In February 2014, New Zealand Volunteer Service Abroad took me to Atauro Island, to photograph some of the work the VSA volunteer Simon Marsters was doing for Empreze Diak. In this gallery some of the images I produced
I hope to add some commentary later, currently too busy editing images
The first twelve pages were shot in a small village on the island, where Empreze Diak is helping the local women revive their pottery skills. Two women in their nineties decided that it was time to share their skills with the next generations. In this workshop, they demonstrated us how they make their pots, then pit fired them. The presence of a few Malai (foreigners) in the village to do the recording of this workshop attracted of course a lot of people, including a lot of children. Since not many people have photographs of themselves I took it upon me to take as many portraits as I could, and have since sent a huge stack of photos back to them...

The second project I recorded was the fishing project. Starting on page 13.
Simon is helping the villagers in teh place where he lives to learn about preserving fish, so it can be taken back to the mainland to be sold and make some cash income. The first method they developed was drying the fish in a plastic tent. However, some fish cannot be treated that way, so while I was there, he did a workshop on how to fillet the fish, so it could be marinated and smoked. This was the first such demonstration, and the first time the smoker was used. Unfortunately for the occasion, a miscalculation meant the smoker was too hot and the fish got charred at the end. However, that is a minor detail and I am sure by now they've ironed out the kinks and have it operating correctly.