The morning market in Ebano, a hill village 30km south-west of Dili, East Timor’s capital, provides a neat snapshot of life in the former Portuguese colony a decade to the week after it voted overwhelmingly for independence from Indonesia following 24 years of brutal occupation.

Stalls are simply tarpaulins spread out on parched ground either side of the potholed dirt road that snakes through the village; the only shelter most vendors have from the searing tropical sun is a makeshift tower of cardboard boxes erected to provide some shade.