Hughes Kimberley Calling

This morning I really felt like I was slowly getting somewhere with the girls and was able to let up on my nagging. They now excitedly ask me during roll call each afternoon “who is the student of the day Miss Rebecca?. This student gets recognized with their name on the board all the next day in a nice bubble announcing their achievement. If they get this twice they get to pick a prize from my stash. Large marbles are the most sought after prize, though they said they would like nail polish also. Kununurra has no $2 shops so I will have to replenish my stash when in Sydney or else it will cost me a fortune.

The girls are better at getting on with their routine of putting on their uniform, brushing their teeth and getting down to work. They can see now that they have actually learnt new things and so want to continue to expand this knowledge. Remember only a couple of weeks ago almost none of these girls could count past 109, the numbers were simply a mystery.

Yesterday I gave them all a Coles specials brochure (the junk mail variety). I said they had $100 dollars to feed their family for a week. They had to use this brochure to plan the menu and keep within the budget. This was a great activity as I watch the adults in the community store spend hundreds of dollars buying 30 year old videos just after pay day and then have no money left for food at the end of the fortnight. This activity provided lots of really good discussion; they all wanted to buy the $10 hair conditioner but only had 3 meals for the week. So we learned about budgeting; what combinations of food constitute a nutritious meal; what ingredients you would need to make a spaghetti bolognaise; how to plan for cooking so that you have all the ingredients ready when you need them (this is a real issue as the community store is very expensive and so a trip to Kununurra which is a considerable distance away needs planning) and that potatoes are a much cheaper and healthier option than frozen chips. They did very well and were engaged on a learning activity for the longest time they have worked all year.

Today I taught Juliette’s class Science for the first time. She was so excited at the prospect but I was a little daunted as 4 and 5 year olds have such short attention spans and I had them for 2 hours.. We began with a look at the animals of the Kimberley area and they pasted these around their page and then as they told me who ate what we drew connecting lines between them. I was impressed as most of them could do this task and gave me sensible answers. A couple were off with the pixies, with one girl gluing her pictures on the wrong side and so putting the colour picture face down in her book. We then watched on the data projector a little video about the cane toad and talked about the dangers it presented. We did some colouring in of a typical river environment from the Kimberley and I taught them “Galumph went the little green frog”. We still had time to go so we played traffic light (the children’s game). I had taught them this one other time I had them and they love it. It is funny that besides marbles these kids do not play games at lunchtime. I was trying to teach them some as they too quickly resorted to fighting for entertainment. They are so cute and I am getting used to having my leg played with while trying to teach or them climbing up on your lap or twirling your hair. They are very cute. Juliette was so keen that they were good for me I had to remind her a couple of times that I was the teacher and did the disciplining, not her. Now when I go through the playground or the community these little ones yell out “hello Miss Rebecca” very excitedly.

This morning we had a get together for all the teaching staff at our place to celebrate belatedly Sister Mary’s birthday. We had pancake mix left over from the stall so we had pancakes with a great variety of toppings. Sitting under the shade of the trees we were chatting and it was such a lovely atmosphere and our sense of community was great. I had invited our Aboriginal Teacher’s aides also and it was great to see Leanne Mosquito under the tree with an enormous smile on her face at being included. She had brought her daughter Katie with her and Juliette was in seventh heaven. This is the first friend she had around to play and the dress up box and toys were working overtime.

Dave the volunteer from Mirrilingki joined us and he always entertains us with his stories. He tells how the first time he met the local bishop, the bishop introduced himself by his Christian name. When Dave later used it in conversation he attempted to correct him and insist he called him Bishop. Dave retorted that if he wished to be called Bishop he can refer to him as Mr Ferguson from now on. We laughed so much. He told us various other stories also, but I will not print them in case I cause offence. You look at this older man now who would do anything for you and cannot imagine that he did all these wild things in his younger days.

