At Ellery Creek Big Hole

It is lovely for Keith and me that the Frenches have been staying with us for the past few days. Yesterday, because it was really hot, we drove about an hour west to Ellery Creek Big Hole for a picnic and a swim. It is a big permanent rock hole that goes through one of the amazing gaps in the West Macdonnells. We all took turns having a swim and looking after Hannah, who felt that the water was bit cold and spent most of the time paddling on the edge and looking for the perfect stick. When I was with her on the edge I was watching people around me (as you do). There was a little boy there (probably about 5 years old) with his family who at one point tried to engage Hannah, but with no success. His father was in the water and trying to get him to come in. The boy didn’t want to because he thought it was too cold. The father called him a whimp and put him on a lilo. The boy was getting wet and started to cry. The father said “Big boys don’t cry” and called him a “sook”. It was upsetting. I was remembering this story when I read Luke’s post about men not showing overt emotion. The way we train them, it is not surprising. I felt like thanking this man for providing psychologists like me with an ongoing supply of future clients. But I didn’t. Any way, we had a lovely swim. Once you were in the water was lovely. Even Jane had a swim. We swam through the gap and there were all these ducks and other water birds.

New Cabins

John and Jane and Hannah have been wioth us over the last weekend which has been just divine. We’ve done some lovely things together but the entrails of breakfast yesterday led to a significant moment of laying the first piece of burnt toast for our sustainable cabins. It was a very exciting moment that required teh celebration of a cup of tea and aftrewards Jane was invited into teh new space that was already starting to take shape. Indeed a special moment. Now I am going to try to attach some photos but teh last couple of times I’ve pushed the wrong button. If there are no photos I am nothing if not reliable in my button etiquette.

Alice Springs Solar City

Everything about Alice Springs is Solar. It must be the Solar Hot water heater capital of Australia. We’re just starting to build a funky new Solar Demonstration site showcasing 8 different solar technologies that will be hooked up teh uestacon displays in Canberra. And yesterday the Solar cars came through town.
They are indeed cute little things. Apparently speed isn’t the issue anymore as they can do over 130kph all day so they are making them more like cars now to push the design challenges. It was strange looking at each car and instead of mechanics tuning the carby you had a guy on his laptop testing all these current flows and people polishing solar arrays. Mind you reliability isn’t perfected yet. I think about 27 cars started and only 9 made it half way to Alice Springs.

They all were camping in tents which made it feel very earthy, friendly and quiet.

New Shed Gal

Well we lost our dear colleague Barry from teh shed but now we have Bronya. Bronya used to work with Martin in Bush regeneration and i think she is a very cool human being. She was very excited when we asked of she wanted to stay when Mil was up here. She was still living in a tent in 40 degree heat and not feeling any injustice. She moved in today saying she felt a bit weird because things are supposed to be harder than this and she wasn’t sure how to deal with things falling into place. Maybe if she gets me to do a plumbing job for her she’ll feel better about things.

She is also very cool because she went and visited our indigenous tenants and went swimming with their kids in the above ground pool and talked to them about plants because she is in to them and they are into bush foods. She’s an inspiration. Must be the shed. Everyone living in teh shed is cool. Helen and John also slept in teh shed and they are cool. I might kick her out and go and live their and that will solve everything.

By the way I did the pipes like I said and its only leaking a little bit not alot so I’m feeling pretty good about that. It means if you are sitting on the lounge you won’t have to suffer sprays of water from my plumbing. You may feel a slight moist feeling under foot but in a hot climate you’ll find that most agreeable. I can’t really claim sign off so the leaking score is now actually 5 out of 6 (up from 3 out 5). That overstates the problem because I found a new fault today which makes two leaks in the one job. I am not sure how to effectively account for that.

Indigenous Education and water pipes

This has been a difficult week as much of my thinking as it develops just gets thrown upside down by the next wave of insight. Its been particularly hard this week as I’ve put out some of my thinking on where we are going with the Desert Peoples Centre. The challenges to my thinking have been good and so the process is also good but its still a bit like doing something you are feeling coming together and then people say nuh thats not gonna fly. Go away and think about it. OK I will but gee i hope I think of something. Anyway it makes you look forward to the weekend.

This weekend i am going to attack some water pipes in the middle of our new living room (used to be the bar in the restaurant). So far since being here I have done five water projects and 3 are still leaking. This could mean we end up with an indoor pool rather than a living room. But at least it puts off having to come up with new ideas for indigenous education.

