Aaron Konta Estoria

From East Timor

Pigpens and Chicken Coups

16 August 2003 -- Nattarbora, East Timor

Pigs are for pigpens, chickens are for coups, and ducks for the most part are for ponds. We have been living with this family now for two months and I have finally found the best place to hang our hammock. The hammock hangs between mango and citrus trees off the right side of the home. This morning we passed the hours sitting in the shade of the trees just talking and doing a bit of reading. I swung the hammock and Susan sat beside me in the chair. After we made lunch, I took to holding down the chair and Susan has been reading in between naps in the hammock. Currently and all the while, chickens chase and cockle, pigs pass through a grunting hunt for god knows what, and the 30-odd ducks wander around quacking, preening, shitting, and hissing a sickly sound that as hard you we try, cannot be ignored. If it sounds uneventful, well... We watched ducks screwing for a good minute or two and all that was said came from Susan forming all that needed to be said, "interesting", and we turned back to our books, thoughts already drifting on the Atlantic off Nova Scotia and somewhere in time between guns, germs, and steel.

Peacefully...A&S

17 August 2003 -- Nattarbora, East Timor

Susan and I are currently enjoying a lazy Sunday morning. In a few more minutes we'll don our Sunday's best to pretend presenting our piety to our neighbors in the narthex of God's domain. Not that we are really inspired by 4-hours of sitting in a tin sauna, listening to gibberish that we can't quite understand. However, the points we score by attending pay huge dividends in social acceptance. When we first arrived in NTB we showed our new friends photos from home. Some of these included scenes from our wedding. Yet on our way home from our first attendance at mass we found out that no one really believed we were married until they saw us get up and take communion. Our hypocrisies are many, but rarely without reason.

Peacefully...A&S