Continued from yesterday”¦ SoE is a small city and there wasn’t much to see besides a few modern commercial buildings with government offices, restaurants, markets, etc, a few modern houses and grass huts, and some street vendors selling assorted goods. After leaving the restaurant, we stopped by a street vendor and bought some beetle nut, white powder that we were told was lime, and raw tobacco as a gift for the villagers.

We were only back in the car for just a few minutes when we turned off the main road to go to Tetuf, a traditional village. The dirt road through the village was really bumpy, and as we gingerly crept along, a horde of children ran alongside to escort us in. The kids were so excited to see us. The whole time we were there, they followed us around, staring at us with wide eyes.

The road abruptly ends at a small cluster of huts. When you get out and look around, you realize you are on a peninsula, surrounded on three side by sheer cliffs and a valley far below. Ony chose this village because it was considered a fort in the olden days, Fort None. One of the villagers showed us around the cliff portion of the village, explaining what each of the different huts and platforms are used for. The cone shaped houses are called Ume Kbubo and are considered “women’s houses” because cooking is done there. We did not go inside one. The huts that looks like an over grown palapa are called Lopo and is considered a “men’s house” because the village leadership meetings happen there and are a men’s only affair. Both sexes use both huts.

He invited us to sit inside one of the lopo huts where several villagers were waiting for us. There is a stone foundation a couple of feet off the ground and there is probably a three foot gap between the roof and foundation. Inside, there is an attic area built into the roof, but high enough up that there is plenty of head room. It was nice and cool inside there, the grass ceilings being an incredibly good insulator.

We made a small cash donation. We also presented the gift we had purchased at the roadside market. The villagers put the items in a basket and passed them around, everyone taking some. They take a bite each of the round nut and long green thing and chew them together, then use the lime as a chaser. When they are all done, they chew some tobacco. This practice makes their teeth turn red over time and the heavy chewers’ teeth turn black. It is kind of weird when they smile at you with red teeth, and gross when they are all black.

After a few minutes of chatting with the villagers via Ony playing interpreter, we were invited back to one of the villager’s homes for a drink. We were served huge green drinking coconuts and bananas, with more small talk. They had been on the middle of shelling some sort of nut or bean called Tambourine that the villagers grow to sell at the market. The Tambourine sells for pennies per kilo and the paltry amount of money hardly seemed worth the effort of shelling. They worked as we talked.

After leaving, we were only back on the main road for a few minutes before we turned off again, this time heading south. The road we turned onto wasn’t quite as nice as the road we were on, but it was OK. The farther we went, the narrower, steeper, curvier, and more pot hole infested the road became as it winded its way higher up into the mountains. We made it to the top, where we were met with spectacular panoramic views all the way around us, with only a tiny ledge barely as wide as the car separating us on top from the valleys we were admiring. It looks to be even dryer up here than in SoE. The road continued to get progressively worse as we delicately inched up the steep inclines and declines of this little ledge. The pavement soon ended altogether, leaving us with just a rocky semblance of what maybe was once a road. Despite moving slowly, we were still bouncing pretty drastically, almost feeling like we were on a trampoline. We were so far out in the middle of nowhere that there were few structures at all anymore. We saw a school and a handful of huts. After what seemed like forever, we finally made it to our final destination of the day, Boti village.

The village is really cute. They have put a lot of love into it. There is a gate that opens to a nice stone walkway that takes you down the hill to the “main house”. Because it is so dry, there is no grass. There were many spindly trees about along both sides of the walkway, along with a few huts. The main house is a modern structure that is used for entertaining but no one lives in. We were told that in Timor the government is insisting all villagers replace their round huts with modern structures, so the villagers will build one or two to appease the government, but refuse to live in them. That is why we saw so many round hits behind the modern buildings along the road. It seems to us the government should be more worried about the dilapidated shacks in the city than the sturdy little huts in the villages.

To be continued”¦