It had been a hot weekend but we had continued to garden. I cannot live in a place without a garden and things were growing well courtesy of the wild horse poo that Mike kept collecting. We were worried about the scrub bulls arrival later in the year. They just lean on the fences and knock them over. Our fence had so many twists and dents in the steel poles because apparently our garden was a favourite as it had a tree they loved to eat the flowers from. We had seen our first scrub bull on the side of the road last week and let me tell you they are enormous. No gentle Hereford but enormous almost Brahmin type beef. They were not much smaller than our landcruiser and we reaffirmed our commitment to not drive at night as they just stand in the middle of the road and you do not see them until it is too late.

Today years 5,6 and 7 had a basketball competition in Warmun against a number of other schools. Mike and Myfanwy took their classes to this and also the students of mine who were in Year 7. Mike’s older boys were to assist with umpiring and scoring. The girls of mine who were left behind were very angry they had to do work but it was a good chance to spend some one on one time, as there were only three of them.

One of my students (with anger management issues from earlier in the week) was genuinely keen to learn how to read. We sat together and spent considerable time and it was great to finally see an “ah ha” moment dawn for her. These beginning readers attempt to commit every word to their memory (that is how all Aboriginal knowledge is passed down) and so if they get a word incorrect they just keep guessing with words from their memory until they get the right one, even if the word has a completely different starting sound. I sat with her words list and showed her the magic of sounding out. With words such as all, at, it and went we wrote all the words that you could read by just swapping the starting sound. She merrily completed the same exercise for other words and quickly had a page full of unfamiliar words that she had been able to successfully sound out. This student had been trying to commit to memory for 3 weeks the 20 most commonly used words. Now she had witnessed the power of sounding out she was excited. Let’s hope she continues with this. She was obviously buoyed by her success as she had previously taken about ½ hour to write a sentence. The Aboriginal language they speak (Kriol) does not have gender specific pronouns and ‘im means boy, girl, dog etc. I had taken all their photographs earlier in the week, both individually and in groups and so now with this student we slowly glued in each photo on a new page and wrote the associated pronouns with it- I and me; she and her; him and his; us, they and it. We then wrote sentences using each of these words.  She complained about doing it at times, but I could see hat she was genuinely pleased with her efforts as she had never written so much during class time.

After school we wandered down to the basketball court in time for the presentation. It seems the high school boys who were too old to play for us had joined the Frog Hollow team who had arrived with only 3 players from Year 3. Our boys were 12 to 15 years old so the height difference in the team was comical. All students had behaved with great sportsmanship and Mike commented that there was none of the rough play or prima donna behaviour you get in Sydney. Our girls won their grand final and in the chaos of packing up I asked Mike where the trophy was. A student’s name was mentioned and I was off like a shot, for given her form I knew that it would be the last time it would ever be seen. Sure enough she was wandering off up the road with the trophy under her arm. When challenged she did say she was taking it to Miss Katrina, but I have my serious doubts.

This afternoon there was no driver available to take the students home who live at Bow River, so Mike volunteered and took Juliette along for the ride. Bow River is found by traveling fifty kilometres along the highway back toward Kununurra where there is a large rock painted in indigenous colours on the side of the road. You turn off here and the last 30 kilometres in down a rough bush track. These kids travel one and a half hours each way to school. They were so excited at having Juliette (who is in one of the kids class) and Mr Michael to share their stories with. They live a much more traditional existence and they explained to them how to catch the various bush tucker delights and how to prepare them. Bow River is a small collection of houses in very basic conditions. Juliette returned to me and told me how her class mate has no windows, no front door, his kitchen is outside, he has one broken cup and almost no clothes. There is much less alcohol at Bow River, and most of the children from here are delightful. I said to Juliette what does it tell you about happiness when these have so little yet are happy, while many of the kids back in Sydney scream and complain if they don’t have the latest game? It was a great lesson for her and she agreed that she was so lucky compared to all her friends back home as she has seen how really poor people live and had a better understanding of how life is for some. I don’t care what else she learned this week at school, this was her most important lesson.

