Wild Yoga Tribe Podcast Episode #52 – Yoga Connections  – Yoga in East Timor with Alberto Dos Reis Mendonça

Welcome to Episode #52 of the Wild Yoga Tribe Podcast! My conversation with Alberto, a yoga teacher from East Timor, was really interesting as he really walked us through what his country is like to live in— with no sugar coating— and what yoga is like there as it has been present on the island for less than a decade. I hope that this conversation made you want to learn more about East Timor, and also to consider how yoga in spaces and places, like in prisoners, cooperate offices, and with special Olympic athletes, can be a gift to the whole community. If you’re looking to tune into a podcast episode that is about East Timor A to Z, then this is the conversation for you.

Tell me more about Alberto Dos Reis Mendonça

Alberto Dos Reis Mendonça was introduced to yoga in his late twenties, in 2018, through an introduction yoga class for Juventude ba Dezenvolvimentu Nasional (JVN) where he was volunteering. Progressing in his practice quickly, he started to teach his fellow students and share it also with some of his family members. Three months after his journey with yoga started he began a yoga teacher training and internship with Dili Ashtanga Yoga. Alberto also teaches yoga at hotels, public places, many different organizations, government offices, and community classes. He also teaches yoga for the special Olympics and with the people who are in prison. Alberto teaches Ashtanga Yoga, Hatha yoga, and Vinyasa yoga. He completed his yoga teacher training certification program under Ahimsaka who is the founder of Dili Ashtanga Yoga, and he still works there today.

What to expect in the Yoga In East Timor episode of the Wild Yoga Tribe Podcast

After a big accident where he almost broke his knee, a doctor recommended doing stretches to strengthen his body, Alberto came to yoga. He was fortunate enough to have moved to Dili, the capital of East Timor, and to have been able to do an internship with Ahimsaka, the founder of Dili Yoga. 

During our conversation, Alberto walked us through what yoga means to him, and how yoga is growing in his community. As yoga has only been on the island itself for five, six, or seven years according to his estimate— yoga is absolutely still growing there. Alberto teaches yoga in a lot of different places and spaces, like in prisoners, in corporate offices, and with the athletes in the special Olympics. Alberto is enjoying very much, sharing the gifts that yoga can give with his community.

I was also deeply appreciative that Alberto took the time to really give us an inside look into what it is like to live in East Timor. He didn’t sugar-coat anything, and talked about the hardships his country faces. He also spoke about the beauty of East Timor, especially the marine life and the phenomenal coral reefs. 

If you want to learn about yoga in East Timor and what East Timor is like as a country, then make sure to tune into the full podcast episode!

Favorite Quote From Alberto Dos Reis Mendonça

“Yoga it’s about connection with your own mind and body and bring peace to yourself and to the world. We feel a lot better. We feel more connected. We feel, with the nature, with the people, with  anything- we feel better inside, then we also connect better with people.”

Connect with Alberto Dos Reis Mendonça 

https://diliashtangayoga.wordpress.com/

https://www.facebook.com/yogatimorleste/

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https://www.patreon.com/wildyogatribe

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https://wildyogatribe.com/thepodcast/

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Wild Yoga Tribe Podcast Episode #53 TRANSCRIPT – Yoga in East Timor

[00:00:00] Lily Allen-Duenas: Welcome back to the Wild Yoga Tribe podcast. Today I’m joined by Alberto. Alberto is a yoga teacher from East Timor, and I’m so excited to hear more about him and his story. He first was introduced to yoga in his twenties and in 2018, he began learning yoga and his practice quickly progressed. And he started teaching with his fellow students and family members. He began his yoga teacher training course in internship with Dili Ashtanga yoga in East Timor; and that’s where he teaches now. So welcome to the show alberto, I’m happy to have you. 

[00:00:37] Alberto Dos Reis Mendonça: I’m also so happy to be able to join in this interview 

[00:00:41] Lily Allen-Duenas: Amazing. So excited to hear more. So to start off, Alberto, how did yoga first come into your life? How did you even hear about yoga? I would love to start at the beginning.

How did yoga come into your life?

[00:00:52] Alberto Dos Reis Mendonça: I moved from Mani , a rural village of about 300 people in the mountain of Timor Leste to Dili in 2012 to study at the university. Then with two Australian volunteers with their assistance, we formed a youth organization. So this organization, we call Juventude ba Dezenvolvimentu Nasional. So organization, we create jobs for ourselves and all also create jobs for other young people who come to deal for study. So this study, this work, a work, time work part-time or full-time I was working there in that organization for four.

