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A story, recapped

Almost five years ago, Raj and I masked up, packed our surge protectors, and took a World Food Programme special flight into Dili, Timor-Leste. We started as volunteers in Maluk Timor, a local nonprofit established to strengthen Timor-Leste's primary care system by partnering with the Ministry of Health. We had the luxury of a long overlap with MT's founders Drs Jeremy and Bethany Beckett, and 8 months later we stepped up to the task of leading this organisation --I, at least, had not a clue as to the drama and delight that the next few years would hold.

Now as I shift gears into a season of quieter work and language study, the memories of these years tumble over each other like pebbles down a waterfall, a jumble of laughter and tears and pride and regret.

During my time, I’ve had the privilege of working alongside some of the most committed health professionals I’ve ever met, both in Timor-Leste's Ministry of Health and within my own organisation.

Together with the Ministry of Health, Maluk Timor:

Digitalised the Family Medicine Programme during a state of emergency (2021),

Developed the first non-communicable disease training manual for community health volunteers (2022),

Nationalised Silver Diamine Fluoride use to treat caries (2022-2024),

Unified TB contact tracing and triage across 6 municipalities (2022–2023),

Doubled antenatal care consultations in rural government clinics (2023–2024),

And built Timor-Leste’s first in-service training curriculum to operationalise the Essential Service Package (2023–2025).

Our Timorese team wrote and presented 34 academic posters across national and regional conferences, and partnered with 38 international colleagues in the last 4 years to advance quality in primary care. (And yes—President Barack Obama gave us a shoutout in 2022. Still a bit surreal: https://youtu.be/R22fBvm3NJg?t=265)

None of these achievements would have been possible without the strong leadership of the Timorese Health Ministers, Director Generals, Heads of Departments, Hospital leaders, Health Directors of Municipalities, Health Centre leaders, frontline health professionals and many others far too numerous to name. You were serving your communities long before malae whippersnappers like me showed up, and you will be serving long after we are gone.

I don't have any illusions about the sustainability of overnight change. Better, smarter, gutsier folk than I have built systems that eroded under the relentless entropy of world events. 4-5 years has been everything, and also is nothing, in the bigger scheme of things. 

As a foreigner, I certainly erred and as a leader occasionally acted with the social graces of a fahi tama toos (pig in a vegetable plot). In a high-context Asian culture, an unfortunate word choice or an out-of-place gesture can communicate volumes and cause deep offense. I've learned that there were probably things that were never my place to say, which I did say-- not out of a desire to damage anyone, but from a place of wanting to see Timorese people get healthcare they can trust. Despite the many friendships that I cherish with Timorese health professionals, it still saddens me that I was not able to find alignment with every single Timorese leader that I worked with, knowing as I do that most Timorese public health leaders have turned down lucrative job opportunities and serve their nation out of a deep commitment to their people and their land.

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. 
The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming;

... who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly."

- T. Roosevelt

To our Maluk team ("PMTLs", mediku, enfermeiru/a, tekniku aliadu, Maun and Mana sira, malae sira, you know who you are)- I will always treasure the memories and am lucky that I got to experience Timor (foho to tasi) through your eyes. I've loved learning with you and from you. And I still believe that you're the ones you have been waiting for. Please dare greatly x

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