Hughes Kimberley Calling

January 23^rd

Today you could really feel that you were in Wet Season. The sky was full of heavy clouds and occasionally you would hear this low rumbling thunder rolling across the sea.  It seems though that the temperature here is more bearable than in Sydney at the moment. We are around 32ºC and Sydney is having 40ºC.

Kylie/ Christina please omit the next paragraphs if reading to mum.

Walking to breakfast this morning I spotted a little snake trying to wedge itself into a wooden ramp near a storeroom. Mike told the gardener who got it out and identified it as a Brown snake. Now those of you who do not know, these snakes are one of the most venomous in the world, and its bite could kill you easily. Of course, if this was the baby, that means there is mum and the others somewhere nearby.

Sitting in the pool at lunch time one of the guys from the oil rigs was telling how his colleague got a spider bite in his hotel room the day before. This left 2 fang marks, was excruciatingly painful and involved a trip to hospital for anti-venom. He has the canula left in his arm, as he has to be topped up with the anti-venom on 3 more occasions. Needless to say he was flying back to Perth and missing his shift this time around.

It seems we were a little reckless to dangle our feet in the water at Cable Beach at this time of year. Locals will not even do this they are so fearful of the sting. A sting would easily have contained enough poison to risk possible death. We certainly know better now. Bill Bryson in Downunder describes the pain:

            “In 1992, a young man in Cairns, ignoring all the warning signs, went swimming

            In the Pacific waters at a place called Holloway’s Beach. He swam and dived,

            taunting his friends on the beach for their prudent cowardicy, and then began to

scream with an inhuman sound. It is said that there is no pain to compare with it.

The young man staggered from the water, covered in livid whip-like stripes wherever

the jellyfish’s tentacles had brushed across him, and collapsed in quivering shock.

Soon afterwards emergency crews arrived, inflated him with morphine and took

him away for treatment. And here’s the thing, even unconscious and sedated

he was still screaming.”

What is it about this part of Australia? It seems everything about nature is out to get you: the most venomous snakes in the world and tantalizing water that you simply cannot swim in because of either crocodiles or stingers. I suppose that is all part of the attraction. You really do get that sense of untamed wilderness.

The course today was largely about the National Accelerated Literacy Programme. This is a literacy programme developed specifically for Indigenous students and aims to immerse them in the language of English. Two hours of each day will be spent doing this instruction. All the lessons are based on an age appropriate novel that is chosen by the teacher and the class studies together. The novel may be well beyond the reading ability of many in the class, but because it is read by the teacher and the activities are well supported, all students have the opportunity to improve their reading and use of language. It is based on the idea that although student’s may be limited in the texts they can read on their own, if they are supported well, they can work with literature at a much higher level. (This is called their zone of proximal development). Thus you can choose a novel more age appropriate that has a plot and concepts that will engage the class rather than having students plod away on books that that are simpler and do not interest them. The instruction is then based on how the author uses language and why they have made the choices they have. Over a period of six weeks study which involves a great variety of cross-curricular activities students and retested on how well they can read, on a passage of approximately 200 words that they have studied extensively. Follow-up studies bear testimony to the success of this approach with Indigenous students. Mike and I will choose the same novel and work together to develop our programme. There is a limited selection of novels (only about 7 for junior secondary) that have teacher support documents and we were strongly recommended to choose one of these for the first 5 or 6 novels studied until we understand how the programme works.

This afternoon we really got to experience the Wet. A beautiful thunderstorm came in quickly as we were in the pool. The rain cascaded down in torrents for a few hours. Many teachers will be unable to reach their communities as they will be cut off by road. We are even unsure if the road from Kununurra will be open on Saturday.

As we were sitting at dinner tonight a lady walked in and asked a group of teachers near us if any of them were heading to Warmun (Turkey Creek). We sprung up straight away and introduced ourselves to our new principal, Katrina Van De Water, who had just flown in from her home in New Zealand. She has a number of years experience in desert and remote communities. She worked for the Salesian Fathers at a boy’s boarding school in New Zealand, when a call went out that they needed staff for their school in the Kimberley at Beagle Bay. This she heeded about 7 years ago and has worked between the Kimberley and New Zealand ever since.

I immediately felt at ease with her and remember, when you work and live in close proximity, it is very important that we all get on. Mike is the only male on staff, and will have 7 women to contend with. I hope the policeman and some of the community men will save him from all these women.