[00:01:41] I started yoga in September, 2018. When I joined yoga, because of one region that I joined it. So at that time, 2018, I had an accident and I almost broke my knee. When I was there in Australia,  I saw a doctor. She said, Alberto, you don’t have any strength at all.

[00:02:06] You need strength. She suggested some of the exercises that I need to do to strengthen my knee. Then when I came back to Timor is Timor, to Timor last, and then I tried it. Because I was by myself,, I didn’t take to it successfully.  Then one day, the two ladies in JN in Jane and Bernie as our advisor of the organization.

[00:02:32] So they introduced us, as a team in that organization,  to a yoga teacher. From Dili Ashtanga yoga. Dili Ashtanga Yoga is the only yoga studio in Dili, Timor Leste. Then they said he’s here in Timor Leste looking for young people to be trained as a yoga teacher. At that time, I didn’t know what yoga was.

[00:02:58] It’s my first time moving into Dili. I don’t know much about it because I’m from a rural area. So then in that time, it was about 18 of us from Juventude ba Dezenvolvimentu Nasional. We came to see him for the first time, we practiced and then, after practicing for three months.

[00:03:18] With Ahimsaka, he is the founder of Dili yoga, I started a yoga internship with him. Then after three months I started to do my first class. Since then I have been following yoga classes and teaching yoga.

[00:03:36] Lily Allen-Duenas: Wonderful. Thank you so much for telling us about how yoga first came into your life. And I think it’s amazing that a doctor recommended to you, okay, do some stretches. This will help improve your body. And then when you came back home Timor Leste and we’re here in the US, I know we call it East Timor. When you came back home, then yoga just came into your life and that you were able to join with the founder of Dili Yoga, Ahimsaka, and I want to also ask you, how do you feel like yoga has changed your life? 

How has yoga changed your life?

[00:04:10] Alberto Dos Reis Mendonça:  The first one strength to have more focus, more concentration. I have my energy, my full energy. And also it can help increase my body flexibility and then the most important one is, my body awareness is increased. I’ll be able to feel more my body and connect more with my body and then, understand more about my body.

[00:04:31] Lily Allen-Duenas: Yes. Absolutely. Yoga is an amazing tool for understanding, whether it is the body or the mind or the world or others. I think there’s so much yoga teaches. So Alberto, what is your definition of yoga?

What is your definition of yoga?

[00:04:45] Alberto Dos Reis Mendonça: From my personal perspective and experience about yoga, I would say yoga is like a tool for making my body and my mind calm and active at the same time. Yoga brings awareness to my own self and to the things around me. 

[00:05:04] Lily Allen-Duenas: That makes complete sense. So do you have a very powerful lesson that you’ve learned from yoga or a gift that you wanna speak about that yoga has given you. 

What is a gift that yoga has given you?

[00:05:16] Alberto Dos Reis Mendonça: Yes. Yoga it’s about connecting with your own mind and body and bringing peace to yourself and to the world. We feel a lot better. We feel more connected. We feel, with nature, with the people, with anything- we feel better inside, then we also connect better with people. 

[00:05:34] Lily Allen-Duenas: Yes. Yes we do. And in terms of when you did your yoga teacher training, what was that like? Uh, I would love to hear more about your experience doing your yoga teacher training at Dili yoga with Ahimsaka?

What was your yoga teacher training like?

[00:05:50] Alberto Dos Reis Mendonça: My training was  in a yoga internship. That is still continuing basically. I had a couple of months intensive together with a Belgium student. We learned about anatomy, philosophy, adjusting methodology and practices, and various styles. Dili Ashtanga yoga studio is inspired on Ashtanga Vinyasa yoga, but also has Hatha yoga yin yoga. Iyengar yoga. Yoga. Now I am teaching public classes, private classes and corporate classes. Then also, I am  involved in training youth to become teachers. And I also have classes with special Olympics for people with down syndrome. For a while I did some classes at prisoners, especially with the young people. 

[00:06:44] Lily Allen-Duenas: Wow. I didn’t know that you teach yoga to such a wide range of people, not just corporate yoga classes, but also yoga for the special Olympics and yoga for prisoners. Are there any amazing stories you wanna share about teaching yoga, and why you like to teach? 

