Continued from yesterday”¦ We were greeted by the village queen, Kolo Binu, and two of her granddaughters, all beautiful women with big smiles. A couple of the men also eventually came out to welcome us. We presented our gift and, like in the other village, it was put in a basket and passed around. We were served coffee and fried bananas, which are basically banana chips that aren’t quite as crispy as we are used to. It was 16:00 (4:00 pm). Neither of us particularly wanted the coffee. Eric does not like coffee and Christi is sensitive to caffeine and didn’t think she would be able to sleep with caffeine so late in the day. However, we decided it was important to not offend our host. Much to Eric’s surprise, the coffee was delicious. So good, in fact, that he had a second cup, which floored Christi. They must brew it differently than we do because there was zero bitterness to it at all. As we were enjoying our coffee on the patio of the main house, it was pointed out to us that we were sitting right in front of the coffee plant that the beans were picked from. How cool is that? Three feet from plant to cup. Wow.

Of all the villages on Timor, Boti is the least affected by modern society. Timor is primarily Christian, due to the missionary efforts of the Portuguese. After seeing the sad plight of others around them after being influenced by the whites, the king of this village refused to allow the Europeans in for fear the same would happen to them. Subsequent kings have done the same. They live as their forefathers have for thousands of years, following the same religious beliefs and customs. They have few modern luxuries, with no electricity and running water. They accept no help or subsidies from the government for fear of strings being attached that would make them compromise their current lifestyle. Many villagers do not even speak Indonesian, sticking with the local Timorian language. Interestingly enough, their refusal to accept western ways has made them a popular tourist destination, and much of their income is derived from tourists like us.

We went to the stream to retrieve water with a couple of the women. They have quite a long walk down a very steep hill with unstable soil to get to the stream. There is also a farm down there, irrigated with water from the stream run though a bamboo pipe. The water containers are made from bamboo and are quite large and very heavy. The girls gracefully balanced the water containers on their heads and effortlessly marched up the hill to the top. We were impressed.

Then we went on a tour of the village. They showed us huts very similar to the ones we had just seen at Tetuf, along with their animals and crops. They have the usual farm animals goats, pigs, chickens, and cows. The plants look so thin and underdeveloped that it is hard to believe they yield anything, but we saw the coffee beans, cotton, oranges, pineapple, pomegranates and much more hanging on those frail little trees and bushes. Below is a picture of a jackfruit, the artichoke like vegetable we had tried at lunch. The village seems to be completely capable of supporting itself with very little coming in from the world around them.

We were shown to our rooms in the guest house near the entrance gate. The entrance leads into a parlor area with four doors that lead to four separate sleeping rooms. Our room had two twin beds and a double and so did Ony and Anish’s room. We never peeked into the other rooms. There are a couple of outhouses nearby with squat toilets.

After freshening up and loading on the bug spray we went down to the main house for dinner. The king, Name Buti, the king’s sister, Molo, and another granddaughter had also joined the gathering. The four of us were the only ones to eat, the meal obviously specially prepared for us. We had rice, chicken soup, corn, sautéed onion and crackers. The food was hot, and with no microwaves that meant it had just been prepared, which made us happy. It was served in coconut bowls with a decorative spoon made from coconut shells, and water was served in little proper glasses with stems made from coconut shells. In the South Pacific we often saw coconut shell bowls, but never spoons or drinking cups. We socialized for a while after dinner, but despite the caffeine we were exhausted and went to bed early. Here is Christi, Ony and King Name,

And it turned out to be a very good thing, because the roosters started crowing at 04:30, which did not make Christi happy at all. Eric woke up later with a red, swollen eye. Once everyone was up we went down to the main house for more coffee and fried bananas with the queen, her daughter and one of her grandchildren.

After coffee, they demonstrated how they make their cloth. The boles of cotton are picked and dried in the sun. Then the boles are run through a press to remove seeds. The de-seeded cotton is plucked with a tool that separates the fibers, then grouped together into small fingers. The fingers are spun into thread using a tool that looks like a pointy top. Here is a family working on the thread assembly line style.

The thread is dyed using leaves or roots of certain plants. The thread is dyed several times until the desired color is achieved. Once died, the thread is rolled into a ball and ready to be woven. They wind the thread around the loom, making a nice tight wall of thread. They turn the loom on it’s side so the exiting threads are vertical, then put a series of sticks in between the threads to achieve the design. They weave one piece of yarn between the sticks, pull the sting tightly to the bottom of the loom, then reset the sticks for the next piece of string. We were amazed at how intricate, beautiful and perfectly symmetrical the designs were as the cloth took shape in front of our eyes. The whole process from planting the cotton to taking the cloth off the loom, is incredibly labor intensive.