22^nd January

Today we began our induction course run by the Broome Catholic Education Office. There were about 30 teachers, from various parts around Australia heading off for a Kimberley experience. There was a great variety of ages, experience and backgrounds. A few were married couples like Mike and I, but the majority were singles. Like Mike, one of the couples who were heading to the Lombardina community worked for the Jesuits at Xavier College, in Melbourne. He had been given 2 years leave to do this work they felt was so valuable.  A really interesting teacher we met was Sheryl who is heading to the school at Ringer Soak. This school’s whole staff, which numbers 4 teachers, is new this year. To all of those who thought we were crazy heading to a place where the shops are 200km away, we have it easy. This school is on the Tanami Desert and shopping for them is once a term. The only fresh fruit and veggies you get are the ones you manage to grow. Sheryl was a lovely, warm indigenous woman with a great sense of humour and a wealth of experience. I feel I could learn so much from her. Her people are from the Gulf country in Queensland, yet she has taught in many remote locations. Just listening to her ideas during the day I thought that the students in her class were so lucky. Lena, another teacher also had a passion and excitement and had just completed 2 years in a desert school but had missed the induction when starting. It was great to have her as well as she was able to explain many of the cultural issues that may prove perplexing.

At this point I need to explain how vast the Kimberley is. By example, I had a cheque to bank at an ANZ bank. (To those of you who are not from Australia, this is one of our 4 big banks found in almost every suburb). I called in at the Broome office and in passing made the comment that I could check up on my credit card account in Kununurra. The teller looked at me and stated that this is it for branches heading east until you reach Darwin, nearly 2000km away.

Imagine an area as big as New South Wales but with no traffic lights and a population scattered across a number of tiny communities. Broome has a population of 15 000. Some communities have thousands of square kilometres and population of about 10.  The Broome Catholic Education office administers            schools. An enormous amount of its budget would disappear in costs that city schools simply would not have. For nearly all staff, this means either a furnished home provided rent free or at a subsidized cost (depending on the degree of isolation. Transport costs are enormous.  I would hate to think how much it cost them to move us here, and we did not bring any furniture. I know it cost them $2700 alone to bring our car here. We all gather back in Broome during week 4 for more professional development. For some, this involves a 2 day journey. If the rain makes the roads impassable light planes may need to be chartered. For some schools, this will mean the school will be closed for the week as nearly the whole staff (of 4) will be gone. In addition to this you receive an electricity allowance, remote area allowance and a bonus at the end of each year of service.  After all these costs have been met, then can the costs of the actual teaching be met. It is very difficult for them to staff their schools and very few stay longer than a year or two. The isolation and difficult students take their toll. As almost all teachers on our induction course were from other states, most need to return to their family and friends eventually.

The morning’s lecture focused on the social/ emotional development of the brain and how research shows that fostering a relationship with your students is the first step in the teaching/learning process. Nothing new, but just much more important when dealing with indigenous students. A recent West Australian study revealed the following stark reality about the children:

50% of Indigenous children do not have the basic human need of connectedness met.

These statistics are really frightening for all children and make me wonder how in an age such as ours, such high rates of trauma and abuse occur in even the general population.

A large amount of our time will be doing social/emotional learning. This is the process of developing social and emotional skills in a safe, well managed and engaging learning environment. The goals of this for the students are self-awareness, responsible decision making, relationship skills, self-management and social awareness.

In the PISA international tests of literacy that are conducted among 30 developed countries, Australia ranks 6^th in literacy. However, our Indigenous students rank 29th. A study in America in a particular town has shown that you can predict the number of jails you need to build in the future based on the literacy rates of the six year olds. For our indigenous students, this is the harsh future they face unless serious improvements can be made. We are reminded of the grave responsibility we bear.

The afternoon session was a little scary as it involved learning how to do running records, which is a form of reading assessment. I am sure primary teachers know how to do his blindfolded, but Mike and I are secondary teachers and have never done this in our life. This involves listening to a student read and making a type of shorthand notation to calculate their accuracy. We have it so easy back in Sydney when we think our system is hard. Before the end of week 3 we will have to administer 7 different tests to our students, all on a one to one basis. The results are then entered on to a Catholic Education Office data base. The improvements in literacy for each student are closely monitored. You as a teacher are highly accountable as they are re-tested each term. It is not that the office wants to watch over you like big brother, it is more that they are so committed to improving the prospects for their students and early intervention saves a myriad of future problems.

