Central Oz

hi springo !!!!

i was only thinking of you earlier this evening and wondering what you were up to.

are the days hot ? what have you been up to ??? have you taken photos ?

chat away dude

you know i said to myself this morning that i wasn't going to get stoned tonight because i got trashy last night and was half an hour late to work this morning as a result. and i think im just as trashed now.

hi springo!

tell us a story. :)

Yeah, tell us a story, springers. Are the stars all bright and twinkly? Is the air all dry and cold? Are the sand dunes high and wrinkly? Are the elders really old?

oh oh oh !

thank you for the post card from coober pedy.

rock on springo - and keep us update lovely!

*updated.

oops drunk n that!

Are the grass trees old and black?

Are the roos all dusty red?

Are you off the beaten track?

Is the dead heart really dead?

Yesterday B. came over and said, "Big Fella's got a snake. Come look."
So we (being me and 7 pre-service teachers (who I thankfully no longer have to share a drafty music room as a bedroom with) and I (followed by a motley assortment of 20 or so kids) trudged through the gritty dirt of the school yard, past the faded plastic swing and slide set, across the road to Big Fella's house. Kids milled in and out of Big Fella's house but no snake was forthcoming.
"How many snakes?" we asked.
"Lot's," the kids replied.
"Alive or dead?"
"Alive," came the answer. One student teacher left trails of dust at her heels as she hotfooted it back to the school ground.
Still no snake and more milling around in the sun. T. idly kicked at the kangaroo paws that littered the red dirt strip out front of Big Fella's place. M. squealed at him to stop. I'd already come across several versions of kangaroo paw, all very much detached from their previous owners so I was quite imune to the sight of these disembodied limbs.
We made our way back into the school ground for more soccer with the kids.
Soon B. reappeared behind us with the snake. A green python as long as my arm span. It's scales felt strangely silky beneath my fingertips.
"Can I hold him please?" I asked.
B. gently placed the snake around my neck. I could feel hard things that seemed to move inside inside it's body as it slithered through my hands. I passed the snake back to B. and then sat down again to watch the kids play soccer.

Cool!

more more more !!!

wow. that's a great story! another story yeah!

Last week B. (from the previous story) knocked on our kitchen door. S and N. were with her. I'm not sure how old B is. I'm guessing maybe 13 or so. S. and N. are sisters of pre-school and primary school age, both with wispy sandy brown hair cropped close to their scalps. They invited us to visit M.'s house for a disco.
Some of us waited at the gate of the school while the others went back to get the key. The school grounds are locked each night to keep out the many various breeds of dog that roam the community. I remember the stars looked particularly beautiful that night as I stood shivering there. The milky way seemed more luminous than ever before.
As we drew closer to the house, as strange and pugent smell wafted towards us. It was the stench of burning kangaroo hair. Big Fella had killed a roo. It lay there on its back, stiff with death in a ridulous pose - prone limbs outstretched towards the night air, all burnt to a state of hairlessness.
B. called out to us, "Come watch us dance." We walked over to them. Hesitant to step inside their yard, we hung back and stopped instead at the low chain link fence. Loud booty music was pumping out of the massive stereo that sat on a table in front of their house. I'm terrible at knowing what's in the top forty but it was that song that goes, "My hump, my hump, my lovely lady lumps." The kids danced away, shaking their loose hips.
We wandered back to the coals that J. was tending in preparation for cooking the roo. The kids asked us to take photos of them and excitedly clamered for our cameras to look at the results. Then once more we headed back to our home in the school.

That's all for tonight. I reckon you might find me back on here tomorrow night. With any luck I might have more adventures to tell.

The net's slow here so my update will be brief. Went searching for bush tucker on Friday and found bush bananas (which bear minimal resemblance to bananas in appearance and taste) and bush lollies (which got stuck in my teeth).
Tomorrow I'm off to King's Canyon. And today I'm gonna hang out with Gusseting in Alice.

Brillaint! I'm loving this thread.

Stay safe, Springy!

great stories springo.

keep em coming.

Ok. It's the first time I've done this so I hope it'll work.

This one is in fond memory of Robbie Watts. I'm gonna miss your guitar playing and your sweet goofiness. I reckon this picture would've made you smile.

It was bigger than a cat, it was smaller than a cow...

poor lil' skippy just went splat ...

There'll be a nice picture of a NT sunset coming in a second to cleanse your visual palate.

In other sad news, I just found out my uncle died last night.

aww, sorry to hear that springo. you doing ok ?

