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I am stoked on Hate!. Not only has he become the security guard against shit posting he also just donated some skate products to kids that will never be able to afford a skateboard. PM me if you want to be as rad as Hate! and send stuff. OK, so this entire post is a shameless plug but it is for a good cause. I need shit tons of trucks. Trucks people. Mail me your old trucks. They are sitting in your damn closet right now. Don't you feel guilty not helping these kids?
Edit: And I always throw this out - if you can pay your way, let me know if you want to go there. It will be the experience of a lifetime, I can promise that.
How much did it cost to get there?� Is that all you cover?� How long do you go for?
The organization that hosts you prefers to have people there for at least three months but since skaters are hard to come by (I am the only one who went) they would love to have you there any amount of time. I was there for a month and it went by really fast. I wish I was there for much longer.
As far as how much it will cost, that is sort of the issue. It is pretty remote. You can get a ticket for between $1000-$3000 depending on where you fly through and how early in advance you pay. It is more about where you fly through though.
Once you get there you will have to pay for stuff but food is damn cheap and lodging can be really cheap. I stayed in the house of the person who ran the organization (she is American) and paid $300 for the month and that was a western style condo. You can stay in a decent hotel for about the same price. You could also choose to live with a Timorese family and it could be free or up to $100 tops. I probably should have done this the whole time though I did stay with people for maybe a week and a half total out of the month I was there. On the weekends I would usually go to some rural area with one of the Timorese people from the organization. The situations can vary but I will say it is very far from the Western amenities we are used to. Staying in the rural areas or at friends houses are some of my best memories.
I will say that I promise you will have the time of your life. There is a pretty good chance you will get to meet the president and Nobel Laureate Jose Ramos Horta (that is the dude in my avatar). The women that runs the organization tries to make that happen for anyone that volunteers. He is one of the few world leaders I have any respect for (and I had this respect before I met him - it was a country I studied a lot). If you do meet him you will probably also meet some other really interesting people (I got to hang out with the son of the environmental minister of the Philippines, a German director, an Oxford PhD, the crew of the largest Australian fishing magazine and 2 Australian playboy models. It was pretty rad [Beyond the models, the director and PhD were hot too. Mandible, you should go and slay dragons. I will just throw it out there that if you are single - as I was not when I was there - there are definitely opportunities. I met tons of international girls at bars, parties, etc. Every time I told girls I was there teaching skateboarding, they would swoon!]). The country is a picturesque tropical paradise, you can visit a even smaller and really rad island on the weekend, there is actually stuff to do there at night, there are some street spots (some decent ones, no joke), you will get to meet people from all over the world, the locals will be super gracious and invite you to their houses or home villages (as I mentioned) and all in all I can promise it is an experience of a lifetime. Teaching the kids to skate everyday and just seeing how stoked they were was life-changing for me. It is well worth your time and money, seriously.