Shopping in Alice

Food shopping in Alice is a lot less stressful for me than in Hornsby. I know some people will find this hard to understand but Westfield used to have a very negative impact on my spirit. Yes, it was convenient but I could never get out of the place fast enough. I’ve just come from the little organic food shop in Alice called Afghan Traders where I can buy these really wonderful local dates that I am seriously addicted to. They also sell organically grown fruit and vegetables and they have bulk goods so I can buy flour, nuts, meusli etc by shovelling the amount I need into brown paper bags. It’s so much more fun. And on Saturday mornings I drive out to the Vietnamese market garden where you can buy fruit and vegies they grow there from this little Vietnamese woman who adds the cost of everything up using a pen and paper. I have even got to like the butcher here. I hadn’t been into the butcher until my Dad stayed with us and I had to go because my Dad wouldn’t eat my vegetarian cooking. The butcher sells organic meats, as well as things like kangaroo and camel meats. I have got Keith eating camel and date sausages when we have a bbq on our open fire. There is a big feral camel problem in central Australia so we are doing our bit to help out. I have to say, I still eat the vegie sausages. But the butcher is really nice and he is patient with me as he tells me what is in the sausages or where the meat comes from. I still don’t really eat red meat but on Thursdays and Saturdays he gets some fresh fish in which is great. I don’t miss Westfield at all. And when I have to go the supermarket I can just park in front without having to go into multistorey carparks and get lifts down. Bliss! The only thing is that food here is a bit more expensive and I still haven’t found a place I can buy puffed millet! I also tried to buy dry sherry yesterday for Asian cooking and I had to come back at 6pm when the section where sherry, port and cask wine opens up. I walked in at 6pm with a bunch of Aboriginal people buying their cask wine. You can only get 2 litre casks as well. I don’t know whether all these restrictions make a lot of difference.

Indigenous issues are hard

I have spent the last few days feeling like I’m going nowhere here. The adaptive issues of Aboriginal education are so circular and complex. The issues are intransigent and positive initiative is hard to concieve, hard to fund, hard to operationalise, hard to staff, hard to sustain and hard to succeed. This is not the fault of anyone in particular.

Yet I had a great conversation with someone today far more experienced than me and I feel again that I can take another step forward. Not two but at least one step. I’ll see when I get there where the next step is. Slow work this.

Oh well, here goes….

Gemma told me I have to blog more. I keep going onto footboot and reading all these witty or ironic posts and then think I have nothing really to say. But how can I say “no” to a precious daughter! You will have to bear with me all you quick witted humouous people because I’m a serious sort of person. And I don’t really take photos and certainly can’t upload them. I’m pretty dull and useless all around actually. Any way, we had a bit of excitement yesterdaywhen Mil arrived. I spotted her getting off the plane because she had a purple scarf on her head and I knew that was a very Mill thibg to do, wear a purple scarf to Alice. It is so lovely to have her here!  And then to really add to the excitement, we picked up Helen and John after their dance conference so we had them last night too. It felt a bit like the good old days as we sat around solving  a few of life’s big issues. The only bummer for me is that I had a bit of food poisoning the day before and my guts hadn’t quite recovered. It wasn’t Mexican avacado but it was central Australian pasta.. and it was vegetarian. Bloody horrible business. I don’t think I had vommitted since I was pregnant. I had thought I had iron guts but they certainly fellt fragile over the last couple of days.  There is no such thing as invincibility. Any way, I’m OK today and we took Helen and John to the airport. Today is 39 degrees in Alice and a hot west wind blowing. Not so pleasant. Now all that was rivetting reading, wasn’t it. But the really best thing about it is that it is Sunday afternoon and our net connection is still holding. Our new aerail seems to be working well. I’ve run out of excuses for not blogging.

Not yellow, not grey but BLUE

Stella and keith are now the coowners of a BLUE Dyson. I clogged the old vacuum so badly sucking up concrete dust we thought we needed to stuff something really good. The Blue Dyson is so powerful it sucked my index finger off my left hand. With all its advanced nonfilters I haven’t even been able to find it. We also find that the blue looks great when we are vacuuming the blue kitchen although it doesnt look its best in the beige bedroom. We might redo the color in that room to make the whole house a Dyson meditation zone.

We got a red trailer (yes red) a month ago and I asked Stella if she’d mind if I vacuumed the gravel driveway around the trailer as a color extravaganza experience but she said no.

The shed man leaves town

The other day the man living in our shed (Barry) left to return to Armidale. He had been in Alice for about ten years and like so many not intending to stay longer than a few months. Since being here he has done alot of teaching with Indigenous people and is now one of the few non indigenous people to speak pretty fluent Arrente. We had quite a few nights around the fire. Sometimes we’d go to his fire and other times we’d invite him over to our fire. Along with David Woods he was the other pall bearer at Maggies Cremation ceremony . A very special night. We built a fence together with some of his Indigenous friends and we burst water pipes together by digging in the wrong place. He spent three hours with me searching for Maggie when I misplaced her.

He used to live in the other house but liked the shed better so spent the last few months there. I’m sad he’s gone. he taught me alot in a short time and we were only getting started. I’m sad.