As we were not heading off to town we all got together at Leanne’s for dinner and drinks with the Frog Hollow teachers. This camaraderie is what I love about living here. It was very convivial and a good laugh. I did envy the 3 teachers at Frog Hollow with their 8 students, as they said it was almost private tuition. What a difference you could make!

It is Sister Mary’s birthday, St Joseph’s Day and our mission market day today. The community CEO had decided to change the date and location of the community meeting to today so that it could be held on the school grounds. This would give us a big crowd for our stalls. These kids are so unused to anything out of the ordinary that before it all began I was yelling at them for their atrocious behaviour and lack of cooperation. The girls got set up but the boys just wanted to create mayhem. They were no help at all. Once we began doing crazy hair colours and nails the crowds gathered. I also had a number of left over World Youth Day back packs, should bags, shirts and space blankets Mike had brought up from Sydney. These became the hottest fashion item and sold out in no time. It was great to see the kids having so much fun with the space blankets too. Being a really light foil they made a great noise and they wrapped themselves in them and played with them, despite me assuring them they would be great to keep themselves warm out bush during the winter.

A few parents wandered over to get their nails done but it was more the little kids who wanted the treat which was great. Little girls as young as four were having a hand massage and polish. It was a gorgeous sight to behold.

The parents mostly stayed on the basketball courts and chatted, but they did send their children over with money to spend. The community had put on a “killer” which means a scrub bull was slaughtered and barbecued for the occasion. Chris the CEO made the focus of the meeting parent’s responsibilities toward their children. He told them that if their kids come home and complain their teacher had told them off, well that was what happens at school, kids are disciplined when they are doing the wrong thing. He had got into trouble when he was at school and it was necessary if the teachers’ were to create an environment where leaning could occur.  He also told them that young children were no longer allowed in the games shop after dark. Many kids as young as three simply wander after dark. He said they needed to be in bed. He also spoke of the increasing drunkenness in the community. He himself had dragged a sleeping drunk off the road in the dark one night. As he got to the side of the road a road train thundered by. The man would have faced certain death.

In the 1 ½ hours we raised over $650 for Project Compassion (a Catholic mission project). This was amazing considering it was the first time the school had done anything like this. We teachers sat together talking at the end of the day and it was beautiful to see the enormous smile on the face of Leanne Mosquito, our Aboriginal liaison officer. She addressed the community meeting after having tried to have the parents into the school for a meeting earlier in the year and not a single one showed. She was so happy to hear Chris’ words and to see that all were there to hear them.

She said the meeting reminded her of the old days when the basketball court used to be the old picture gardens. This planted a seed in my mind and I told her that I would get a copy of Australia as soon as it was released on DVD and we would show it there so the old people could reminisce. Most of them knew the country intimately where it was made so I thought that would be a fantastic way to keep the positive feeling alive.

In the middle of last night Michael and I succumbed to whatever Juliette had. At 1am I was over the toilet going at both ends simultaneously. This had been preceded by the most intense body aches. I was praying that death could have been near. With no sleep we both went off to school as there are no casuals, and when it is 2 of us to cover it is very difficult to be away.

I carried on as best as I could, using worksheets I had already prepared. By the afternoon I was feeling so unwell I just put my head on the desk while some girls watched a DVD of the novel we were studying, and others made colourful posters for our nail stall. At least they left me in peace.

It was lovely to turn up and see 2 young ladies who had been making great progress with me over the last couple of weeks, at school at 7.30 waiting to start the day. These I can trust to give the key to open the toilets or leave in the classroom by themselves before school. One of them had only arrived 2 weeks previously to my class but I was so thrilled with how she was going. She was responsible and eager to learn. I thought she would make a great school captain if we could begin such a role. When I met the Frog Hollow teachers later in the week, they informed me that she was actually their best student and she was at Warmun as her mother was on the grog program at Mirrilingki Spirituality Centre. (This was to help people reaffirm their commitment to live a life not dominated by alcohol. Their children lived in with them and for many of these kids, this is the only time they receive proper care.) I was heart broken at the possibility of losing my best student but this is the way things are. It seems the principal of this school (it is an independent school with 8 regular students and 3 teachers. We have 85 students and 8 teachers) has been working to get this student ad her friend up to the point where they can go away to boarding school next year. This would be great for her, and I believe she has the potential to achieve amazing things.

