Timor: Finishing and Farewells

A few weeks ago, I wrote a post bemoaning the fact that this summer was different than my Peace Corps experience. As fate would have it, the end of my internship brought about a series of similarities that reminded me all too well of the Peace Corps.

As I wrapped up my time in Timor-Leste, I could not help but feel like I had not contributed anything worthwhile. I certainly learned a lot about development, both through Seeds of Life and through the various other programs I saw in Timor-Leste. But my contributions were limited to costing and value chain analysis of the seed sector, and a few minor other projects along the way. I felt like I had taken and not given much back.

A similar feeling came over me towards the end of my time in the Peace Corps. Actually, it happened at all 3 villages I lived in: My contribution was difficult to quantify, and it seemed like my lasting effect would be teaching Malagasy kids new dances and songs.

Yet I was surprised, upon finishing my service in each village in Peace Corps, that numerous community members and co-workers asked me when I would be coming back. It was mostly the people with whom I had inconsequential interactions (or so I thought). Yet they all adamantly wanted me to return, and recounted the positive events we shared. My favorite was the man who attended one of my compost trainings, and actively ignored most of the workshop while making snide comments. He later came up to me to show me not only the compost piles he built but the crops he was growing with them.

Likewise, at the end of my time with Seeds of Life, numerous Timorese staff members came to me to tell me they wished I would return after school. Some of these staff members again barely interacted with me, yet they all had fond recollections and found my contributions beneficial.

So maybe I accomplished more than I thought; or my mistake was in looking for hard data when the accomplishments were in human relationships.

There was one more similarity between my Peace Corps time and my Timor-Leste internship: the disappearance of the people I was closest to right before my departure. In my first Peace Corps village, I left for a training and then ended up having to evacuate the country because of a coup. So I never said goodbye (in person) to my counterparts. My second village, my closest friends were all conspicuously absent the morning I left, despite assurances that they would see me off. And my third site, the President of the cooperative I worked with took off to some other town for a week before I left. Not to be outdone, here in Timor-Leste my host father took his two daughters to another district before dawn this morning, depriving me the chance to say goodbye. Maybe they all could not bear the burden of saying goodbye…That's what I'm telling myself, anyway.