Dean in Dili: Adventures in East Timor: Atauro Island

I took a one day trip to Atauro, which was beautiful, but way too short. Typically people go to Atauro for the weekend, but since I only had one week left in Timor-Leste I tried to pack it into a one day trip. The day started off by getting to the port around 9 AM. Meredith and I were a little unsure where to buy our tickets so we searched around the port entrance and were approached by a port employee; he looked official in a uniform, but we were unsure if he could help us buying tickets. He insisted he could help us as led us around the side gate into the port, bypassing the huge line of ticket holders and onto the boat. He asked us for the $10 for our ticket and said he would pay for us. He ran ahead, up the very narrow staircase to the main floor, disappearing from view. When we got to the top he nodded and gave us a look that we were good to go. It was definitely a shady way for him to make a little extra money and it was a move we didn't even think of as suspicious until we were already on the boat. This sort of profiteering is much more common than I would like to think, especially in a developing country.

We found a spot on the back of the boat and prepared ourselves for the 3 hour boat ride to travel 15 miles to Atauro Island. One of the coolest parts of the day was when I met a student, Isac, who wanted to practice his English with me. He bravely asked me to help him understand pronunciations, proper sentence structure, and even the difference between 'p' and 'b' sounds ( which I can definitely see now how that can be confusing!) At the same time he was helping me learn more Tetun, for which I was also very grateful. This lesson challenged me to think creatively about how to explain the English language and stretched me to come up with a different way to communicate. At the end of our conversation he naively asked me what village I was from back in the U.S. This reminded me of how different our lives were but how much smaller the world became on a 3 hour boat ride. I felt like I made a new friend and we helped each other learn a little more about the different worlds we each came from.

I really loved seeing the rich culture of this island. Because the island is small ( only 8,000 people in 5 village areas) and it is separate from the mail island, much of their traditional culture is still intact. They have an interesting market with tons of different dried fish and a large seaweed farming market. Also, the coconuts were delicious! Looking at the pictures of the island, the vibrant colors are quite unbelievable ( I did not do any touch ups!) I can assure you that this island was just as gorgeous in person.