What we learned listening to this woman in Timor-Leste
Bendida invites us to sit under the shade of her simple bamboo home. She does so with an air of unmistakable grace. Her story is one of resilience and determination.
My Avondale College of Higher Education classmates and I are visiting Craras in the district of Viqueque in southern Timor-Leste. We’re assessing an Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA) water and sanitation project as part of our studies in international poverty and development studies.
The air smells of fresh mud. Dogs bark incessantly. Flies buzz. This is Bendida’s rural community. I first meet Bendida at her small food store outside the school. Always looking for stories, our lecturer sends us to hear hers.
Bendida’s story flows through our translator from the local language, Tetun, to English. At 44 years of age, Bendida has lived through the Indonesian occupation of Timor-Leste. She left school after the death of her father. As the sixth child in a family of nine, Bendida says there was “no possibility to continue to high school,” so she “learnt how to cook, make bread and cakes.”
Living in an arranged marriage, Bendida began experiencing problems with her husband after the birth of their first child. “He beat me, kicked me and left me outside. But I stay silent.” She did not feel strong enough to stand up for herself.
With the domestic violence increasing, Bendida almost committed suicide, “but cannot—I failed.” Her husband once threw a spear at her, which forced her to run away. She felt “afraid he would come in the night and kill me.”
Bendida remembers seeking refuge with her brother in another community and employment in the capital, Dili, before her husband contacted her. He told her she was “crazy” and asked her to take their youngest child. Bendida arrived in Craras with her son in October 2015. She stayed with her widowed sister and her sister’s child, next door to her brother and his family. But Bendida’s struggle for survival continues—she supports herself, her son and, occasionally, her other five children.
Her ingenuity is astounding. Bendida is now a farmer and a traditional Tais (or cloth) maker. She earns an income by selling the produce from her garden, gathering firewood and working in the fields of her neighbours. She is using part of her income to buy flour “to make bread and sell to the children in the school.” Two months and three sacks of flour since the beginning of the endeavour, Bendida reports a small profit.
Moving to Craras makes Bendida a beneficiary of ADRA Timor-Leste’s water and sanitation project. “Craras is better than previous community,” she tells us. “Here they have a toilet and water. No toilet before and water was hard to find.” She thanks ADRA for providing water, teaching toilet building and encouraging good hygiene practices.
Before ADRA came to Craras, Bendida’s sister collected water from the river. The water system saves them time and allows Bendida to earn a living and experiment with different profit-generating activities.
As a woman who has struggled for survival for all of her life, Bendida is thankful ADRA has worked with her new community, improving her life. In Craras, Bendida says she is “a little bit happy here, the burden is lesser here.”
Share
Author
