As foreshadowed, Gary Stone, John O'Hara and Lindsay Stokes were able to attend the ordination and related ceremonies in Atabae last month. They report that it was quite an eventful few days for them with the village celebrating with their customary enthusiasm.

The main ceremonies were conducted outdoors on a specially constructed stage area to accommodate the large crowd of locals and visitors. The fine weather was welcome for the ceremonies but some rain would be appreciated now as it has been another long dry season. Hopefully the summer rains will come soon to replenish dwindling water supplies and invigorate the crops.

The major achievement last month was the graduation of 35 students from the English language classes. The graduation ceremony was attended by eight local community leaders who gave out the certificates and four of them also spoke formally at the ceremony.

This month's highlight is the ordination to priesthood of the two local deacons, Hipolito Mala and Pascoal Salvador Marques. We will have more details in next month's news because three FPET members, Gary Stone, John O'Hara and Lindsay Stokes are currently in East Timor to attend the ceremony. The Atabae community has been very busy preparing for the ceremony which is a major event with many visitors expected to attend.

Atabae is still waiting for some rain so water supplies are decreasing as often happens at this time of year. The problem has been made worse this year because the electricity supply has become even less reliable due to fuel supply problems.

Anne Chapman reports that interest in learning English is increasing with another 69 new students in July. The increased demand has led to Anne reducing the number of lessons per week for some existing students.

Students continue to be very enthusiastic to learn English and arrive early to help set up the class venues. Most obviously spend extra time at home studying their English. Learning English is seen as a way to get employment in Dili with either the Government or non-government organisations. Subsistence agriculture and fishing are still the main employment opportunities in Atabae subdistrict.

The Catholic primary school principal is also keen to have Anne teaching English there. This school is very overcrowded at present with 345 students, 10 teachers and only four classrooms. More classrooms are to be built but for now the older children attend in the mornings and the younger ones attend in the afternoon.

The wet season usually brings travel difficulties in East Timor but this year brought an especially serious problem. Flooding in the Loes River caused the main road bridge over the river to move on one of its pylons so it is now severely out of alignment and unsafe for heavy vehicles.

It is not known how long it will be before the bridge is repaired and the traffic flow can return to normal. For most people the main problem is the disruption of the bus service with people having to get off at the bridge and walk across the bridge to continue their journey to or from Dili.

The only alternative way from Atabae to Dili requires a very long detour via poor roads which results in a journey of many hours. Hopefully the bridge does get repaired soon as the problem is extremely inconvenient for everybody, including our volunteers in Atabae.

FPET has become aware that disability services are quite deficient in East Timor. In this country where all health services are poorly developed, it seems just beyond the capacity of communities to adequately care for the disabled. The result is that many disabled live in extremely difficult circumstances.

Ahisuan is a faclity in Dili which provides support for some disabled people but many have no access to the facilities there and a wider range of services is required. While some advances are being made generally in improved services in East Timor, disability services is one area which seems to be lagging behind and deserves more attention.

Margaret Hall has provided some support for a few disabled people in the Atabae community using funding provided by committed supporters in Australia. FPET is considering whether it can extend this work.

As reported in last month's news, our FPET delegation to East Timor had a busy time consulting with many people during their January visit. We are still busy following up on matters raised during those consultations.

Other organisations contacted during the visit in Dili included the Ahisuan Centre for people with walking disabilities, Bairo Pite Cinic, Don Bosco Training College, the Australian Army, the Australian Embassy and Caritas Dili. Gary also visited Fr John Suban, local leader of the SVD priests including Fr Sipri. Fr John has been most helpful to FPET over the years.

This month we are busy responding to the findings of our delegation of three members who visited East Timor in January. Apart from their time in Atabae they also visited Dili and Maliana, following up on a range of matters.

The Atabae Parish Council advised the visitors that providing an improved water supply for the school and other parish buildings at Atabae remained their top priority. David Hall is now preparing a proposal to meet this request and funding has been set aside by FPET for this project.

The Parsh Council's second priority is funding of materials for additional classorooms for the parish school which currently cannot accommodate the children even with two shifts of schooling daily. The additional classrooms will be built by local volunteer labour and FPET has approved funding for this project.

Quite a few adults in the Atabae community wish to learn English and fill other gaps in their education. In response, FPET has arranged with PALMS to employ another volunteer at Atabae to meet these needs.

Anne Chapman, an experienced teacher, has volunteered to work in Atabae for a year as a Community Education Co-ordinator. She will be responding to the needs already identified and assessing the situation to see how other gaps in the education services can be met. She is also expected to work with the local school teachers to share ideas and strengthen their English skills.

We also expect that she will be providing basic literacy and numeracy classes for some of the many adults who did not get sufficient access, or no access, to schools as children.

Jose and Serv are returning early this month to continue their English studies in Queensland prior to starting their university studies in agriculture. We expect that they will have more news for us from Atabae.

We also have an FPET delegation going to visit Atabae this month to further access the situation and strengthen our relationship with the community. This group will be taking three new sewing machines with them to expand the number of machines available in Atabae. We are also working toward having a reciprocal visit from the Atabae community fairly soon. While there is some effort and cost in arranging such trips, they are seen as vital to maintaining an effective relationship between our communities.