Les, this one is for you. Robbie too. A fiery sunset is a fitting goodbye for you both.

dats bootiful. i love it.

I'm doing ok, popsy. Cheers, hon. Only Saturday night, my dad was telling me that my uncle wanted to see me as soon as I got home. He obviously wanted to say his goodbyes.
I've also had some other difficult news since I've been up here too but I'm doing ok.
But that's enough about me...I'll see if I can tell you guys some more stories.

There's 77km of corrugated road between here and the last solid section of asphalt. Three quarters of the way back, the driver of the 22-seater that we were on started swerving into the red dirt at the verge of the road. Sure there was an oncoming vehicle, but we didn't really need to get that far off the road. Then the smell of burning rubber came filtering in. We'd blown a tyre.
We had a collection of 5 guys on the bus, and 7 women. The guys instantly decided to take charge and searched under luggage for jacks and what-not. A couple of the guys headed to the back to the vehicle to let the wheel down. We sat back to watch them crawl under the vehicle and fossick around the dash in search for a magical button that would do the deed. After a while Yvette quietly stepped up to the rear of the bus, bent her eye to a small hole there, picked up a thin pole, inserted it in the hole and turned. The wheel slid to the ground.
Then came the task of undoing the lug-nuts. The first lugnut-undoer brace thing (I really need to whip my mechanical vocab into shape) bent in two and snapped. The second used was the correct pole but still bent alarmingly as the guys jumped on it to gain some leverage in an attempt to undo the nuts. Lug nut after lug nut was tried but did not budge.
Llana yelled out. "Are you turning it the right way?" The guys rolled their eyes, "Of course we are," they said and went back to their task.
Soon a four-wheel drive laden down with all manner of bush gear strapped down and crammed in, pulled over. A thin, bald man with leathery skin and wrinkly knees, strolled over to look at the situation. "Look at the thread", he shouted in a thick Germanic accent. "You are turning it the wrong way! I don't want to fight you. Look at the thread." He then threw his arms up in the air and with a look of disgust he returned to his vehicle and sped off in a cloud of red dust.
And sure enough, he was right...

And this is what some of us did while waiting:

spring, what town you at?

are you a teacher?
my family spent two years in a remote community in central WA and those photos could have been mine!

We lived in Wiluna, and by far the kids were the best thing i remember about it.
Wiluna is 200kms from its nearest town Meekathara and 1000 kms from perth.

Some of the coolst thngs i remember was having rotating dinners for the school where large groups of (semi organised) kids would go round to a bunch of different houses (ours, the principles, Aunty Bev one of the teachers aids) and eat food at each of them, at ours we had banana milkshakes and mum was in the kitchen making them with the kids, who forgot to put the lid on the blender and we had banana milkshake all over the roof. the kids were dancing to midnight oil, they were going nuts, flipping around and moonwalking like micheal jackson.

Another great thing i remember was going on camp with the highschool kids, we went up to ningaloo reef, many of them had never seen the ocean, and the black kids on white sand and crystal clear blue water was one of those stunning images that even though i was 14 i'll never forget.

one of the sadest was a little girl coming to school to tell mum (her teacher) that her daddy had hung mummy on the clothesline, sure enough we heard that the father had killed the mother.
the neglect was sad, the kindy kids getting themselves to school because their parents had drunk all their pension money and were passed out on the road, was sad, but amazing too.

Hi Kristy, I'm actually a Kristy too. That's cool that you lived in a remote community. Did you love it? I'm finding being here is such an amazing thing. I'm gonna miss the kids out here so much when I leave.
I did say where I was in on the old M+N, but I'm hesistant to state it again just in case this page shows up in a net search on the community. I'll be freer to speak more openly about the things I see if I don't identify it.
The community I'm in is 215km outside Alice Springs. I'm in the Tropic of Capricorn and I get a kick everytime we drive past the marker.
I'm not a teacher but I work for a university and I'm supervising pre-service teachers and youth work students.

thats cool!
how long have you been up there?

we stayed for two years, at that time teachers needed to work in a remote community to get their permanency, so mum and dad thought it would be a good experience for my brother and me to go and live there as a family.

when i first got there i saw the house and refused to get out of the car. so it wasnt love at first sight, but there were many elements i enjoyed. like the kids, the school was lovely, it had a pool, a dog addopted us, Marley who was by far the RADDEST bush dog ever!
there was lots and lots of stuff i loved, but i was happy to leave. many of the girls and boys i went to class with were forced to leave because they got pregnant or were marked by "the law" and its tribal rules stated that they were no longer kids therefore could not attend school.
that stuff was really sad.