Mike and I went away from today  little overwhelmed but I know that we are both good at building the relationships with students, so hopefully this will make all the other stuff easier.

Rang home tonight as my family were all gathered at mum’s for Matthew’s birthday. It was nice to speak to them all but I have no feelings yet of homesickness. I am sick of living out of a motel room though and am really looking forward to putting down our roots in the community.

Broome is also famous for its collection of dinosaur footprints that date back 120 million years. Some of these are preserved in the rocks around Gantheaume Point, but unfortunately are only visible during exceptionally low tides. The coastline at this location was the most unstable I have seen and its cliffs are slowly just collapsing into the water.

The colours of the rocks varied greatly and Juliette spent some time collecting rocks of various colours and crushing them to make ochres.  A white, yellows, reds, oranges, browns and through to blacks could be found. All those colours that were represented in their traditional art could be found here.

A number of the other guests in our hotel were men waiting to go to work on the various oil rigs off the North-West Shelf. These were as far as a 2 ½ hour helicopter ride off the coast. Very isolated indeed! They claimed that they had much better conditions than those who worked in the remote mines, as their rosters were 3 weeks on, 3 weeks off. Thus you essentially only work 6 months of the year. One guy was from Perth and one from Eden in southern New South Wales. Here we were packing up to go and work for a year, yet these guys made the same trek every 3 weeks. Their shifts were 12 hour days straight for the 3 weeks and they had a room they shared with a person they rarely saw as they were doing the alternate 12 hour shift. They said the food was laid on and excellent, but unlike the mines, no alcohol was permitted. I always like listening to other peoples stories as it makes you realize what a great variety of experiences we have.

After 3 days in Broome Mike and I decided we must have been missing some essential drawcard that the town offered to tourists. By the number of resorts on offer and still being constructed it is obviously a tourist mecca. Cable Beach is stunningly beautiful, but no more so than many others such as Jervis Bay that line the coastline of Australia. Here though, beside this beach, most of the attractions are manmade. The picture below shows what Broome in the raw is, red dust and low scrub, not the frangipanis and hibiscus plantings at the resorts.

The resorts, unlike in many other Australian locations do not lead onto the beach, but are in streets, most even without ocean views. For my money, I would not advise coming to see Broome alone, as you may be sorely disappointed. Sure, make it a stop at the end of a trip to the Kimberley, but for a tropical getaway from the East coast, Cairns is a much better option. With the glorious Daintree rainforest that tumbles down the hills to meet the sea, and the spectacular Cape Tribulation. I will never forget the birdsong as we descended in the skyway over the rainforest canopy. Broome has none of these other delights, the nearest town south is 651km away at Port Hedland, and that is so delightful it was set up as detention centre. To the east is unforgiving desert. In Broome’s defense, we have not visited Cape Leveque, which many have stated is exceptionally beautiful. We come back to Broome for more professional Development and we will go there when we have our 4 WD with us.

January 20^th

It seems that none of our employment documents had arrived in Kununurra and our pay should have commenced on the 1^st of January, so this morning was spent completing all the necessary documentation at Broome CEO.

After the boredom of the last hour Juliette was now desperate to build sand castles and we headed off once again to Cable Beach. It was amazing to watch how quickly the tide came in during the hour we spent on the sand. It really is torture to be standing on such a glorious stretch of coastline and yet be unable to swim. Although the sign stated that the last reported stinger incident was June 08, we were taking no chances as the sting is described as excruciatingly painful and very dangerous.

Broome has a significant Aboriginal population and observing the interaction between the whites and the Aboriginals I was reminded of an observation made by Bill Bryson in his book Downunder which I had only just finished. Bryson, an American states after being in Alice Springs for a few days

 “ the white people never looked at the Aborigines, and the Aborigines never

 looked at the white people.  The two races seemed to inhabit separate but

parallel universes, I felt I was the only person who could see both groups at

once.”

