During the recent April School Holidays I was privileged to travel to Bei Cala, Timor Leste to visit the community and see progress on our current project a kindergarten building, observe the use of our previous building project and of course catch up with old friends. Funds for our project are primarly provided through the Sgt. Matthew Locke MG Charity Match.

Traditional Welcome

The current project is nearing completion with the inside being finished on the main room, door added, so it can be locked, plastering on the outside wall well under way and bricks ordered for the septic tank. Since my return Jino has informed me that progress is continued with outside plastering finished, bathroom and tank underway and steps and awning started. The plaque was put in place while I was there.

It is looking very bright and should be an excellent learning space for pre-school children. Two young ladies have volunteered to take on the teacher roles and will be travelling to Dili to observe kindergartens there for ideas. I was also happy to provide some initial resource money to start the school off.

I also handed out workbooks, pens and pencils to students at Kaisera Escola, Boramba Escola and Bei Cala Esccola thanks to  a few people who generously donated some cash before I left. Students are very keen to improve there English which is taught in High School and many young people visited me in Bei Cala and partook of some Conversational English lessons. They were full of laughter and I was impressed with the dedication shown by the students.

Timor Leste is beautiful and some progress has been made with many villages now having electricity connections available, but it was disappointing to note the state of the roads had not really improved  since my last visit four years ago. It still took 6 hours to travel 140km.

Students at Kaisera Escola

I am hoping to travel back in October and would be happy to take some volunteers if anyone is interested. Initially, I am looking at a 10 day trip in all, it would be during the school holidays (24th September to 9th October) again and a significant proportion of that time would be spent travelling in Timor Leste visiting Bei Cala, Bentano, hopefully Balibo, Suai and of course Dili. There could be a spot of English teaching in Bei Cala if your up for it. Please contact me if your interested in joining me. 0429977959 or debbielocke@bigpond.com

I will be carrying a report back to the Grub Club committee with some recommendations for future maintenance work which is needed on our original building as well as another project request that I received.

Thank you to my hosts while there Jino for driving me everywhere and his family in Bei Cala for hosting me.

Kaisera Escola

Inside Classroom of new kindergarten.