Picnic day and Fire Hygeine

Last weekend was a long weekend here in NT because it was picnic day. Keith and I actually did pack a picnic and head off on a great walk. Because of the rain there are lots of wild flowers out at the moment and we just walked through these amazing hills full of colour and had a picnic at the top of one of them, looking out over a huge pound enclosed by orange mountains. It was blowing a  gale but we still enjoyed our lunch. When we got near the end of the walk we had to completely strip off and swim a few metres to get to where we needed to go. There was still so much water in the river runing through the gorge we couldn’t get out any other way. It was pretty nippy and a challenge for Keith to keep our pack dry… but we managed. I was more worried about someone seeing us as there were a couple of other picnickers around making the most of picnic day. Fortunately, by the time we were stripping off, most of them had headed off home so our modesty was preserved.

We had a good lunch the day before as well. I had gone to church and brought a couple of my favourite people back to sit around with us for a bit and eat and chat. We sat around the fire with Margie, MK and our neighbour, Mallie, 3 wonderful strong aborginal woman. I’ve had a bit of a cold and a couple of times threw my tissues on the fire. I wasn’t doing it while our kangaroo and camel and date sausages were actually cooking. Nevertheless, MK decided she should gently inform me about fire hygeine, which she said us white fellas were pretty bad at. She said when we are sitting around a fire and cooking on it and being kept warm by it, we shouldn’t be throwing our rubbish on it, and especially not snot. She told me the Arrerente word for snot but (as usual) I can’t remember. She said we wouldn’t do that on a stove in our kitchens. SHe had no qualms about us leaving our rubbish in a pile “over there,” but we shouldn’t put it in the smoke we are all breathing in. I have learned that for aboriginal people, smoke is a healing thing. Any way, I will never put my snot on the fire again.

A sacred moment

When you work as a counsellor you have the amazing privelege of being invited into the very personal spaces of people’s lives. Yesterday I had one  of those particulary special and deeply moving moments. I have been seeing an aboriginal woman and her teenage daughter for a couple of weeks. They were seperated by the daughter’s abusive father for many years and in  that time he physically, emotionally and sexually abused the girl and was violent to her brothers. The whole time the mother was seperated from her children she was grieving and she turned to music to process and express her pain and is now a recognised performer. One of the first songs she wrote was for her daughter she had been seperated from. Any way, in my office yesterday she read the statement her daughter made to the police about  what her father had done to her. She wept and spoke of how proud she was of her daughter for speaking up and how sorry she was she had not been able to protect her. She then started singing this song she wrote for her daughter many years before when they were apart. She had a beautiful voice, made more so by her emotion. Her daughter had not heard the song before. Afterwards they hugged each other. I did nothing more that quietly weep the whole time. It was such a sacred moment to have witnessed.

desert peoples centre opening Part 2

well where were we. the whole thing was broken up into two sections. the first section was an aboriginal ceremony where all of the language groups from central australia came together to dance and celebrate, but also for the traditional owners of the land to welcome others to it. not in a tokenistic way but ‘proper way’ to say this is a place where all aboriginal people are welcome and can feel safe. there is alot of politics around land with aboriginal people and effectively handing over land isnt done lightly, (eg the governmnets attempts to get aboriginal people to sign forty year leases to allow them to build housing there. many have not gone along with the proposition as it means they lose management control of the land. so for them to do this was very special. watching these traditional aboriginal people dancing was deeply moving. they were so excited to perform albeit with fairly poor aerobic capacity but it was a real occassion of white meeting black on their terms and teaching us.

the whole cultural ceremony was designed and developed by aboriginal people. that was both enlivening but also nerve racking for me who was supposed to be delivering this thing. after the dancing the ceremony moved into the caterpillar walk. this walk is an important aboriginal ceremony to smoke and cleanse the buildings for use. i was very nervous about the white black interaction and would the white fellas wig out saying this is a waste of time. how do you get 600 -700 people to walk in a queue around buildings for half an hour. i asked a close collegue whose been here awhile. do you think this is going to work? she said dont worry it will work. ok lets give it a go.

well to be a part of 600-700 people walking together black and white around the buildings was just one of the most amazing experiences. people were crying laughing chatting praying. my chairman an aboriginal man said he cried as it reminded him of the bridge walk in sydney where we all walked together. it was a truly aboriginal opening true to their culture and absolutely rivetting in every way.

