Thousands of Australians travel to Bali each year, but relatively few head to Timor-Leste despite it being one of our closest neighbours.
Chris Draper crossed the Timor Sea, little more than an hour from Darwin by plane, to disembark in the Timorese capital Dili in 2017.
What he found was a developing nation of rugged mountains fringed by coral reefs nurturing a unique culture and language, right on Australia’s doorstep.
Chris, 22, had travelled to Dili as a volunteer for the competitive five-day Tour de Timor mountain bike race that his uncle was involved in.
That trip involved its fair share of bike mechanics and organising jerseys for competitors in the September heat and humidity.
But he also had the chance to make friends with fellow race volunteers, Timorese youths from the local arm of Rotoract.
Chris taught English as a volunteer at the national university and made his first faltering attempts at speaking the local language, Tetum.
Chris Draper travelled to Timorese capital Dili to volunteer at Tour de Timor Source: Supplied
He left with a smattering of words and a strong desire to learn more.
Chris decided to enrol in a double degree at The Australian National University (ANU) of Asian and Development Studies when he came home, choosing Tetum as a language subject.
He returned to Timor-Leste last year with seven months of online study of Tetum under his belt, keen to put his new skills to the test.
He volunteered for the Tour de Timor again and reconnected with the friends he had made. “They were really happy I was learning their language and making an effort to speak to them in Tetum,’’ he said.
Chris’s Tetum studies helped him get beyond the superficial tourists’ viewpoint and break the conversational ice while on a road trip, especially in the villages.
He found his knowledge of Tetum helped him gain a deeper understanding of the villagers’ day-to-day lives and concerns.
“We stayed with a family in a mountain rural village. One of the friends’ uncles was a chief who talked about a government tourist project for some hot springs, and the roads and development around it.
“I could understand 50-60 per cent of the conversation, which was really interesting.”
Chris was delighted that he was able to share some details about his hometown of Gippsland, Victoria, and talk about his family.
Chris Draper believes his studies helped him get beyond the superficial tourists' viewpoint Source: Supplied
“I talked about my sister who is a speech therapist and one of my Timorese friends is studying speech therapy, so we talked about that in a mix of Tetum and English. I hope to bring them together one day to meet up,’’ he said.
Many Australians will remember Timor-Leste, then more commonly known East Timor, as the scene of bloody conflict when Indonesian militia forces went on a rampage following the 1999 UN vote for independence. The impact of that violence, as well as the previous years of Indonesian occupation, repression and famine, is still felt today.
Despite signing a deal over oil and gas in the Timor Sea, Timor-Leste is still among the poorest countries in Southeast Asia.
Chris was struck by the poverty of the country, where more than half the population lives in poor housing conditions and many have no access to clean water and sanitation.
Outside the capital he traversed dirt roads, with goats, buffalo and pigs roaming free, and saw how farming could be challenging in a landscape that is dusty and barren in the dry season.
He also saw the natural beauty of steep mountains and pristine beaches, and was interested to see how the Catholic faith pervades everyday life with deeply held rituals.
People are “incredibly happy and very hospitable”, with a laid-back approach to life, he said.
Chris was often invited into homes for traditional fried rice and vegetable dishes accompanied by the ai-manas chilli paste, and would reciprocate by buying food staples for his hosts.
One of the advantages to learning Tetum was that he could make progress quickly, in contrast to Mandarin, which he is also learning. Tetum has a blend of indigenous, Malay and Portuguese words. There are various dialects, with Chris learning the widely-spoken Tetun Dili (‘city Tetum’) spoken in the capital.
“I found the Mandarin characters challenging but Tetum was much easier to learn,’’ he said.
“Even in that first trip I learnt about 100 words and it was easy to retain them.”
Chris did field some comments from people who queried why he was learning such a niche language, spoken nowhere else but Timor-Leste with its population of 1.2 million.
However, he can see professional advantages, as he has the aim of returning to Timor-Leste to work for an NGO or for a government aid project. Though Portuguese is an official language alongside Tetum, the majority of the population speaks Tetum.
“I’d like to work there [in Timor-Leste] and you need to be able speak fluent Tetum for most jobs,’’ he said.
Although he is an on-campus student at ANU, Chris is enjoying the convenience of online language learning where students have a weekly 90 minute tutorial and complete online follow-up exercises in their own time regarding listening, speaking, reading and writing skills and vocabulary.
Chris Draper hopes to work in Timor-Leste, where you need to be able to speak fluent Tetum for most jobs Source: Supplied
“It’s a really good option for those who can’t get on campus or who work at the same time,’’ he says.
“Even though I’m on campus the convenience [of online learning] is very handy. We meet online once a week to practice speaking and go over vocabulary. [Then) I can do my lessons in my own time in my room.”
Tetum is not commonly taught at university level, but is one of the Asian languages offered online at ANU through its partnership with Open Universities Australia (OUA).
Apart from the professional advantages of learning a niche language where there is less competition for jobs, Chris is looking forward to continuing learning Tetum next year to continue his immensely satisfying journey of discovering a different culture.
Another trip is also planned for this year, where Chris hopes to compete himself in the gruelling Tour de Timor, infamous for its steep inclines and challenging terrain.
This time, he’ll be able to engage in deeper conversations.
“Australia is a multicultural country however we don’t commonly learn second languages, which is quite sad because there’s so much to learn about different cultures around the world,’’ he said.
“It’s hard to understand another culture if you are not able to understand the language because it goes with their thinking and how they use different words to describe feelings or objects. If you don’t understand that, you don’t understand the full picture.”
ANU offers 16 Asian and Pacific language programs that give students the skills and knowledge to succeed in the Asian Century. Nine of these languages – Burmese, Hindi, Mongolian, Sanskrit, Tetum, Thai, Tibetan, Tok Pisin and Vietnamese – can be studied entirely online via Open Universities Australia. Enrol now to start studying in 2020: open.edu.au/online-courses/australian-national-university
