Sunday, October 23, 2011

VOYAGE BY CANOE TO ATAURO-ISLAND OF MISSING GODMOTHERS


Panoramic recent photograph taken by Darwin resident, agronomist Rob Wesley Smith, a longtime supporter of Timor -Leste, whose eventful life and tireless campaigning for worthy causes will soon be the subject of a special Little Darwin series. Surrounded by deep water, close to Dili, with a population of about 8000, Atauro is served by a large German ferry and is being developed for tourism, especially fishing and scuba diving on the reefs . Both the Portuguese and the Indonesians used it as a prison. Because of the dislocation during those times, island couples, when they came to be married, could not supply priests with the names of godmothers. As a result, a Red Cross worker on the island is now godmother to about 60 or more people .