we then stopped for morning tea and grab a breather as we were only two hours in so far. well i’ve never seen 500 muffins go so quickly. in fact so quickly i didnt even see them at all as i was towards the end of the 500 metre caterpillar. anyway i guess the menu seemed to be a hit.

next we’ve got to get everyone seated as julia gillard is coming to open the thing from a government perspective. so here i am pacing up and down waiting for her. Her minders are there saying she is doing an interview at the abc. I look across at 600-700 people now seated and waiting for lady julia. we have a group of aboriginal students playing the drums then we have some ntaria women singing their two songs a few times, then the drummers again. 25 minutes seem to elapse until i look at my watch which strangely says 2 minutes have elapsed. this 2minutes vs 25 minutes thing happens another 6 times which makes her over two hours late, although the technology is suggesting it to be no more than 13 minutes.

anyway the minders eventually tell me that lady julia is coming in the front gate and sure enough as good as her word this person who looks awfully like julia gillard hops out of the car. whether she is or not she’ll do the trick for this crowd. at this point the drum leader has a spontaneous moment and asks the crowd if they should drum her in. the crowd bays yessss. he takes his troupe the 30 metres to where lady julia is shaking hands and tells her to follow him. 9she shook mine but i dont think she noticed a person on the end of the hand. the drums sound great she is actually overwhelmed (i think) and eventually they traverse the sacred 30 metres.

from there we get a few speeches, some ineloquent but deeply emotional others clear and informative and lady julia’s is a remarkable performance of pasionate speaking with no notes picking through all the things that have been said and turning it all into a fantastic affirmation and brilliant amalgamation. she really is lady julia. will she ever be queen julia? well rest assured she was asked by the media because she hasnt been asked that question in alice springs before (except for the interview at the abc which made her late). people think we are a backwater but not true, the alice springs press know what the issues of the day are.

after this she gets down to unveal a plaque that i had personally located in the ground only hours before. thankfully no one leant against it as it was only a temporary thing, like so many things i do. after that there is this amazing time where she just hangs around and all of these aboriginal people are queing up for a photo with her. she’s loving it, they are loving it, everyone loves it and loves her. yes she really is lady julia. well she is today in alice springs anyway.

this was an amazing day with just so many experiences and now so much relief that everyone has gone back home and lady julia is back fighting bad people wherever she finds them, and alice springs can revert to just dreaming about asking questions of her personally about becoming queen.

a another little blessing from heaven was the the black cockatoo fly past. we have called the cafe at the desert peoples centre the irrarnte cafe which means black cockatoo in Arrernte.(the day we all moved in there was a massive flock of black cockatoos behind the buildings. During the ceremony a lone black cockatoo flew directly above us to bless the place. i have seen many of them here but i havent seen one for six months until last friday.

desert peoples centre open for business part 1

friday was one of the biggest days of my life. twas the day the place i work for got official. we had aboriginal people from 7 language groups which is pretty much all of the countries in central australia. we had 700 people come along and we had good ole julia gillard put aside the good work being done on ETS’s for awhile to give us a right royal (maybe right republican) blessing. we tried to get an events manager person to do it all but cause no one turned up i was left stranded with the job. i’ve grown older and slower over the last 6 weeks but now on the other side a bit happy about it all.
we want this place to be loved by aboriginal people and so we tried really hrad to get them all to come and dance. we alos got this amazing lady marie ellis to work with all of teh various langauge groups to involve them. Its possibly the first time they have all got together like this for many many years. that was poissibly teh most exciting this of the whole process. getting aboroginal people engaged is not straight forward but getting 7 language groups engaged seemed like mt everest. but the black fellas delivered.

do you like the sunglasses. nice touch i thought.

these were some spiritual men from the pitjantjatjara tribe. they wre just so happy to be there.

after the dancing we did this smoking ceremony around all of the buildings. which involved 700 people following aboriginal people in their ceremony. now white fellas dont follow black fellas that often up here (or anywhere for that matter) but they had us in the palm of their smoking bowl. teh column went for about 500 metres as we walked around 18 buildings.

the woman to the right of teh smoking bowl is MK Turner who is one of the senior Aboriginal women in the Arrenrte language group who are teh traditional owners for Alice springs. what they were doing was handing over this traditional land to all aboriginal people to use as a neutral space to dialogue together or debate and argue together in a safe space. it was just amazing.

