the National Hospital, Timor-Leste:

WRITTEN BY RUTH HITCHINS

Maski hau lao iha fatin nebee nakukun tebtebes, hau la tauk buat ida tanba Ita Boot hamutuk

In his words / Maun Mario (Mr Mario)

Well, I simply can’t walk. Let alone through this valley. So You’d better be with me, Maromak (God).

Because I’m stuck in this valley with my diabetes causing peripheral neuropathy which has meant my leg has just been amputated, I’ve got no way to get out of this valley. So You’d better come in to this valley with me, Maromak. I’m a subsistence farmer. Even if I manage to get a walking stick from somewhere, I’m not able to move anywhere anymore: my farm is up a rocky mountain. My wife is in tears when the MAF woman asks her what is life going to be like for her when we get discharged from hospital. She glows at the arrival of the care crew - this Malae (foreigner) and Timorese oddly working together - but she knows that everything falls on her shoulders the minute we get back to Oe’Cusse. We have no family nearby to help us work the farm. And I’m a permanent invalid. This diabetes plus malnutrition from a month in hospital is wreaking havoc with my brain.

I can’t help that I’ve gone from being an active farmer to a passive patient. My wife understands far better than I what her life will look like now. Don’t get me wrong, I’m grateful to see her smile and laugh at the arrival of much-needed food and water and phone credit these MAF people have brought. She has always masked hardship with such warmth and bravery. Because of me, she will also be stuck in this valley of the brutal death awaiting those in poverty. So You’d better be with her too, if You really are our Bibi Atan (Good Shepherd).

MAF Chaplain

Mana Domingas, Her eyes hold it all: Full comprehension of the death her husband’s amputation already spells for her;

Hidden eyes weeping the horror of what awaits her on her return to Oe’Cusse. She knows she cannot manage their farm single-handedly, And she knows that to work the land is to be able to eat.

She knows she is utterly alone. She knows the stigma awaiting her as an imminent widow, For he will die soon enough. Her grim reality stretches out with no end.

And yet she smiles at me.

There is joy in this visit that I cannot possibly fathom.

We read Psalm 23 together, She cannot get out of this valley of the shadow of death:

Neither Mario nor Domingas are even able to walk through it.

I only hold my tears in because I want them to hear the words my friend so richly and recently translated into everyday Tetun; I want them to know how much He is with them in their horror.

He is especially their Shepherd, their Bibi Atan, And He is with them forever and ever,