June 14, 2023
Day 45 - Meeting Juventude ba Dezenvolvimentu Nasional
Is it being a bit cheeky for me to make an entry on a day when my bike lies idle? I'll let you decide.
I spent a good bit of the morning making yesterday's entry thanks to the very slow internet. I eventually succeeded and didn't have long before Bernie arrived to take me to lunch with JDN. I had no idea what to expect. We drove roughly along the beach for about 8 km to the JDN Office, where lunch was ready and a dozen smiling faces greeted me.
I had mentioned my vegetarianism and JDN had catered for me with a mass of rice, a tofu and tempeh stir fry and salad. No catering company here; these JDN members had made it! It was very tasty and there was plenty for my cycling appetite.
The members of JDN, always smiling, described their work on tackling sexual harassment and helping to improve nutrition, especially of young mothers. They were most impressed when I told them that I had spent my working life doing nutritional research.
I still had no idea who I was talking to or their ages. I laid my cards on the table and told them I'm 65. They were mostly in their early to mid-20s, had graduated in various fields from local universities and had come to JDN through a friend.
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I then joined a meeting of gender equality influencers who were discussing a community event that didn't go to plan. Each person expressed his opinion on what worked and didn't work and how to improve things. Nea kindly translated for me.
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I left JDN with no doubt that its an impressive organisation with one competent person attracting the next.
To make up for not cycling, I walked back to Casa Minha stopping for a Timorese coffee on the way. Vendors plied their trade - fruit and vegetable stalls, coconuts, all types of snacks and fish hanging from poles or arranged in rows on banana leaves on footpaths.
I passed Government House, various embassies, heart-wrenching monuments and an astroturf football field gifted by the Chinese.
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