East to West
Just now Here we go again. In Arka Kinari's longest and final route through the Indonesian archipelago, this year's voyage follows the trade winds steadily from east to west, and includes neighboring islands outside of Indonesia's borders, starting with Timor Leste, whose name literally means "east-east" when translated from Malay & Portuguese. You might remember Timor Leste from it's twenty-five year civil war ending in 1999. But then maybe not, since that conflict ended another twenty-five years ago. It remains the poorest nation in Southeast Asia, and also the proudest. If independence didn't come easy, maintaining autonomy from bigger and bellicose nations might be even harder. We had big plans for Timor Leste, and succeed with most of it. A storytelling performance at the Fundacao Oriente was packed des