“With a lot of the deaths that happen, it’s children coming from school and crossing a river. Sometimes during the rainy season, the current is too swift,” says Ryan Russell, former Livelihoods Coordinator for Catholic Relief Services in East Timor. “People get washed away—especially children and old people.”

High in the mountains, villagers in this impoverished country near Australia cope with flooding, landslides, and other disasters on a regular basis. “It’s pretty challenging terrain,” Russell continues. “Sometimes we can’t access the communities—we’d drive and the car would get stuck. One time we had to hike for two or three hours, covered in mud. When the roads are cut off like that, getting people to hospitals is hard.”

At certain times of the year, powerful winds strike the mountain villages, ripping branches from trees and spreading fire. During dry seasons, villagers’ palm-thatch houses are easily set aflame. “My house was destroyed,” says a local farmer. “The kitchen, its cupboards, everything.” Villagers also suffer burns and injuries.
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Crack the shell but don’t break the nut. It’s simple advice for farmers in East Timor, a small, impoverished island country near Australia. But this simple advice is part of the reason they are doubling or tripling their profits from the sale of candlenut, a waxy hard-shelled nut used for food and (you guessed it) candles.

In a village near the town of Baucau, a group of candlenut farmers talk about the difference Catholic Relief Services has made in their lives. “Before CRS came here, local traders offered only 10 to 15 cents a kilogram for candlenut,” says a farmer named Vicente. “CRS gave us training on the three classes of nut quality, including size, shape, and color, and formed us into an association.” If the nut is whole and large, farmers can receive more money.
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