Going out on a limb

Imagine being a kid in East Timor.  If you stop and think about what they see and experience every day coupled with the cumulative frustration and desperation passed down through the generations, you can understand that perhaps their view of the world and the opportunities it offers them is quite bleak. 

I had thought the unemployment rate was 50%, but the other night someone suggested it was closer to 80%.  That’s unfathomable!  Only two in ten people have a job – or perhaps that’s just a job worth having and doesn’t include the market stall holders, the vegetable cart pushers and the pulsa boys whose desperation is so great they’ll step in front of your motorcycle in an attempt to get you to buy from them. 

That’s the story for able-bodied people; young adults who’ve had the benefit of the education system, such as it is.  It’s not exactly the rainbow of opportunity we take for granted; not even its pale shadow.

Now imagine that you’re a kid in Dili and you can’t walk; your withered legs are too deformed, too fragile to hold your equal diminutive frame.  How much darker must your world appear?

There are no ramps in Dili – at least not by design; no lifts; no public toilets let alone ones catering to people with disabilities.  The footpaths, where they exist are lumpy, treacherous for the able-bodied, disaster for someone in a wheelchair. 

So when I saw the poster for the Wheelchair Basketball Group Exhibition Games, I had to go; not only to give what support I could, but also to quell my ego, so willing as it is, to bitch and whinge at what to someone without the use of legs would seem mere trifles. 

The two teams were composites of able-bodied athlete and those with disabilities.  Number 6 in the grey and orange is Nelson de Silva.  I don’t know whether he had an accident or was born with a disability.  What I do know is that despite an obstacles, he makes all the orthotics for Dili and helped to organise and promote the event.  He exudes an optimistic energy that I’m sure dispels the arguments of any naysayers attempting to stand in his way.  They could try, but with that gleam in his eye, I’m betting good money, he’d just wheel right over their antiquated, stick-in-the-mud, pessimism.

Below are a few photos of the event.  I wanted to demonstrate the skill and ability these athletes have and also to capture their joy.  I don’t know that I’ve done those ambitions justice, but perhaps you’ll get an idea of how amazing and inspiring these men and boys are.