Road trip to Baucau with Kirsty Sword Gusmao and Max Stahl

Travelling around East Timor with Kirsty Sword Gusmao and Max Stahl makes you feel like you’re hanging out with royalty.  Kirsty is instantly recognised by everyone, but her attention is rivalled when people realise the man in the jeans and cap is Max Stahl, the journalist who filmed the Santa Cruz graveyard massacre, hid the tape in a hole next to a gravestone and after  being interrogated by the Indonesians, went back in the dead of night to retrieve it and with the film maker Peter Gordon and Kirsty, distributed it around the world.

Max and Peter  accompanied Kirsty and her and Xanana’s 3 boys to Maucale school where Spend it Well is constructing a new school building.  They filmed a ceremony at the school and in various settings around Baucau, retracing the steps they all trod in the 1990s when they were clandestinely working  to obtain independence for East Timor.

There was a wonderful ceremony at the school and it was fabulous to see the new building coming along so well.