One of the highlights of my time in Timor-Leste has been visiting remote regions through my work supporting local NGO HAMNASA. The day after driving for five hours from one side of the country to the other, I spent two and half hours on some pretty rough roads travelling from Suai west toward the Indonesian border to visit the Administrative Post of Fatumea.
It was an interesting drive though with heavily loaded motorbikes, bad roads, traditional houses, and some views.
Fatumea is home to three sucos, each of which had four hamlets. In total about 4,500 people live in this region. Setting up for the workshop in the administrative building I saw these useful whiteboards showing the number of people by age group (so many young people!) and gender in each hamlet, along with the educational levels achieved, profession (agriculture dominates), and religion (100% Catholic).
I visited the week before Independence Day so there were national flags flying everywhere, and school kids practicing their marching for the parade.
The weather improved for the return journey to Suai, revealing a beautiful landscape that looked more like the Balkans in Eastern Europe where I hiked last year rather than what you’d expect to see in South East Asia.
I could see across to West Timor, part of Indonesia.
I passed by a variety of building styles along the way.
To finish with a few more photos of this lovely landscape.