I taught the boys and girls Science today (separately). Leading on from our discussion of the danger the cane toad presents to their community, I began with a little national Geographic presentation on the data projector. I wanted them to understand how dangerous these animals were, as a dog when poisoned would convulse to death in 15 minutes. Little children and even they were in serious danger from poisoning. I highlighted where the poison glands were located, the difference between the toad and the native large frogs and how they were not to go killing them unless they were seriously covered so the poison had no chance of entering their body. They were interested and very attentive. I also downloaded from the internet from the Kimberley Toad Busters a fact sheet and had constructed a worksheet to help them prepare a small report based on this information. The fact sheet was written in scientific language and contained lots of words I knew they would have no hope of understanding. I had a matching activity where they had to match the words to its very simplified meaning. To find the meaning we were using the classroom dictionaries. This activity took a long time as no one had used a dictionary before, and despite being high school they did not readily know the order of letters in the alphabet. I persevered and they worked really well. Once we did the first word together I allocated a word to each boy who then looked it up, looked at my meanings on the sheet and had to see which most closely matched. When you see the pace at which they work, and how explicit all instructions must be I struggle to think how we are supposed to prepare them for the NAPLAN tests in May (these are national tests sat by students in years 1,3,5,7 and 9.

As my students were doing the nail stall on Thursday I thought they needed some practice. They had worked hard this morning so we spent the last hour of the day painting each others nails. I taught them how to soak the hands, then massage and moisturize and finally paint with care. They were quite excited about the prospect. Michael had not been able to interest the boys in contributing to the day in any way.

Juliette had been unwell all day yesterday. I knew this was genuine because for the first time in her life, she refused chocolate when I offered it to her. She had a tender tummy, temperatures and was listless. As she did not have diarrhoea or vomiting I began to worry about the more dangerous health concerns here. Murray Valley Encephalitis (MVE) and Ross River Fever are both mosquito borne diseases that are present in this area. A quick Google of MVE did nothing to quell my fears. It attacks the brain, can cause death but patients rarely recover from any of the brain damage sustained during the course of the virus. I looked at my pale, precious little girl and prayed like crazy that it was not this. The symptoms are sort of flu like, so nothing that is easily identified.

When she woke up this morning and her temperature continued to rise we decided that I would take her to the clinic and she could just spend the day in my classroom with her sofa bed and DVD player. Although we were the first patients at the clinic we still had to wait a while. All I could think about was Michael coping with both the girls and the boys together while I was here.

The nurse listened carefully to Juliette’s symptoms and allayed my fears about MVE and said that some really nasty tummy bugs were doing the rounds. I was to keep her hydrated and not even use Panadol unless there was a risk of convulsions. She said that it was better for your long term immunity if you let the virus run its course.

On returning to school I had 2 of my best students sitting by themselves in my classroom doing posters for our market day stall. They informed me that the others had at the start of the day blasted the music and rifled through my desk drawers and got into the stash of lollies I had for prizes. I blasted those involved so severely as I know some of these girls are banned from the roadhouse for thieving. One in particular will take anything that is not nailed down.

I got the girls into my classroom and began our Maths lesson. One student refused to do anything and just slept under the blackboard for 2 hours. For this I was grateful as she is too difficult to take on, you get absolutely nowhere. These kids are tired because they are poorly fed and have no supervision, so are up wandering all night.

