Making Soap in Timor-Leste
Posted on | April 9, 2007 | No Comments
Making Soap in Timor-Leste
Timor-Leste is
It is a mountainous, tropical country of 15,000 sq kilometers and a population of approximately 1 million people.
There is a hugely high birth rate and correspondingly high infant mortality rate.
There is also very little employment (50%) and most people live in small, poor villages, below the poverty line (42%).
We traveled there in February 2006, to teach soapmaking and donate start-up equipment to 2 groups of women (18 in total) who had been selected by an aid group from Australia (Friends of Los Palos), in conjunction with the Live Love Health Foundation (a non-profit fulltime charitable organization in Timor).
Flying in over the mountainous terrain, covered in untouched tropical jungle, in a very small aircraft, is an experience I will never forget.
We landed, in Dili, the capital, and promptly hit our first soapmaking snag when the Australian-trained quarantine and customs officers confiscated our soapmaking herbs: nettles, roses, calendula, lavender.
These were destroyed (or so they claimed!) and we got a receipt, which was no comfort at all.
I had to argue hard to be allowed to keep the clays!
Our first stop after arrival was to go to the largest supermarket in
This was a large and ramshackle barn with a raw concrete floor and very little lighting.
There was a variety of goods there though and we found quantities of Bimoli palm oil (from
The Bimoli was tricky: it is sold as a cooking oil all over
There were no other options, so I took it, knowing I would have to invent a SAP value for it.
The caustic soda had already been shipped over from
My best advice to the organizers was to import it directly from
We then proceeded to drive to Baucau where the first workshop was being held.
Baucau is the second largest town in
It is a main road and in places it resembled nothing so much as a goat track!
However, as it wound along the coast, the views were simply magnificent….untouched beach with crystal clear water and virgin rainforests…and the terrain changed dramatically.
On the way we bought some honey from a vendor walking along the road with a pole slung over her shoulders and bottles of honey hanging down, with a piece of string around their necks.
The bottles were all recycled and the girl had used bits of dried corn cob, wrapped in banana leaf, to stopper them.
There was nothing filtered or pasteurized about this honey! It was dark and raw and real and smelled divine!
We checked into the Pousada de Baucau (quite a grand old Portuguese hotel with terrific views) and found that the electricity was supplied to the town for a few hours each evening and the rest of the time, it was every man for himself, with generators or more usually, with nothing.
Also at the Pousada was the only internet access in
This was ragged and slow, but I managed to let people know we had arrived safely.
The next morning, after breakfast in a garden with monkeys, we walked just next door to the Canossian Sisters convent, where the workshops were being held.
The venue had been chosen for several reasons.
1. they had onsite accommodation available for the women who had traveled vast distances by bus, from tiny remote villages, to attend the workshops.
2. they had classrooms and running water.
The classrooms were tiny and basic, but we got some desks and chairs together, lugged in all our supplies and viewed the large rat-proof container I had sent specs for some months previously.
Also to be inspected were the scales and the coconut oil, made in the local villages.
I was keen to have a look at this promptly, because nobody could really tell me HOW it was made….was it VCO? Was it from copra? And of course this would affect the SAP value we used.
It looked very dark, smelled very coconutty and was quite liquid in the warm air, so it wasn’t easy to tell. I suspected a mix and some of the dark colour to be from charred material.
I had also arranged for plenty of rainwater to be collected and on hand for our arrival.
There is no running water publicly available outside of Dili, and what is collected from broken pipes etc is very hard and minerally. I didn’t fancy that for soapmaking.
There isn’t a single stick blender in all of
Everyone had a couple of heavy duty plastic buckets; two whisks, one large, one small; 2 stainless steel spoons; 2 pyrex jugs; a square plastic tub for a soap mould; apron; goggles; gloves.
They grouped into twos and we pretty much began immediately.
I had an interpreter, so I had to speak in chunks, let him translate, then do the next chunk.
I found that quite difficult!
While I was speaking, my husband was measuring the water, the oils, the lye. I’d been up half the night inventing SAP values for the odd oils!
After a big safety discussion, I let them get into their gear and we began immediately with a plain batch.
I demonstrated the first batch and let them ask questions and then I turned them loose.
ALL the soap worked out perfectly from the very first batches. My SAP value guesses were fine.
I had three days with each group and in the time available, managed to show them how to incorporate lots of different types of ingredients and gave them ideas for sourcing and using indigenous botanicals and volcanic mud.
They brought fresh aloe vera to the workshops and a special type of soft almond, found only in
One of them ground these nuts to a paste….they were full of a divine light oil and I think they might be the next Big Thing in cosmetic resources…and we made soap with it.
Washing up after a session was always a production with people running for buckets of water from here and there.
We had limited light in the classrooms.
It was hot and humid beyond belief.
All the ingredients and finished soap had to be stored in the rat-proof cage.
And of course, everything had to be hand whisked!
It was much, much harder work than our operation at home and we were full of admiration for these young women.
In return, they were so happy to be learning a useful skill and getting the tools to set up their own little businesses.
At the workshops in Dili, we were stationed in a bombed-out large concrete room.
No electricity at all, no windows, and of course, no running water.
Plenty of people gathered to watch the workshop, from outside the room.
I got talking to one young man out there, who turned out to have wonderful English and was studying engineering.
I shanghaied him to design and make log moulds and cutters, because it was apparent by now that the plastic tubs weren’t so good.
He knew someone who would do the woodworking required and was very busy drawing diagrams to my specs within minutes.
It was a stroke of luck meeting him…it saved me weeks of laborious emails back and forth!
And he was thrilled to have some work.
The follow-up I have received in the last year has been very positive.
All of the trainees have been making soap solidly and no one has dropped out.
During the crisis last year, they were making soap through it all and selling it to the Cannossian sisters for their 600 refugees!
They have formed themselves into three groups (Dili, Baucau, Los Palos) and they make soap in a cooperative manner sharing supplies and equipment.
One of our soap forum friends in the USA, very kindly donated custom-made soap stamps, so that the three groups’ soaps could be identified.
They are all very proud of their work and of course, we are delighted with them.
We had planned a trip back to see them in October 06, but travel was discouraged by the Australian government at that time.
One day we will get back there to see them. And check out their soap!
copyright 2007 (c) : Patti Flynn
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