Asakiyume mita

I created these questions are based on comments people left in response to Nando's two stories, but especially the more recent one, "Mauko Meets a Monkey." If they sound a little stilted, it's because it's my translation back into English of what I sent to him--I'm not good enough in Tetun to ask highly subtle, highly nuanced questions. You'll see that his replies are sort of adjacent to the questions rather than direct answers, again, most certainly due to my inability to express myself adequately. It would have taken more back-and-forth to get to clarity, and somehow to keep pressing felt it might have become unwelcome browbeating? And I wanted to hear what Nando was saying, which I think is illuminating and worthwhile, even if it's only tangential to what I was asking.

Question 1: In your two stories, people become wise through miracles from animals. Both Mr. Mau Leki and Mauko can cure people’s illnesses. In traditional stories, do animals sometimes give other miracles or other wisdom? Sometimes can plants or stones give miracles or wisdom to people?

Nando's answer:

People’s wisdom comes from education.

The miracles that they get are like a natural wisdom that is different with different people. Out of a thousand people living in a village, ones who have experienced a miracle from some other thing are maybe one, or maybe there isn’t even one.

Right now, there is one uncle, named Fideli, who lives in our neighborhood. This neighbor obtained a miracle from some other thing that made him able to cure people’s illnesses. He cures people who have had accidents like fractured legs or arms from falling from motorcycles. He uses the wisdom which he received to cure those broken legs or arms, returning them to normal, just as they were.

And now the government of Timor-Leste has also conferred an award on him. Now he is still curing people’s illnesses, and the government of Timor-Leste has given him a private hospital. He cures people’s sickness and doesn’t ask for any money when people get sick. Instead, he asks for a rooster from them, and also seven five-cent coins. Then he prays that they get better. After that he kills the rooster to make a dinner or lunch for everyone to eat together, and he takes the seven coins when he goes to church and gives them as alms.

Nando adds:

(This is really happening right now. If someone from America comes to Timor Leste soon, I can show them, and explain it to them.)

Question 2: Readers can know Mauko’s heart is big and wonderful because he gives a cure to the baby monkey. He loves people like his parents and siblings, but he also loves animals like the baby monkey. In your experience, are there people that love the land like Mauko loves the baby monkey? For example, people that want to cure the land’s illness?

Nando's answer:

Mauko cures the baby monkey because he cares about animals. He is the simplest person in his family.

There are lots of people who find an animal who has fallen, and they catch and kill it. They are very different from Mauko.

There are lots of monkeys that are just like ordinary animals, but the one monkey that Mauko met was very different from other monkeys, so Mauko considered this one to be a miracle that God had bestowed on him.

God doesn’t bestow miracles directly upon people. Rather, God bestows miracles on people through other people or things.

Question 3: Mauko’s disability can’t be hidden. People can see that his left eye is cloudy. One reader asks, Is people’s discrimination against Mauko worse because people can see his disability? If Mauko’s disability could be hidden, would people not discriminate? What do you think?


Nando's answer:

People discriminate against him because he is a person with a disability, and many people are disgusted by him and don’t want to see him in their presence. Even his brothers and sisters are ashamed of his disability and don’t like to spend time with him or help him. He was a person with a disability, but maybe if people didn’t feel disgusted, then they wouldn’t discriminate.

I've finally finished translating the next story that my friend Nando (Fernando da Costa Pires) sent me back in July last year. From its title, this one might sound like the last one, only this time our protagonist is meeting a monkey instead of an eel. But it's actually very different: for one thing, the hero, Mauko, is disabled, and the story has a lot to say about how disabled people have been regarded in Timor-Leste. It has some magical elements like the last story, but every detail strikes me more deeply this time than last time--though I loved last time's story too. I have more things to say about it, but I'll save them for when I post the story. I've also asked Nando to write an author's statement, so he can share some of his own thoughts on the topic of disability and why he wrote the story.