asakiyume: (Timor-Leste nia bandeira)
These questions are a mix of Tetun and English. Where they're in Tetun (probably riddled with errors), I've supplied English, but I haven't attempted to translate my English-language questions into Tetun. Similarly, where Nando answered in Tetun, I've translated the answers into English, but where he answered in English, I haven't ventured a translation. Ha'u husu deskulpa tanba la bele tradús hotu ba Tetun 😓

Nando da Costa Pires


Nando da Costa Pires is the author of "Mr. Mau Leki Meets an Eel," which you can read here.

(Nando da Costa Pires mak hakerek na'in "Sr. Mau Leki Hetán Majiku Husu Tuna," ne'ebe mak bele lee iha ne'e (okos).)

I asked him some questions ...

Can you tell us about reading when you were growing up in Ainaro?

Tuir ha’u nia hanoin kona ba reading iha Ainaro ladun le’e livru barak tanba livre ba le’e la to.

(According to my view, many in Ainaro didn’t read books because books were not available for all, but some people did find a way to read books.)

When I was a child, I didn’t read any books because I didn’t have any. Sometimes I asked other people to show me some to help me do my homework, and sometimes I borrowed my friends’ books to read.

When you were a child, what things did you do each day?

When I came back from school each day, I spent my time helping my family a lot on the farm.

Follow-up Question:
Bainhira Alin Nando sei ki’ik oinsa mak ajuda ita-nia familia iha to’os?

(When you were little, how did you help your family on the farm?)


Wainhira hau sei kiik, hau ajuda hau nia familia mak hanesan hamoos duut ou kuru bee lori ba hau nia inan aman hemu no hili ai hodi tein ba meiudia sira han.

(When I was little, I helped my family by doing things like weeding, or fetching water for my parents to drink and gathering wood to cook everyone’s midday meal.)

In school, what subjects did you like? Were there any subjects that you did not like?

In my school, I liked math and science. The subject I didn’t like was talking about politics.

You told me that your grandmother told you the story of Mr. Mau Leki and the eel. Did she tell you many other stories?

Nia konta istória só iha tempu espesiál ka beibeik ka?

(Did she tell stories only on special occasions or all the time?)


When I was a child, my grandmother told me many stories. She would tell me stories two times a month, or sometimes three times a month.

Who else in your family told stories?

My parent and my uncle (my father’s brother).

You told me “istória nee realidade akontese duni” (“this story really happened”).
Ha’u fiar ita, tanba mundu ne’e misteriozu no buat hotu (ema, animal, ai-hun, rai, lalehan, klamar) mak ligadu malu

(I believe you because this world is mysterious, and everything (people, animals, trees, earth, heaven, spirits) is connected to each other.)

So, I want to ask: What important things do stories like this one teach us?

(Istória hanesan ne’e hanorin ba ita buat importante saida?)


Istória nia importante mak hanorin mai ita atu kuidadu ita nia natureza sira, no karik ita hetan milagre husi natureza nia forsa, ita bele uza forsa ne’e bele tulun fali ita nia maluk sira ne'ebé presiza ita nia ajuda.

(This story’s importance is that it teaches us to take care of our natural world, and that if we obtain miracles from the forces of nature, we can use that power to help our families and friends when they need our help.)

Liu husi istória ne’e ema bele hadomi liu tan sira nia ambiente.

(Through this story, people can come to love their environment more.)

Hanorin ami atu oinsá atu ajuda ema seluk, karik sira presiza ita nia tulun.

(It teaches us how to help other people, if they need our help.)

Follow-up question:
Alin Nando dehan, “karik ita hetan milagre husi natureza nia forsa, ita bele uza forsa ne’e bele tulun fali ita nia maluk sira ne'ebé presiza ita nia ajuda.” Alin Nando rasik iha esperiensia ne’e?

(You said, “if we obtain miracles from nature’s power, we can use that power to help our families and friends when they need our help.” Have you yourself had that experience?)


Iha, tanba hau nia avo hetan duni milagre balun husi natureza tanba nia kura duni ema balun ne’ebé hetan moras no nia tana hodi siik ema nia moras no nia fo aimoruk tradisional ba ema moras nee.

I have, because my grandfather has indeed experienced various miracles from nature, because he has truly cured a number of people who were sick, and he performs divinations in order to understand people’s illnesses, and he gives traditional medicine to these sick people.

Is this the first time you have ever written a story?

Yes. It is the first time for me to write a story.

Do you read many stories? If yes, what types of story do you like?

Yes, I do read stories, but not many. I read some stories in Tetun from Revista Lafaek.

In your opinion, what is the difference between reading a story and listening to someone tell a story?

In my opinion, reading stories improves our comprehension about the things the story is talking about. We learn something from the story, and we come to know about interesting places. And also, we can read the story to our family.

In my opinion, when we listen to someone tell a story, we must listen carefully to the person so that we can understand the meaning of the story.


