Farmer Maria Loretha is very fond of her home in Adonara Island, East
Flores.
It was not always like that when she came in 1999 to live with her husband,
Jeremias Letor, a native of the island in East Nusa Tenggara. After spending
time as college sweethearts in Malang-based Merdeka University, she learned
love the hard way.
Being raised in the cities of Java, the Dayak native had to learn to live
without electricity and limited food choices. Fish and land are abundant on the
island, but she could not cultivate them with her law degree. To be a civil
servant was impossible with the local government plagued by nepotism.
She adapted well by being a housewife and a mother until she felt the need
to help her husband, who had inherited six hectares, to cultivate the land to
make ends meet in 2005. She started to plant corn and foxtail millet alongside
her husband’s coconut and cashew trees.
“This is what we have. I believe that God will provide and He doesn’t close
his eyes,” she said.
