to her, lent support yesterday, rescued what we could and took them to some accom for the night. What a mess the house is, flattered beyond repair.
My foster familiy’s home
March 4th Forget my previous shouts of jubilation. The President’s finance person just came around with the documentation outlining the proposed transfer of funds to us. He said that the President’s grant to us is to be USD $8000, paid in two instalments. That is the sum total of his help. It’s no mistake, he said. The President was very clear about his instructions to him. I relayed the meeting with the President to him verbatim. But he said that what the President promised to us in person was not what we were to receive.
I know you can imagine how stunned we were. Rosaria and I just sat in her office unable to move after he left. I refused to sign anything. He said OK then you will just have to wait until his return (the President had just left the country for 2 weeks). We must have sat there for over an hour just quietly sitting with our individual emotions growing inside of us. Finally I was the first to move and got up and went back to my office. I could feel the tears coming and as she was being so stoical I did not want her to see how upset I was. This was not just for HIAM but for the whole country that I was upset. After I wallowed in this dark place for an hour or so, I contacted our Singaporean donor to tell her what we had been told.
She told me to pull myself together and give her some time to investigate. She contacted the President immediately. The result of that investigation was that someone had left a zero off the figure in the document. It is as we first thought USD $40,000, not USD $4,000 to be paid immediately and a further USD $40,000 in September and he apologises for the confusion.
So hope is on the horizon once again… talk about how your life can change in an instant.
March 3: Slept great last night… still keep pinching myself to know if I am alive and it’s not a dream. At 3PM this afternoon the President called Rosaria and spoke to her personally. He said that the Memorandum of Understanding would be finalised quickly. He reaffirmed his commitment to HIAM and said that his Finance Manager would be around the next day to arrange transfer of funds to us and develop a Memorandum of Understanding between the President’s office and HIAM. Then he boarded a plane for Chile and now will not be back in Timor-Leste until the 22 March.
March 2: At 12.30PM Tuesday Rosaria, Antonio and I went to the President’s Palace (Office) for our meeting. We met with Ting and went into his office. As always, the President was very nice, cordial in fact. The President said that he would now personally use his influence to promote HIAM when prospective donors ask him about organisations in Timor-Leste to support. He reaffirmed with us that what we were hoping to achieve in the Centre was something he wholeheartedly agreed with: behaviour change in relation to health and the reintroduction of producing one’s own food supply. He promised to contact the Ministry of Health and put pressure on them to speed things up.
The result of that meeting is that the President of Timor-Leste is now one of our benefactors for this year from a discretionary fund that he has assess to. The fund is to be used for poverty reduction programs, and our ’Home Kitchen Garden Project’ qualifies for this funding. We are not sure exactly how much this will be, but from his conversation we believe it could be as much as USD $100,000 over the next 12 months.J
As you can imagine after the wonderful way in which he treated us and the promise of financial support, when we walked out of his office we were on cloud nine. We had a group hug in the stairwell outside his office. It’s hard to finally believe that we have turned the right corner at last. Rosaria asked me if I was not happy but I said I am trying not to be too excited in case something goes wrong. “Nothing can go wrong Mana Jill this is our, Ell Presidenta!!!!!”
And wait there is more good news…
So on top of helping us with this issue, Ting has been pursuing playground construction companies in Singapore for the past 6 months. She has finally had success with a company who are going to send us an activity playground in exchange from Singapore. J So now not only do we have enough funds to run our programs but the beginnings of a fantastic playground for the children to play in.
March 1-3: The Tuberculosis Department from the Ministry of Health sent a team to conduct very extensive training sessions with HIAM nurses and Health Promotion… so all is good there and the training was excellent. Our nurses and Health Promotion staff learned so much. AND WE USED THE PROJECTOR purchased by ‘Friends of HIAM’.
Ting is going on a picnic today with the President. So there is plenty of opportunity to impress upon him HIAM’s desperate need.
8am Sunday morning: Rosaria rocks up at my place with a neighbour of hers that has been bashed by her husband. The next 2 hours we spent patching her up and helping her decide what her options were. Gabi and I had decided that we could afford to get her away from him and pay for her to return to her family home. Then her uncle arrived and insisted that she go back to her husband. It was hard to understand but it appears she was given by her family to his family to strengthen ties between them. I guess you can imagine how I felt about that. It is so hard to work within another culture where the rights of women are limited.
11am till late: found out Thursday that there is a scholarship available but the applications close next Friday. It’s an all expenses paid to study English in Melbourne, Australia later this year. So I’m helping Lucy (HIAM admin staff) to apply and it’s going to take all day. There goes my rest time!
3.30 pm: Gabi (our AVI-Sponsored Paediatric nurse from Australia) is in a minor traffic accident and did not abide by the rule here that foreigners never get out of your car if you have an accident. If your car is still drivable then lock your doors and drive away from the scene. Then call the police or ambulance but never get out of your vehicle. She did of course as she is a nurse and the motor cyclist was on the ground. Within seconds she had a crowd of about 50 people around her. Fortunately for her someone else had called the police and they arrived before the crowd became upset. Fortunately it all ended safely.
8.00PM Sunday night: I received a phone call from Ting (our donor from Singapore). She was able to convince the President to sit with us and have a chat. The appointment is booked for 12.30PM Tuesday. He was told the whole incredible story of how long we had been waiting for the Ministry of Health to sign our Memorandum of Understanding so we could open. He was very disturbed once he understood it all. We are very excited about this opportunity to be able to appeal to the President for support.
Funnily enough Ting and I are going to the same function tonight. Ting is staying with Michael Stone. Many of you may have seen him on ‘Australian Story’ (a documentary series on Australia’s ABC TV) as Major Stone. He is now one of the President’s aides, seconded by him from the Army as defence advisor I believe. Michael is responsible for putting together the next ‘Tour de Timor’ bicycle race in September this year and also the marathon in late June this year. Ting has come to arrange to bring a large group of Singaporeans to either participate or support the Singapore team in the marathon. I was invited to this function because I asked Airnorth if they would be interested in sponsoring me for 12 months to remain working for HIAM. They asked me to come to this function to meet their Management Team. As it turns out they are not really interested in supporting me as I have nothing to give in return. They only provide people with free flights etc when Airnorth get something in return. The malnutrition rehabilitation centre is not going to attract new customers for the airline. Never mind, I had to try. There is always a silver lining though… Ting was there with Michael and we were able to discuss her ideas about helping us and also the Australian Ambassador and his wife so it was another opportunity to cement friendships and develop the HIAM network.
Still no Memorandum of Understanding from the Ministry of Health. Ting arrived from Singapore and made an appointment to see the President.