You studied math at university and now help students learn math. What methods do you use?

Yes. My experience is this: first I must prepare worksheets for the students, and then give them some examples and explain it to them. I must give exercises for student do in the class, and then I must check if they understand how to do it. And I must give them homework to reinforce what I taught, and later I must check their homework.

Follow-up question:
Kona-ba estudante ita-nian: sira-nia idade saida?

(About your students: what are their ages?)


Kona-ba estudante sira nia idade husi idade 8 to 17.

(About the students: they range in age from 8 to 17.)

Obrigada barak ba intervista ne’e no ba istória furak ne’ebe mak ita hakerek.
Ha’u hein katak ita hakerek istória barak tan!

(Thank you very much for this interview and for the wonderful story that you wrote.
I hope that you write lots more stories!)


asakiyume: (good time)
Two exciting things!

First, Strange Horizons is doing a special issue featuring Southeast Asian writers, and on Twitter they mentioned especially that they'd love to get someone from Timor-Leste. So on Facebook I posted about that and one of my acquaintances from when I went there in 2013 messaged me! He wanted details, and he said he'd try writing something if I could help him translate it. I said yes! And the other day he sent me a 3,500 word story. And now I'm working on translating it!

I can't convey sufficiently how exciting this is for me. I daydreamed, when I was over there, about how great it would be to hear local stories and tales--or even to read them. But it seemed worlds away, requiring so much study, and was I likely to do all that work for a place I might never go back to? But I did it! And now I can help someone share his stories with the world! So there's that thrill, but then there's the thrill of the tale itself. It seems very folktale-esque so far (I'm not quite a third of the way through it), but all the little details! Details about how to clear a patch of forest to make a field (bring your axe and your machete--which, amusingly, in Tetun is called a katana), put little stones around the perimeter, cut all the grass, weeds, and other plants, let them dry, then burn them. It was the tools and the little stones that I was especially excited about. And then details about what they eat for lunch, and bathing in a stream... all of it. Now maybe these are just folktale elements, but they're new-to-me folktale elements. I love them.

Now I'm waiting for a promised magical eel to appear.

Second, my ESL tutee and I are going to experiment with making Salvadoran chicha! She was telling me her mother sometimes makes this alcoholic drink to sell to people, and I was asking how she did it, and I thought... why don't we try it? So we're going to. Ingredients are seed corn, panela (unrefined sugarcane juice, condensed into a brick), a pineapple rind, and water. And time ;-)

I'll let you know how it turns out.
asakiyume: created by the ninja girl (Timor-Leste nia bandiera)
I keep on promising word-content, but the will is weak. Instead, have some pictures.

In the interim between Tetun classes, my classmate and I have been practicing, in part by watching the drama Laloran Justisa, Waves of Justice. It's subtitled in English, and I'll listen over and over to catch and try to learn the Tetun phrases. I take screenshots from it and then we ask each other questions about them in Tetun. But I love them also just for daily life in Timor-Leste, unspoken things that are conveyed:

Here Anata is crying because her daughter is sick (because people have been illegally dumping motor oil, and it's contaminated the groundwater) and her house is a mess and the legal-aid people will be coming soon. But what I was interested in was (a) the bed on a mat in the corner, the fact that she's got her husband's fighting cock attached to her toe by a string, and the nature of the mess: the footwear, the little toys--I spied a tiny pink plastic chair and could imagine a child playing house with it.



Here, Anata, her husband Rui (in the green shirt), Rosa, the public defender, and Eduardo, who works for a public-aid NGO, go to the well to get the water sample that's going to end up proving that the groundwater is contaminated. It was fascinating to see the plastic container repurposed to be a bucket, to see the cover for the well (with a rock to hold it down--but also that the director (Bety Reis) had had all the children cluster round to see what the grownups are up to. Very real!



When they're drawing the water, Rui points out the auto shop that he's sure is the source of the problem. "He's sure about many things," Anata says sourly. "He was born sure." There are lots of great lines in the show. At one point one guy asks another if he wants to get their band back together and the guy says, "I would rather swim naked in a pool filled with crocodiles." --So that's a no! But later he comes round, and when he's talking about what changed his mind, he says, "You can try to ignore music, but it constantly reaches out to you." ^_^

Here, Tinho, a boy who's not in school (he came down to Dili from Ainaro! Where I visited!), and Cisco, a boy who is, join together because they're both worried about a teacher, Inêz. (She's been teaching Tinho to read in her off hours and fighting the headmaster over the lack of schoolbooks at Cisco's school. The headmaster has been diverting the books and selling them in another part of Timor-Leste, and when Inêz starts investigating, he gets her fired.) What I like is how the two boys just drape arms over each other like that on first acquaintance. (Tinho did earlier demonstrate his chops as a soccer player, which Cisco appreciated, so maybe they already sense they're destined to be buddies.)



And this is just a market scene I liked. The girl in the foreground is playing with a bit of string. The director has lots of beautiful shots like this.

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