East Timor at the Olympics
I was watching the opening ceremony today on a smart board in a clean air conditioned lab and was extremely excited to see an East Timorese - Timor Leste flag followed by 4 athletes. East Timor became independent in 1999, it is one of the worlds pourest countries and lost its entire infrastructure - roads, power, communications, educational, water, sanitation, health, sports and so on after the Indonesia backed militia systematically destroyed it after its referendum for independence. A situation anyone with a bit of knowledge of the region foretold but alas the UN did not act until after the destruction was complete. Hmmm! My youngest son is reading about Shake Hands with the Devil and my eldest is on his way to military trainning, and well, i have been hearing tons of UN bashing for the past 2 weeks, but I digress! It was quite a feat for this place to get the team it has together considering its context!
I was just so pleased to see this teeny tiny little forgotten place on the big screen today and finally it was something good. I had also sewn 10 or so of those flags for Bella Galhos and ETAN Ottawa over the years and was so excited to see it again. They have two marathon runners and 11 para olympians in tennis, weightlifting, athletics, boxing and football associations.
Bravo East Timor!
