East Timor doesn't need our help

When we stepped off the plane in East Timor, the air was thick with humidity, jungle flora, and a hint of poverty.  We flowed through the airport, hopped into a van, and experienced our first adventure in Dili traffic patterns, which consists of daring right turns, driving in the opposite lane, and much honking.  We stayed in the American hotel, a plush 6 floor tower in a gated shopping center. We then drove outside of the city to see the beach and some local village and sites, including an old Portuguese fort from a couple hundred years ago: it sat crumbling as the jungle continued to overwhelm it, cannons still fixed out to sea, as if waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Just 18 years ago, East Timor became a country, throwing off Indonesian rule in a bloody escape to freedom and poverty. Only 7 years later, violence erupted again. Over the past 30+ years, an estimated 400,000 Timorese have died.  The current population of the island is 1.2 million. They need agriculture, industry, and constant economic growth.  But they don't need help doing it.  Or so I was told by one 17 year old.

I never learned his name.  He's a student at SOLS, an international educational cooperative that is focused on bringing up the next generation of change makers in developing countries.  He asked me, "how do you feel coming to my country?" I told him I felt hot, but that wasn't what he meant. After a bit of questioning, he finally rephrased his question: "why have you come here?" I told him I came to learn and to meet his country and people. He didn't understand. I must be there to help him and make him in my image, undoubtedly. That's how it works, in his mind. But he made sure I knew the reality of it: he doesn't need or want my help.

And I realized he was right. The people of East Timor are resilient beyond measure, having survived the brutal occupation of Indonesia.  They are resourceful, using the jungle and ocean to it's every advantage.  they are thoughtful, kind, hard working, and most all determined and fiercely independent.  I recall having seen a similar people from just over 200 years ago, a people incensed over taxation without representation and the incurrent violence filling the squares of their cities.  We could learn a lot about ourselves from the Timorese.  And, hopefully, they can learn from us, even if they don't need it.