I am going to leave the story here and gather some more stuff for tomorrow

Easter East of Alice

Well, we did the typical ALice thing  and packed up the 4WDs adn headed out for the Easter break. We went with our neighbours to their country and camped where they once had an outstation and a bush tucker farm. Then we went to Ruby Gap which was full of water, making it hard to drive far into the gap but we could camp nearby and walk in. I just swam most of the time. It was all so beautiful. But perhaps the highlight of Easter for me was actually on the day before Good Friday when I went with Mil and Martin to the ultrasound appointment and saw my new little grandchild on the screen. New life from all the pain. Something of Easter in all that. I was very moved.

Sublime Alice Springs

I wish I could pick all up and put you on a plane and bring you out to Alice at the moment. It is just so perfect! Since the rain last week the weather has remained really pleasant - nothing hotter than early 30’s, and the evenings are cool enough to have a fire outside. We had friends and neighbours around last night and had a bbq around the fire and had such a beautiful evening and watched the moon rise. The river opposite is still running and everything is just so green. You’d think this was coastal country! Now plane fares to Alice in May are significantly cheaper so if any of you wanted to visit… although my guess is you’re going to wait till we have a new baby out here.

Wet week

Well, I’ve seen the Todd River flow 3 times now, which, according to Alice Springs lore, means I am stuck here now. It could be worse. I’ve also now seen Roe Ck just opposite us flow 3 times now as well. It’s flowing over the road as I write this and the rain is still coming down. I keep hoping we will get stuck here and I won’t be able to go to work. We’ve certainly had a relatively wet summer… and fortunately not too hot either.

I’m having my first night home for about 10 days. Life’s been pretty busy. The Sydney flim festival was here last weekend which accounts for a few of the nights. It was fantastic. If you get a chance to see a Japanese film called “Departures” don’t pass it up.

Simpsons Gap

Since the rain we had here 2 weeks ago, Simpsons Gap has had a lot more water in it than usual. It is an incredibly special place any way, but with the water it is even more beautiful. It is such a privelege to live so close to the place and visit whenever I like. I often go at the end of the day at the moment to just paddle my feet and look at the reflections of the rocks in the pools. At the end of the day the rocks glow orange and there are also these white and purple rocks around too . There are tadpoles everywhere and a few frogs starting to emerge. I can just sit there in silence and wonder.

Back in Alice

Well, we’ve been back in Alice for almost a week now and I’m beginning to calm myself down again. We had a wonderful 3 weeks in Sydney but it was so hectic, moving from place to place and meeting up with so many people. I came back quite exhausted but with a lot of wonderful memories of special occasions and good conversations. The day we got back it was pouring with rain and had also rained the previous day. So the rivers were flowing which was really exciting. We swam in the creek opposite our place with our new neighbours. We have a Colmbian family staying in the new cabin. So when Mil, Martin, Jo and Victor arrive tomorrow we will have a whole bunch of Spanish speakers from 3 Central and South American countries. I’m glad to be home and Alice now does feel like home.  It’s hot, but not too bad and everything is so green from the rain.  My vegie garden is coming along OK too thanks to the rain and the automatic watering system Martin put in for me.

Beautiful Boggy Hole

Well, with a bunch of good friends, Keith and I went to Boggy Hole on the weekend. It might not sound much but it was about a 1-2 kilometre stretch of lovely water in the Finke River about 3 hours drive from home. It is a 4WD challenge to get there, driving through a lot of Finke River sand… but great fun! We had the place entirely to ourselves and camped beside the water and I swam most of the weekend. There were heaps of birds everywhere - ducks, eygrets, pelicans, finches, grebes. There was other wildlife and Tim, our snake loving friend, managed to trek out at night with torches and found a Stimsons python which he picked up and let us all pat it while the python was wrapped round his arm. There were a few fears we had to overcome. Keith took most of them up the mountain that drops into the other side of the river to go abseiling and I sat on the river bank and read and watched Keith do his usual thing of trying to coax terrified kids down the cliff. It wasn’t too hot and we had a fire at night and cooked up great vegies in the camp ovens which we ate with damper and wine. Keith and Jeremy played guitar and harmonica and it was all pretty perfect actually. I feel very thankful to have the privelege of living in this amazing part of the world where humans haven’t changed it much at all all. It is so peaceful and restores the soul.