Hey thanks for sharing those stories.

This community is a dry community but there are still a lot of kids being raised by distant relatives who don't do much for them other than a very bare minimum. One boy M. is 9 and is the size of a 5 year old because he's malnourished. He's also illiterate and will probably remain that way because there aren't the resources to give him the intensive help he needs. Hopefully his younger sister will be a little better off. She's been attending the pre-school and although she's only 5 her literacy and numeracy skills are miles past her brother. It's frustrating and upsetting that I can't really do all that much for any of the kids here other than to hang out with them and pay them some attention.

yeah that is hard.
our community wasnt dry, petrol sniffing wasnt a big problem, just the drinking.

it is sad knowing you cant do much for them, i know my mum used to get really upset about it, she taught the year 1 to 4 class.
Do the kids at your school get breakfast and lunch at school? the ones in wiluna did, often that was the only food they ate.
while mum read them a story they would sit at her feet and press the flesh, watching it go from white back to pink, their skin dosent do that.

ive gotta go to bed now, but ive bookmarked this thread!
take care!

I've only been here a couple of weeks and will leave again on July 12.
Yeah, I really feel for the people who are trying to live under both tribal laws and western culture. It's a no win sitution. I don't know whether sorry business applies to all communities, but I've recently found out that if a close relative of a family dies then to carry out sorry business in the traditional way they have to give up all their possessions, including their home, and their clothes and leave the community. So obviously then this further perpetuates a cycle of poverty.

I should really go too. One of the cutest thing that the kids have been doing is touching the hair of one of the pre-service teachers. She's a torres strait islander and has a tight afro. The kids had never seen anything like it in person before. She's usually got 3 or 4 little hands in her hair at any one time. The keep giggling at her whenever they see her. They would absolutely adore anonymous if he was out here.

it was the same for the people in Wiluna (Mardoo, not sure if the spelling was right)
if someone died they couldnt even say his name, if some kid at the school had the same name everyone had to call him "goomana boy".

the government built a beautiful community just outside of wiluna a few years before i got there, it had houses, a community pool, basketball courts, new washing machines in every house, the works. Someone prominent in the community died there early on, so everyone moved away. it was like a ghost town. trashed and empty.

HA!
they loved me cause i was blonde!

goodnight!

Not sure about the spelling but it's kumanjai here. One of the teachers here got me upset because one of the youth work students is kumanjai. The kids were doing their "Goodmorning teacher" thing. Some of the kids called the guy by his name and then one kid called him kumanjai. The teacher looked at that kid harshly and said, "That's not his name. How long are you going to keep calling him that? You might want to think about that." I nearly fell off my chair.

Night Kristy!

Tonight we had a disco for the kids. Imagine tight clumps of kids all doing crazy booty dancing. They've all got the most elastic hips I've ever seen. Even the two-year olds were dancing. They'd shyly stand up and dart up to the group of dancers, shake their little bums, then run back to hide their faces in their mother's skirts, before doing it all over again.
I'm still loving it here but I'm about ready to come home again. I've had almost enough of dry painful hands, lack of facilities to wash my clothes, and university students. If I could fix those three things I could almost stay out here for good...Almost...

Kings Canyon:

You sure that's not Laverne's Snatch

you ok, springo? when you back? robbie's service is next tuesday

Hi Rach, I'm doing ok. Just spent the last hour on the back of a camel called Odin. I'm back on July 15. How is everyone?

It's around 24 degrees right now but it feels hotter. The flies are swarming, even inside. I've almost stopped bothering to swat them away. And something smells like it's gone rancid...I'm not sure what or where it is. I can hear kids calling out and squealing and a rooster that sounds like it's throwing a fit.
Earlier, L. gave me a necklace made from red, orange and yellow seeds and gumnuts with lines and crosses burnt onto them. In 3 days I will leave these ultra clear blue skies to head off on the long bus journey back to Melbourne (via Coober Pedy). L. has asked me to take him back with me in my bag.
Gotta dash now. Kids have been asking me to help them with their knitting. And if I'm lucky I might get to see S.'s dingo pups later.

See you soon.

Sounds like an amazing experience. Stunning pictures! Stay well x

Eek! I'm back and I have culture shock. All the traffic is making me uneasy and Brunswick St is really doing my head in. Call me crazy but I'm missing being surrounded by kids too.