new cabins sprouting in the desert

there is quite a bit happening here at the moment with verandahs, awnings, cabins, tracks and yes the chicken coupe is still there to be done. i might do a blog series. AI guess you can do things like that. anyway today its the cabin/s. the first of two cabins i bought at an auction got delivered todaty and the other one comes on monday. one of teh best things about this stuff is talking to tradesmen. i really like that because they alwasy seem pretty cheery types and they always solve things i cant so i get very impressed. this has taken longer thn athey thought because whne they lifted them the footings started to rip off so they came up with these very elegant brackets that they made and bingo problem solved. all done with a smile and jolity.

one is now in place and there is another one to come the same size. this is where mil and martin will live and its a very nice spot. it feels like its coming together altough there is still so much to be done. Our friend from last year rodney is coming up next week to work on the cabins so thats good. It is situated near the chookless pen and has a nice view of the mountain

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Martin’s mining meal

We have had some pretty interesting times sitting on our verandah sharing a meal and having a chat. We had another last Wednesday. It was the night before Martin,  Daniel and Jeremy headed back for Sydney. To celebrate the farewell, Martin decided to cook up a big Peruvian meal and invited over our aboriginal neighbours. Keith’s old school mate, Greg, was staying with us and also joined us.  Greg is a geophysicist from Perth and works in the mining area. He was here for some geology conference. Most of you would know that Martin has very strong anti mining views based on his experience in Peru of local people being exploited by mining companies. Our neighbours come from country east of ALice that has a mining history that involved a whole community having to move because the water was poisoned by gold mining. There is currenty mining exploration happening on their land which they are deeply concerned about. ANd all of us have been concerned about a uranium mine that is proposed for about 20kms south of ALice called “Angela Pamela” and have signed petitions and been to protest meetings. I don’t think Greg quite realised what he was getting into coming to dinner that night. But I have to say, we had some really interesting and passionate discussion where stories were shared and respect was maintained, even if we didn’t fully understand each other. Greg is such a scientist and tried to explain stuff but most of it we couldn’t grasp.  He maintained a balance and was willing to listen. John, our neighbour who is usually quite reserved, really spoke up expressing his viewpoints but also expressing his desire to find ways we can all work together. Martin broguht the expereinces of another country. It was an intersting cross section of people addressing the issues.   I  really enjoy being able to have these sorts of discussions.

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Courses

I meant to try to blog more this year but life takes me over. My most recent excuse is that I’ve been in Adelaide for the last couple of weeks doing a course - “Working with Hardship and Trauma”. Sounds particularly joyful, doesn’t it. Well, it was great. There are a dozen of us from all over the world doing the course. It continues throughout the year as we have to do a project and all this reading and wrtiting and keeping in e-contact. Then we all meet up again in Africa in September for the next teaching block.  I’ve never been to Africa so am pretty excited about that.  Any way, I feel I have a few more clues about how to approach the work I do so I’m feeling re engergised which is good. I also got to hang in Adealide when the Fringe festival was on and that was fun - got to go to the Speigel tent again and see a pretty funny and raunchy cabaret. While I was there, half of the inner city of Adealide was turned into a car race course for some event called the Clipsal which causes all manner of inconvenience for the locals. I flew home yesterday in time for the inaugural “bush medicine tour” of our property by our aboriginal neighbour, John. Martin and his 2 friends staying here have spent the last 5 weeks helping John create a track, put signs labelling trees and plants, and build a humpy, and now the course is set to go. They invited friends to come for the trial tour and had a bbq afterwards to celebrate.  John was really happy and said that guiding the tour made him feel strong. How good is that!

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