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AFAP is an independent secular, not-for-profit, fully accredited Australian non-government organisation (NGO) that was founded in 1968 and incorporated in the state of NSW in 1983. Our mission is to be a leading agent for poverty alleviation through innovative and appropriate community-based development. We work directly with local partners that are independent agencies employing local professionals with considerable experience, local knowledge and skill through-out the Pacific, Asia and Africa. Our partners are well-established NGOs in their own right and have excellent working relations with respective local governments. These on-going partnerships demonstrate a commitment to shared values and agreement on effective and workable management, administration, and communication protocols, under-pinned by policies which are in line with AusAID requirements.

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Part two: Nia Naran Doctor Dan

Nia naran dotor dan
(His name is Doctor Dan)

Quite simply, if you haven't heard of him - you haven't actually been to Timor. The Pierre Iowa native has been here since 1998. I have met a lot of activists, a lot of NGO healthcare workers but I have never met someone like Dan Murphy. Doctor Dan received his MD from the University of Iowa. He spent 6 years working with Ceasar Chavez at a clinic for farm workers. He was a doctor in Mozambique, another former Portuguese colony, Laos and Nicaragua. Doctor Dan has worked in East Timor since September 1998, although the Indonesians forced him out in early 1999 during the post-independence ballot destruction of the country. He returned in September 1999 and had been steadfastly working since to provide health care though the Bairo Pite Clinic.

You hear a lot of Doctor Dan stories. When you’re one of the ten overseas volunteers in the Bairo Pite area everyone lines up to tell you their stories, or ones they were told when they first arrived.

I have heard some wild stories.

Timor Tales Part One: Botarde!

Botarde! (Hello!)

It’s been a lot of planning, organisation and anticipation. Through AFAP I was able to raise just over $3000 for medical supplies, drugs and operation costs at the clinic who takes care of the poorest of the poor in Dili, East Timor. These donations were received from as far away as Peru, from as local as Brisbane and Sydney, Australia - I was simply overwhelmed by the generosity of those who have listened and those who have helped.

I had landed in Dili and the air is dense with humidity, it felt like I am breathing in air that I borrowed an hour before. The dust has already started settling on my skin and mixing with the sweat caused by the 41 degree heat, which I was standing in. I was standing near twenty bemused taxi drivers practicing the phrase ‘Hello Uncle I would like to go to the Bairo Pite Clinic, it is near the Presidential palace”. The answer to this was “Where in Australia are you from?” in English. They saw me coming a mile off.

I was so relieved that our medical supplies had gone through customs without any complications. It is difficult to look relaxed in an airport when you are carrying scalpels, vials of Diazepam and heavy pain killers and nothing to protect you but a doctor's note. However, it seemed to be far less of an anxiety inducing experience in Dili - the mere utterance of Dr. Dan makes even the most peevish customs officer submit to the country’s adoration of the clinic and particularly, the man who started it all.

BPC looked like the many pictures I had seen The clinic consists of five buildings, which are the maternity ward, TB ward, general medical, administration building, emergency ward. There are families waiting patiently outside the emergency room, nurses running from between buildings and expat medical staff and students walking around the wards trying to not be completely overwhelmed. I walk in feeling superfluous - or at least out of place. I am carrying 2 boxes of supplies and a suitcase packed with laboratory and clinical equipment. There is a common moment of initiation to anyone who has done NGO or volunteer work abroad - it goes like this: “who and why are you here?” When this happened to me at BPC heart stopped. Funny thing, it seems odd, but when you think about it: for you it is the biggest day, for some organisation who go through as many volunteers as BPC, this is another day - and I could be just another volunteer who walks away thinking I’ve changed the world forever, and never thinking about them again.

After 2pm, everything works out - I meet the amazing team from BPC who had been working with me from the beginning . Supplies are immediately dispersed throughout the clinic - it seemed to only take about 20 mins for everything to allocated and completely absorbed. The gloves, pippettes and laboratory supplies have been consumed by the TB and general laboratories, the stationary is restocked and medications are in the pharmacy. There was a part of my imagination which I tried to supress, which still allowed me to daydream that once this was done, everything would be fixed. I never genuinely had that kind of naivety but wandering in to a Utopian fantasy happens easily to minds stuck with the alternative reality here.

Next: Ita Nia Naran Dotor Dan

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