Easter 2002
Time out in Timor
Two intrepid teachers took their skills to East Timor and brought home more than fond memories to share with their Australian classes. CHRISTINE KEARNEY travelled with them.
Faced with a class of more than 30 Timorese primary school children, and a considerable language barrier, Sandra O'Donnell reverted to an old teaching standby - fun.
O'Donnell, who teaches at Padua College, Rosebud, was in East Timor late last year with an Austcare education delegation.
The group spent two days in the village of Miguir, south west of the capital Dili. As part of the visit, O'Donnell and fellow teacher Peter Adams took a morning class in Miguir Literacy School.
O'Donnell's class began in one of the school's tiny thatch-roof classrooms. She handed out picture books and calendars and taught the children the names of Australian animals. She then led them in conga lines around the tiny school block, as they pretended to be kangaroos, green tree frogs and jabirus.
Meanwhile, Adams was teaching children how to use frisbees, vortexes, yo-yos and skipping ropes. Once he'd shown the children how to use the equipment, he handed it over to them and let them put the play gear to the test. The small dusty playground was soon a happy melee of games of jump rope, cross ball and soccer, with vortexes and frisbees whistling through the air overhead.
'It was one of my teaching highlights', says O'Donnell. 'They just have such a love of learning, it didn't matter that they didn't understand (when I spoke English). I think if you're learning something and you're having fun, then that's the ultimate combination.'
But the visit to Miguir had its serious side too.
The teachers, and Kate Ramsay, director of Austcare Victoria, were all struck by the very basic conditions within the school, and the poor health of many of the students.
The school consists of three small classrooms, with split bamboo walls, a thatched roof which lets the rain in, and a dirt floor. The only teaching aide is a blackboard at the front of the class. There is no electricity in the school, or in the village. There is no running water, no tuckshop and no toilet block.
The classrooms are so crowded that the school's 70-plus students often sit three to a chair. If all the chairs are taken up, some of the class sit on the floor.
The children get no protein in their diet and eat only rice, vegetables and fruit. As a result, they are very small for their age. Most also have large weeping ulcers on their arms and legs, for which they receive no medical attention. The nearest health clinic is 40 kilometres away, the nearest doctor 50 kilometres.
In addition to sending basic educational materials such as posters to Miguir and schools in the region, Kate Ramsay wants to raise money for a sturdier school building and a toilet block with running water.
O'Donnell also wants to get children in her area making posters for the walls of schools in Timor.
She says making something to send to Timor will mean more to local students than if they simply donate their lunch money on a fund-raising day.
'Handing in $2 on a free-dress day doesn't mean as much as being able to say, I drew this poster and I'm really proud of it and I know it's on a wall (in a Timorese school) and these kids are looking at it every day', says O'Donnell.
The visit has also changed the way she will teach her students at Padua College about what it's like to be a refugee, or a student in place like Timor, which has witnessed decades of violent conflict.
On the school's annual Refugee Day, which O'Donnell coordinates, she and her fellow teachers create a mock refugee camp in the school grounds. The Year 7 students are confined to the tennis court, which becomes a prison-like enclosure. They are given minimal food all day, forced to build their own makeshift shelters, and made to cross the school grounds in order to fetch water from a single tap.
But when she runs Refugee Day this year, conditions on the ground for
Timorese students, many of whom were themselves refugees in 1999, will be at the forefront of her mind.
Austcare figures suggest that over 90 per cent of people in Bonbanaro fled the region in 1999, most crossing over to Indonesian West Timor.
'I want to get across (to my students) the idea that it's hot, dry, dusty, and the walls in the school are bare and there's no basketball court, and you might have a soccer ball but everyone has to share the one soccer ball that is half-deflated', she says.
But perhaps the most telling sign of Timor's recent troubled history was the constant procession of Australian armoured personnel carriers and Portuguese army vehicles, which rumbled past the school grounds.
With this year's Refugee Day, O'Donnell says she wants to wants to try and impress upon the students what it would be like to live with that constant military presence.
'Whether they are good soldiers or bad soldiers, there have always been soldiers with guns as a natural part of (those children's lives).'
Christine Kearney travelled to East Timor with Austcare.
CURRENT ISSUE | ABOUT | ADVERTISING | PREVIOUS ISSUES | LINKS
Reproduction of material from any Jesuit Publications pages
without written prior permission is strictly prohibited.
Copyright 2002 Jesuit Publications
PO Box 553 Richmond VIC 3121 Australia
Tel +61 3 9427 7311, Fax +61 3 9428 4450