Today I had a student return to my class who had not been there for a number of weeks. Although she had been loud and demanding on the few other occasions she had been here, that was nothing compared to what she let fly with today. This girl is 14, has the reading age of a 6 year old and her Maths is not much better. This type of student fights you every step of the way in the learning process, demanding your exclusive attention if you expect her to do anything. Each time I set her something she could do by herself for 1 minute so I could help the student next to her, her protestations increased in both volume and viciousness. The other student I was trying to assist began the same behaviour each time I went to assist the other. I lost count of the number of times I was called a “stupid slut” in that hour. Every time you reprimanded their behaviour, they said they were talking about themselves, but the intention was obvious. While this was going on, the principal opened the door with three teachers who had arrived in town to visit my student who was doing some Distance Education subjects. She said pleasantly “how are we doing here today?” I explained to her exactly what was occurring, she said that she would not have that behaviour in her school and removed the girls from my class. I had earlier in the year asked her to develop a discipline procedure but I don’t think she realized how confronting these girls could be on occasion. She had said just send them to the office, but these girls when in that mood just walk out the door after a few choice words and go home.

The poor visiting teachers looked at me apologetically and said “bad day” but I smiled and said “just another day”. Despite these events, I had great success with 3 other students today and this outweighed the negative. You just have to remember the chaos and lack of boundaries that these kids live with. You are the first that is saying no or letting them know that certain behaviours are not acceptable. They are behaving exactly as they see their parents behave- totally ego-centred.

Katrina, the principal later informed me that the students said in defense that they were allowed to talk to their teachers at Frog Hollow this way (this is a community about 30 km down the highway and many of our students alternate between the two schools). Katrina said to them that if that is the case she would immediately drive them there as they were not welcome here when they behaved that way. She took them both home and that was the last I saw of the worst behaved one for the rest of the week. I actually met the teachers from Frog Hollow later in the week, and they themselves are grateful when those students come to our school as they have exactly the same issues with them.

The rest of the class then settled down and some good work was done. Despite the difficulties, although extremely challenging at times, I wouldn’t be back with my angelic MSJ girls for quids. When you reach a student and engage them here, the possibility to turn their life around is so great that the rewards are enormous.

Lake Argyle taken from the Ord dam lookout. Once you pass through the narrow opening

you can see toward the back the dam opens up and is enormous.

 Again we started the day with breakfast at the Boab Café and bookshop. Now you might think it is a little extravagant to back up for this treat after last night, but let me assure you, where we are the only option is the Turkey Creek Roadhouse and it is no culinary delight. The only money we spend while in Warmun is buying bread and the occasional ice cream. We think when we come to town we are entitled to be reminded about the delights of civilization.

The owner of the cafe is an ex schoolie. The business just got so big he had to give up teaching. The coffee is so good as he imports it from the East Coast and pays $40 a kilo for it. He was telling us that he was recently vandalized. All the windows were smashed; his bookshelves were all toppled over then covered in milk. His internet café was trashed. It is hard to believe it took the police so many hours to contact him after the event as the Police station is almost behind the café in the next street. Kununurra has lots of problems with vandalism, burglaries and anti-social behaviour at night. As we are located 2km from the community in Warmun and the students are given very clear instructions that our homes are out of bounds, we do not have this problem at all.

Today we headed off to see the Ord River Scheme and Lake Argyle.  When at full capacity I believe this dam holds about 12 times Sydney Harbour. This lake is so large it is classified as Australia’s only inland sea, storing about 10 760 million cubic litres of water.  It would have cost a fortune to construct due to the remote location, and was the consequence of some wealthy cattle barons convincing the state government that this could become the next food bowl for Australia. The town of Kununurra came into existence in 1963 as workers moved in for its construction.  It to date has been a disaster considering the enormous expense involved. Rockmelons, sugar and a few other fruits grow well, but almost every other staple they tried, including rice and wheat failed. They either succumbed to disease or were unable to survive the extremes of climate. They are currently conducting trials on tomatoes and sandalwood (whose oil forms the basis of most perfumes). They are also experimenting again with cotton. This was disastrous before as during the Wet Season insects proliferate and destroyed the crops which necessitated the use of broad spectrum insecticides. These had serious impacts on the local food webs. They are now looking at growing cotton only during the Dry Season, when the insects are much lower in number.