Now those of you who know Mike and I well, would understand that we will generally chat and greet anyone, but I tell, you even we found it hard to engage the indigenous in conversation. I was not about to give up hope. I wanted to challenge all those prejudices the media feeds us with such regularity and see just what the average indigenous was like. We found our opportunity to do so when we went for an afternoon stroll to a local park. Juliette and Mike were playing on the climbing equipment and groups of Indigenous were seated on the ground under the shade of the trees. There was no drinking, just family groups laughing and enjoying the cool of the ocean breeze. A middle aged indigenous woman wandered by, and whereas whenever almost all other non-indigenous walked by, you would look them in the eye and say hi, this woman’s head was like most other indigenous, always cast down. We went out to the sea wall where her children were fishing and playing on the rocks at the water’s edge. When they came back up I chose my target, an indigenous girl in her late teens, and I asked her if they had any luck with the fishing. She responded positively and I questioned her further about the dangers of croc and stingers where they were. The boys said that further around in the estuary crocs were a problem when nesting, but where they were was generally not a problem. We asked where they were from and they responded Halls Creek. When we said we were going to teach at Warmun, their warmth and excitement was a delight. Jacinta introduced herself with a big smile and handshake. They had a number of family members who had gone and still go to this school. They themselves had gone to St John’s in Darwin. Incidentally, Mike and I had each independently considered teaching at St John’s when were employed by the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart at Chevalier College in Bowral. We chatted for a while and they tried to explain to us the complex familial relationships of their relatives at Warmun. As numerous different fathers can often make up a family unit, we had little chance of following what they were explaining.

I walked away from this encounter greatly heartened and reminded of Juliette’s story “Whoever you are” written by Mem Fox, where she describes “we love the same, laugh the same and have blood just the same”. It is a good reminder that there is more that we share than divides us.

Also in this park was a memorial to the 70 plus people who were killed in Broome during the Second World War. As many Dutch were evacuated from Indonesia to Broome, a large number of flying ships were moored in the harbour. These were all bombed and sunk by the Japanese. We tend to forget that so many lives were lost on Australian soil during this time. I cannot remember this aspect of our history being covered during my education at all.

January 19^th 2009.

A drive around Broome centre today showed a town with a unique character and strong ties to its pearling past. The town centre is called Chinatown and many streets and landmarks bear Chinese names. Even a significant number of locals bear this ancestry. The Chinese, Malays and Japanese were the original pearl divers. A significant Indigenous population is also present.

Almost every building (including all the resorts, homes and shops) is constructed from corrugated iron, including the walls. I am not sure if this is for cyclone reasons or because of the prohibitive cost of transporting other materials such a great distance. Architecturally, particularly the modern homes and resorts, look far more in tune with their environment than the row upon row of Macmansions that some Sydney suburbs boast. Even the Macdonalds shared this architecture and the tables were surrounded by various plantings of palms. While here we met a family holidaying from Anchorage Alaska. The dad worked 3 weeks on and 3 off on the North Sea oil platform. Home for them is currently 30° below freezing. Lucky I had caught a couple of episodes of Ice Truckers at mum and dad’s so I was able to appreciate the isolation and danger of his remote location.

We had heard so much about the famous Cable Beach and so just went for a quick drive to see if all the fuss was worthwhile. Well, it truly is. This is a spectacular piece of coastline. The beach is a long, wide arc of white sand that stretches for kilometres lapped by exquisite turquoise water.  As the tides here are quite large the width of the sand when we were there was around 100 metres, but the dampness of the sand suggested that the beach was covered during high tide. All over the sand were the tiny round balls made by the crabs that dig holes in the sand. Juliette and I were fascinated by the variety of sizes that existed overall, but the balls next to each hole were hundreds in number but identical in size. It was a sight to see the tiny insects scurrying across the sand carrying a perfectly round ball of sand that was its own equivalent in size.

What made the water even more beautiful was the absence of any weed or other detritus. All you saw was the perfect white sandy bottom. The water was very warm but although we tested its temperature, until we were sure about the dangers of crocodiles and stingers a swim was off the cards.

A drive around the environs of Cable Beach sadly shows one resort spa after another, none with beach views, but with manicured Balinese inspired gardens. In high season these would all be full but I am not quite sure what the attraction is. Yes the Beach is beautiful, but it seems all that is wanted is the name Cable Beach and a resort/ spa experience that is the same as various other locations in the world. I am told the homes around Cable Beach (and we are talking no ocean views, corrugated iron construction and nothing really out of the box) are as much as $3 million. It seems a number elect to escape the Perth winter and so live six months here and six months in Perth. I really don’t think I could do 6 months here. Where I am going to is far more isolated but I think there is more to do rather than just relax and be pampered. This would drive me crazy after a week. (I was really struck by how our holiday choices as Australians have changed. As life becomes more pressured, all we want in our precious downtime is to be pampered. Give me the great open spaces any time.

