Made a whirl-wind tour of the north coast of Timor all the way to Com and back on the weekend. I went to attend a cultural event, a visit to the traditional place of the people of Com however the elder leading the event got sick before hand and the event didn't happen.
Kids in Eucusse
Antunes, his mum and some of his lil cousins
:Portuguese governors house
Kids scaring the birds of the ripe rice
Sandy coastal plains with pebble beachs. Magrove outcrops with muddy croc-infested tidal creeks. Volcanic black rock spurs.
Finally, in Com - sandy white beaches with turquoise water and tropical palm back-drops.
Com Jetty at 9pm under the full moon
Com Beach at sunrise
Albums of Photos are now being loaded onto Facebook as it is quicker and more convenient than Picasa.
6 comments:
Awesome photos! Thanks for uploading!
Thanks Monique.
Just a note on all the kids - Timor Leste has one of the highest fertility rates in the world, being around 8 children per mother.
High fertility means population growth, which means increasing domestic demand for food, water and basic services and higher youth unemployment. Typical problems for developing countries but rarely on this scale.
In 2005 ~50% of the population of Timor Leste were under 23 years of age.
More basic stats on Timor coming in a blog post soon.
Love the photos.
Is there much education on family planning or do problems with population growth come down to the restrictions of dominant religion - which I'm guessing is either catholic or local?
By that I mean belief restrictions on contraception and abortion.
Rhian
beautiful photos ))))
Thanks for your comments.
There is little to no family planning or education on family planning for the masses. Although they are working on it.
Christianity is the dominant religion (catholic) and they certainly do not promote the use of contraception which is not even widely available.
Credit should be given to the promotion of catholic virtues such as abstinence before marriage, which seems to be widely applied. However, 8 children in or out of wedlock is still 8 mouths to feed.
I assume abortion is taboo given how conservative people are but I've not discussed it with anybody or read anything about it yet.
Catholic virtues such as "abstinence before marriage" have their place.
But for an organisation that boasts it's charitable battle against poverty, perhaps they should look at promoting ideas such as "abstinence after marriage"!
Or they could just lose the pre-historic views on contraception.
Rhian
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