Do you have any amazing yoga teacher training stories to share?

[00:07:02] Alberto Dos Reis Mendonça: Yeah, basically connecting back to my own story. and then what I felt afterwards. So I would say that, it is promoting a healthy life and basically starting from myself and to the other young people. And then, one particular reason is why I am also investing my time in teaching.I like to be like a teacher of yoga is because, as I am a Baháʼí. Teaching yoga is giving me a lot of freedom to be able to organize and then to be able to follow and contribute to high activities. Plus many principles, many Baháʼí principles also coincide with the yoga philosophy said that is, it’s really attracting me. One more things about, learning more about science of yoga, basically in our country that is newly independent. 

[00:07:51] Lily Allen-Duenas: Absolutely Do you think there’s something that people get wrong about yoga, too? 

What is something people get wrong about yoga?

[00:07:57] Alberto Dos Reis Mendonça: Yes. In our country. People will think that yoga is a religion. Some people think that when you practice yoga, you need to become a Buddhist. Some other people think that yoga can awaken your inner power or superpower or, in other words, they call it Al and which is more related to Martial arts. It’s been a lot helpful that I learned in my faith, in the Bahai faith about unity of religion and then how I understand that all the religions of the world; are coming from one source. So then it really helped me that, even though some people tried to say that, if you practice yoga is about like a Hindu religion and this, and many things influence this, I, I just don’t care. Because in my mind, my understanding is very clear that I need to appreciate that we have the oneness of religion. Then, with that appreciation, it doesn’t affect me at all, thinking about it to the people about all this is like a practice of Hinduism and all this. And then, as I know, I said, yoga is one tool that can teach us about our mind and body being healthy.

[00:09:03] Lily Allen-Duenas: Yeah, absolutely. You’re so right. And that’s so interesting that in timor Leste last uh, so many people just think, oh, if you do yoga, you’ll all of a sudden become a Buddhist. All of a sudden I become Hindu. So that’s very interesting. , I would love to know, in Timor Leste and in Dili, is yoga popular and are a lot of people starting to practice it?

Is yoga popular in East Timor?

[00:09:23] Alberto Dos Reis Mendonça: Actually, I would say that, so basically when we started, because Dili Yoga is the only yoga studio. No, basically we have to start from zero. So people we are, we need to teach and then people need to like, get the knowledge of yoga and then benefits. Many classes have been provided, like different places, different organizations, and then, like public classes and some classes, especially for the Timorese, he said, it just comes, they come for free and then people understand more and more. But Timor like I said, it’s a new concept.

[00:09:55] And then it’s also a new exercise. Those people that actually have been abroad, maybe they started there or they work, they come back, they know they will join yoga and then they know about yoga and then they’ll tap this, but those ones that they are here and it’s new. So they are learning, they are assisting one another.

[00:10:12] So the yoga is still, something that is I would say. Already five years now, six or seven years now, but it’s still like a new, very new to a lot of people. Some people, what yoga is?

[00:10:26] Lily Allen-Duenas: Gotcha. Okay. And for those of our listeners who are not very familiar with Timor Leste or with East Timor,, could you tell them more about your country? 

What is East Timor Like?

[00:10:36] Alberto Dos Reis Mendonça: Yeah. In East Timor, I already like briefly described that, people have no knowledge about yoga and other health. So on school, we did sport games. And now at the moment that in our in Timor, we have a few yoga teachers. It is still hard for people to come to yoga, because of like some reasons, maybe money transportation, they have a big family, or still little knowledge about the importance of health.

[00:11:07] So then, I’m thinking about the future of yoga. Through the effort that we are promoting yoga and teaching yoga for the future, more people will practice yoga and then yoga will be also established in other municipalities in Timor Leste there.

[00:11:22] So hopefully in the future we can create a little bit of yoga tourism in Timor so I would say, the lockdown for the pandemic in Timor Leste, we started doing yoga retreats, to stimulate sustainable tourism and to benefit local communities. 

[00:11:38] And then at this time we also provide free classes to the community, to people. To know more about yoga. And then we also work with a high education. So they are training teachers for English and then other programs that they have for people. So we also, we work with them and then we teach them, their teachers, and then they also go back and they teach their students at the district.