My dear Aunt jokingly asked me to bring her a little pearl treasure back from Broome. Paspaley are the oldest and most world famous pearling company, with amazing operations in the warm seas around here. Juliette was desperate to see the pearls and we had a lovely time looking at what we could never afford. $260 000 was the most expensive strand. A set of about 40 perfectly matched pearls that were each about 1 ½ cm in size. The sales assistant said that it may take 10 years (or 5 harvests) to collect the pearls for such a strand. My cousin accidently microwaved her pearls and destroyed them recently. She had put them in a supposedly safe place after a recent burglary but forgot they were there. I bet she is glad they were not Paspaley pearls.

The assistant did provide me with a beautiful brochure I could send to my aunt. This was not a place that made some small trinkets for the tourists. They catered for the top end and claimed their reject pearls were then sold to Tiffany and Cartier. The cheapest purchase here would involve thousands of dollars.

The evening settled into a warm gentle rain but with already sodden soil it did not take long for the water to form huge puddles. In Sydney, this much water lying around would create a news story of flash flooding, but here it is the norm. It makes you wonder how much water must be around before they start to worry. Michael is so glad he put a snorkel on the landcruiser.

Sorry it has Taken me so long to get the blog up and going but we did not have internet access for while and then we were so busy setting up for school that I was a week behind in writing. Then when we got the satellite connection it made such a mess of my computer that I was not game to use it in case it caused it to crash. I then had to wait for phone communication to be restored after a big storm (2 days) to be able to ring Telstra to order wireless broadband, then another 4 days for this to be delivered.I hope you enjoy reading about our adventures and you are welcome to post any comments or offer any suggestions. A word of warning, my primary school education was during the caring, sharing 70’s when grammar lessons were thought too restrictive for the freedom of expression. Consequently, there are many glaring gaps in the quality of my use of language.

Also, please understand that due to the open nature of the internet I will not post any images of children that could be edited and subsequently used for inappropriate purposes. The Catholic Education Office also has a policy of no images of children can be used unless officially sanctioned by them. I am working on this. If you are family or friend you can drop me an email for photos on beck.hughes65@gmail.com and I can add you to the email list. Otherwise give me a couple of weeks and I will set up a facebook page. (Remember I am over 40 and this is a real technological challenge for me).

January 18^th 2009

We finally arrived in Broome after leaving Sydney. This involved a 4½ hour flight to Perth, followed by a 2 ½ hour flight to Broome. There are no direct flights at this time of year as it is the tourist low season. Much of the flight was over semi-desert country, that bore the scars of a completely different climate thousands of years ago. Channels were carved into the landscape and could have only been formed by huge amounts of rain. So although the land is rather barren and only intermittent low vegetation remains, its landforms tell a history of former abundance. About ½ hour out from Broome we flew over the edge of the Tanami Desert. It was a deep red and vegetation was very sparse indeed. Descending into Broome you flew in over the world famous Cable Beach, a spectacularly long expanse of white sand lapped by exquisite turquoise water.

As we disembarked from the plane we were immediately reminded of Bali, by the tropical, humid heat and the heady smell of frangipani in the air. The natural landscape of Broome is not particularly attractive, with low scrub and vivid red soils. We are in the middle of the tropical wet, so it is quite lush. Palms, frangipani and hibiscus dominate any settled parts, giving the town a real tropical feel. Today it is 35°C. We headed straight for the pool after checking in, as we had promised Juliette that she would have a swimming holiday after largely ignoring her for the last few weeks as we packed up the home. The water was like a bath, not refreshing but relaxing none-the-less.

I had a really heavy heart tonight after saying goodbye to family and friends over the last week. There is no turning back from the adventure now and I just pray that I have the courage to see it through when times are tough. I was so proud of mum this morning as I know she would have had a good cry after we left but she tried to be so brave so as not to upset Juliette. People say that they envy our courage in doing this. I do not feel in the least bit courageous, as at times the terror has been palpable. I wonder if I have the skills to survive the isolation, connect with the students and live without my family and friends close by. The thought of the amazing experience it could be keeps me motivated. It does not mean that at times I am not racked with fear. I keep praying to Mary MacKillop who has never let me down to give me the skills to endure.