Kontas[Han no hemu]View

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Deskrisaun
Kontas mak hahán isin rai okos kór mutin ho forma naruk ne’ebé parese moris fuik iha foho Matebian. Mana Leopoldina Guterres, nu’udar Diretora Programa “Ho Musan Ida” (With One Seed) esplika katak isin rai okos ne’e ajuda tebes atu sustenta ema ne’ebé subar an iha ai-laran iha faze inisiál hafoin invazaun indonéziu. “Ne’e hahán di’ak. Ami presiza kontinua atu uza,” nia dehan. Hafoin invazaun, Leopoldina sei labarik ki’ik no iha esperiénsia durante tinan barak moris iha area foho, dook husi aldeia sira. Durante tinan aat sira-ne’e nia no família barak husi rejiaun ida-ne’e halai ba foho no aprende atu moris husi ai-laran. Maski ema sira-ne’e tenke halai beibeik husi inimigu nia kilat no operasaun militár sira, sira konsege prepara no kuida toos iha ai-laran. Nune’e mós, sira aprende atu sobrevive liuhosi kuda arbiru hahán isin rai okos no ai-funan fuik sira. Sira mós aprende kona-ba uza ai-hun balu nia kulit hodi halo roupa no ai-tahan sira hodi halo kama no mahon. Haree ba difikuldade ne’ebé sira hasoru iha ai-laran, sira mós dezenvolve tan matenek kona-ba ai-moruk tradisionál ne’ebé hatutan husi bei’ala sira. Ema balu sai kuradór espesialista no komesa koko ai-moruk naturál sira hahú husi sira-nia família rasik no habelar koñesimentu kona-ba ai-horis sira ba ema seluk. Bainhira komunidade sira iha biban, sira kuda duni ai-horis sira, nune’e liuhosi sira-nia kuidadu no prosesu sira ne’ebé dalaruma segredu, ai-horis sira ne’e komesa buras iha fatin foun. To’o ohin loron uma-kain rurál sira kontinua atu kaer metin no fó folin ba matenek tradisionál ne’e ne’ebé ajuda ema atu moris iha susar nia laran.  
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‘Kontas’ is a red lily like plant with a long white tuber and which grows seemingly wild in the Matebian range. Mana Leopodina Guterres, Country Program Director for Ho Musan Ida/With One Seed explained that the tuber was ‘something that kept us alive when we were hiding out in the jungle during the early years of the invasion. It is good food. We need to keep using it’. During the early years of the Indonesian occupation, Leopoldina who was still a child had sheltered for years in these remote mountain terrains. It was during these terrible years that her family and much of the regional population who had fled to the mountains, learnt how to live from the forest. Even as people were continually on the run from Indonesian guns and encirclement, they also somehow managed to clear and tend to remote forest gardens. Likewise, they learnt to survive by encouraging the more random cultivation of wild tubers and fruits. They learnt too about using the bark of particular trees for clothing and to rely on forest foliage for bedding and shelter. Given the hardships of their new forest lives, they built too on the medicinal knowledge handed down from their forebears. Many became medical specialists, trialling and testing a range of forest medicines on themselves and their families and then spreading these plants and knowledge to others. When it was possible these plants were cultivated, expanding their ecological range through careful, if deliberately opaque, processes of human attention. This knowledge, which kept people alive in desperate circumstances, remains deeply embedded and valued in rural Timorese households into the present.