 |
| Source |
As a person who is currently living outside of the country
for a study mission, I always feel proud and excited by the time I bump into our
diplomats’ traces who played their contributions from afar, overseas. The diplomatic
front had a huge impact on our independence gain because we secured supports
from lots of people around the world. Thus, this has always been my passion to
learn what our diplomats did in the past that led to our festive 20th
May.
My cohort and I, before the independence era, had a very
minimum to non-existent knowledge on what diplomats did. One factor is that we
were too kiddy to know it except the onshore events we encountered ourselves. Therefore,
meeting a new person in the foreign country who has a connection to any of our
leaders, places, and events as such, mollifies my curiosity.
It happened one week before this 20th of May; I
attended an event in the States where the principal guest of that event was once being a candidate of the United States President, a former governor of New Mexico, a
former congressman, a UN envoy to Korea, and Iraq to name a few. He is Governor Bill Richardson. My sleep on that day's night was deprived by the final exam preparations for this
semester. But, this person’s figure amplified my mood when I shook hands with
him replying his basic questions like a normal communication kicks off in any
personal contact.
“Where are you from?” he said, “I am from East Timor,” I
replied. “who….. you know….the guy..hmmmm, you know the Nobel guy,,,what is his
name?.” He added. “oh yes….hmmm,” I was in a tongue-bite position because I
could not immediately answer his question in five seconds. He then outpaced me
answering his own. “Yes, Horta.” He said. I was like,…"YES, do you know him?” I asked. He sounded like proudly saying “OF
COURSE I know him; I have been to your country when there was a problem.” And then the last word I said was, “really? thank you sir. I am so honored to meet you
today.” I then walked over. However, his words left several questions on my
head. I was wondering like how he knew Ramos Horta, the founding father of
Timor Leste, and when he went to Dili, and particularly which problem did he
have in mind because we had several notorious problems that I HATE for sure,
but politicians like it in practice.
To be honest, before I went to the venue, I did not research
much on the principal guest’s information. All but important in my head was that
‘there must be a free lunch gathering;’ also seeing different white-collar
Americans: politicians, military veterans, etc. would be awesome.
Governor Richard was the principal guest in this event
because he was one of the recipients for an award called “The Harry. S. TrumanGood Neighbor Award.” This award is given out regularly every year to the
people who have significantly made other people to live in peace, happiness, made people
smile, live in affluent economy, etc. within the US and global as well. Prior I
finished reading the email invitation from the International office of my
university who made my attendance possible was, I was wondering who the heck
Truman is. Truman was the 33rd President of the United States. Go to
this link so that you can learn more about former American presidents if you
just know Obama, Bush, George Washington, and the other famous ones.
Well, the whole point of this personal experience is that
today is 20th May, an important day where one week before I coincidentally
met a guy who knew Ramos Horta. Ramos Horta, or other leaders must have worked
with this guy or at least exchanged ideas that contributed to the realization of
this day. Hence, it is a must to be grateful to what other people have
contributed to our existence. Only through grateful, we will learn how to respect
the values for which people have sacrificed either their lives or energy on our
existence.
Like most of my fellow countrymen who have travelled outside
of the country and felt, we are always proud to tell other people that we are part
of the world whom they have not heard of. We would like to make a friendship,
we would like to exchange our distinct culture with theirs, we also would like share
our common values with each other. On top of that, we would like to show something different to the people
who have ever contributed to this important day realization on what
they have seen before. We would like them to know something different than what Governor
Richard said “I went there when there was a problem,” We are so eager and
energetic to transform problems to be the more hospitable “nouns” to surprise them,
to WOW them considering our trivial image.
This is what our founding father had died for. They left a
huge responsibility for all of us. Counting from 2002, we have come to be a-13-year old teen. Like a teen in his era, he would expect to have a decent home, good
school, good health, nice android to play games and surf on Facebook, and he
would like to have lots of pleasing places that he could go to enjoy his life,
and other things that civilized and modern people want to own.
Feliz Aniversario do dia de restauracao da independencia 20
de Maio.
A luta continua
**Hope this gives you an inspiration