[00:12:02] So more people now in the districts are engaging in yoga. So now about Timor East, or Timore Lest e is a country that is very close to Australia. And in fact, after Papa New Gineau Australia is our nearest neighbor and Timor is in fact half an island. The other half of the island is West Timor, which is part of Indonesia.

[00:12:34] And it only takes one and a half hours or about two hours to fly from Bali Indonesia to Timor Leste. Timor Leste has many small areas, which we call municipalities. The main language spoken is Tetum, but there are also many languages about 18.

[00:12:58] People also speak Bahasa, Indonesia, Indonesian language because of the Indonesian invasion and many people. Also speak Portuguese because Tim molester was once a colony of Portugal and Portuguese is a language used for teaching at universities and also the language used for written laws and government policies.

[00:13:23] So this is because our local language Tetum is a speaking language, not a written language. So it is still a developing language. So we still borrow many words from Portuguese or other, maybe one or two from Indonesia or English too. So it is a growing language. So Timor Leste became an independent country in 2002 after a long and terrible war with Indonesian, which began in 1975.

[00:13:53] So I would say one third of the population was either killed or displaced during our fight for independance, the reality of Timor Leste is that children and young people are by far the biggest part of the population of the country. In Timor Leste some families are very large and young people are very active in community life.

[00:14:19] Then there are many challenges still facing our country. So Timor Leste has one of the highest rates of deaths and illness in babies and small children. And this is mainly due to the lack of good nutrition. As well as access to water and adequate sanitation. It is say that, 46% of the schools in Timor Leste do not have water and 38% have water every day.

[00:14:47] Some schools have water one or two, one or two days a week. Now I’m telling more about the beauty of Timor Leste. Timor Leste is a country of natural beauty. Timor Leste is surrounded by water. We have some of the most unique coral life in the world. Timor Leste has one of the most unique habitats for clown fish in the world.

[00:15:13] Every year, more than 2000 whales. As well as large sharks, dolphins, turtles pass by Timor Leste. Our country is increasingly becoming a center of eco tourism and diving. We have the most beautiful sunset of the sunrise. Also one thing is that, in our country most people are farmers. So they, the whole, their lives for supporting their family or their school, the children, or anything, is they, depending on what they like they have they have thankful for eat. Then little for selling so many different crops are grown rice maze, casava coffee and coconut and other crops such as vegetables, fruits, pineapples, passion fruit, papaya, mango, and coffee. In the rural areas, people usually walk to the market and then they use horses to carry their products to sell in the market. The biggest income source is oil and gas.

[00:16:22] And then coffee is the only food export and is the third largest source of income for Timor Leste, coffee is being sold in Starbucks. So I would say, you know that in our country, many people now face mal- nutrition, domestic violence, and then unemployment, lack of opportunity and bad and lack of infrastructure, poverty, lack of proper education and lack of economy, self-dependent. I would say that now our country of Timor is working with many aid organizations, like the UN to be able to together, we develop the country of Timor. So that is actually a little bit, like the brief about our country. 

[00:17:17] Lily Allen-Duenas: Thank you so much for sharing so much about your country and if anybody is curious about learning more about you or about getting in touch, Alberto, is there a good website or Facebook or anything they can go to?

How can people learn more about you?

[00:17:31] Alberto Dos Reis Mendonça: You can go to our Facebook page Dili Ashtanga yoga. And then you’ll be able to reach out to us.

[00:17:40] Lily Allen-Duenas: And is there anything else you’d like to share with our listeners? Is there anything else you would like to explain or talk about or any questions I didn’t ask that you’d like to talk about?

Anything else to share?

[00:17:52] Alberto Dos Reis Mendonça: So thank you for the opportunity,  I am excited. I’m happy to be able to share my story of a little bit about my journey, how I get started of yoga in Timor, trying to also assist in other people to be able to, benefit from the practice of yoga, helping the healthy life or healthy body healthy mind, or also contributing to the world one of the way that contributed the world too. I would say no, if you ever heard about yoga or you know about yoga, you don’t know, you can try to explore and you try to like practice or try to feel for some time.

[00:18:30] Then you see how magic yoga can give into your mind and body and your feelings in general, and then your connection, your thinking or yeah. Anything related to your life, yoga is a science that can really help you identify or be more connected with your body or with nature basically. Yeah. So thank you again. 

[00:18:56] Lily Allen-Duenas: Thank you so much, Alberto, for being a guest on the podcast and for sharing your experience and wisdom with us, it’s been a joy to be with you. 

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