Currently about 14 000 hectares are irrigated and used for growing crops. This is to be expanded in future years to another 70 000 hectares. The hydro electricity project on Lake Argyle has also meant that 60 million litres of diesel fuel no longer needs to be imported into the region and the greenhouse problems associated with its use.

The lake supports about 240 species of birds, which is 1/3 of Australia’s total. It has 900km of shoreline that supports an abundance of creatures. Standing at the lookout it certainly was impressive and we were at the narrow low end. Apparently once you pass through the narrow opening its expanse is then enormous, but only accessible by boat. These tours only run during the dry so we will come back then as Mike has done it and says it is great. The Lake is currently about 20 metres below capacity. This is because at the weir they are releasing water at the rate of 10 000 litres per second so they can do some construction work.

Once we returned to the main road we continued along only about 6km and hit the Northern Territory border.  I did not realize that Kununurra was only 37 km from the border. Now I am really pumped to get those boys Toad Busting as they are just over the border.

The day was completed with a relaxing afternoon with Rod and Leanne (our deputy and her husband) who were staying at a flasher establishment than us in Kununurra. Once again we felt like we had a great time away and yet it was still only Saturday night.

After playing football all day yesterday, Mike had said to his boys that if they were injured to stay home and rest on Friday. He was exhausted himself from having so many turn up all week and knew that if they were all tired and cranky together, the consequences for behaviour could be dire.  He had a class of only 2 today. I had 5 girls. Always on Friday the absenteeism is high as every second week it is payday and parents head off to the bright lights of Kununurra.

The staff had decided that for Project Compassion (a special Lent appeal that raises money for the world’s poor) we would have a Mission Fair on St Joseph’s Day. The sisters who began the school are Sisters of Saint Joseph and so this was a good opportunity to reinforce with the students the historical past of the school. Sister Mary is still here, but last year saw the last Josephite principal. I had decided that my High School Girls could run a nail and crazy hair stall. We spent some time in class today making posters and one of the young girls announced this to the rest of the school on assembly. We worked together to prepare her speech and then I made her practice numerous times. Another student had a dummy spit because she wanted to do it first. As she would not practice in front of me I said I could not let her get up on assembly as I had to make sure she would not embarrass us.

We all have to take turns in running assembly and this was Myfanwy’s turn. As she is not Catholic, relatively shy and in her first year of teaching, the prospect of running assembly had terrified her since the beginning of the year. She did a fantastic job. Juliette’e class stood up and showed their clouds they made also. They were so little and so cute.

Myfanwy had booked Comet into the vet in Kununurra and we had decided to take her so once again we raced out the door quickly on a Friday afternoon for the dog’s appointment at 3.30. It may seem a luxury to you that we finish so early on a Friday, but many services here simply do not open on a weekend, and so if you don’t get away early on Friday you miss out. Last week I had to get my “Working with children” form witnessed at the post office. They are so pedantic about this that I had presented it before but because the principal had completed her section in blue ink it was rejected. The next time I went back I had arrived without a letter confirming that Warmun was my permanent address and so we were waiting on Katrina to fax through on school letterhead confirmation of this. It was touch and go whether it would arrive before the 5pm closing time. If it had not, it would have meant another 400km return trip the next Friday.

Again we stayed at the caravan park by the lake, but this time we could not see any crocodiles. We also went back to the Country Comfort for it’s Friday pool side drinks but this time decided that menu inside was so much nicer than pizza. We ordered a selection of entrees to share that were truly delicious: crocodile and prawn skewers with perri perri sauce on a bed of fresh salad greens, Japanese scallops with goats’ cheese and special chutney, Moroccan lamb cutlets with a boab shoot salad. Delicious the lot!

As we pulled into the Post Office car park this afternoon Juliette said how much she loves coming to Kununurra now. As I drove back to the caravan park after dark she stated “wow mum, look at all the bright lights. It’s just like fairy land”. I thought this was so funny coming from a kid who calls Sydney home. The darkness in Warmun is just so complete hat the few street lights of a town as small as Kununurra she now finds dazzling. I love the fact that she is not oblivious to these details.