Hughes Kimberley Calling

Today the girls had a workshop presented by an organization called Circle of Life. It involved videos, role plays and discussions about pregnancy and childbirth. Almost all indigenous women are mothers before they are 18 years old. Many are grandmothers by 30. Unfortunately the statistics for their births are alarming. Many babies are born underweight, with foetal alcohol spectral disorder and then suffer serious levels of neglect. Much of this is because of the social disorder now, there are no longer many good mothering role models and all the knowledge of birth and childcare is no longer passed on as their traditional midwives are few and far between.

Julie the presenter had warned me that often the students are too shy to participate and so I may have to take part in the role plays. She had a great variety of props which included a variety of plastic food, a joint, baby, placenta and umbilical cord, clamp, scissors, umbilical pegs, pelvis, beer cans etc. The most important props she had was a variety of coloured wigs. Once the girls saw the long flowing locks in various hues they were hooked. There was no shyness about them.

The role plays were based around 2 couples: the first couple was doing everything right for a healthy baby, while the second couple were doing everything wrong. Since so much of what they live with is couple 2, they were fantastic at knowing exactly how this couple behaved. In the first scenario they were visiting the obstetrician and discussing their pregnancy (complete with the couple drinking beer and smoking ganja outside the waiting room). The second scenario was the birth and the girls had us in hysterics with their antics.

For as funny as it was the girls got the message and could discuss the dangers and the appropriate behaviour. Julie was pleased with how much zeal the girls participated. The reality is something else though. I can imagine that the frustration of one’s potential and lack of opportunity does contribute to early pregnancy simply from boredom. The mental anguish that results and the immersion in a drinking culture will result in many of these girls becoming alcoholics. It is certainly a bleak outlook for them. At 12 years old, many have had their implanon contraceptive inserted under their skin and I pray that pregnancy is not their fate for some time to come. They are such beautiful kids they deserve some of the delights the world has to offer.

Today I sent an email to Toadbusters at Kununurra just informing them of the arrival of the toad in Warmun, thinking they would be interested but nothing more.

We again had Blue Earth, our PE subject with June. This is the last time we can combine the girls and boys as it is just far too stressful and they cannot behave appropriately. In one hour of time we probably only got 25 minutes of physical exercise done as we waited for the fights and carry on to cease. It was a very stressful time and we decided we had reached the end of what we could deal with. June would not be taking Blue earth for the last 2 weeks of term as she was visiting the desert schools. We would do our own thing, with Mike concentrating on footy and I on basketball.

Juliette begged to take Treston, her heart throb to the roadhouse for an icecream. It was so cute to watch them with their big smiles and crazy antics. They were both having so much fun. Tonight she was to have a dream about Treston, that he was a prince and she the princess and they married and lived happily ever after. She did say that he had white skin in her dream as she had not seen any Aborigine princes in her fairy stories. I told her, in Aborigine culture they had their own princesses and princes.

Today for our staff meeting we had requested the presence of the community CEO, Chris to join us. As teachers we were reaching the end of our tether with some of the students’ behaviour and wished to know if the community could help us tackle this problem. He arrived at our meeting holding a dead cane toad by its toes. This had been presented to him by the community store manager as it had arrived alive off a truck from Darwin. This was the furthest into WA the toads had travelled and would prove devastating to this community and their survival on bush tucker if it was followed by others.

I claimed the toad as I believed that it was a historically significant specimen for the community and I would preserve it for them and keep in the science lab. The kids would be so interested after their response in our science lessons when I discussed the impact its arrival would have on the local food web.

Our meeting was positive and Chris promised to take our concerns to the council. Together as a community we would try to reduce the antisocial behaviour by calling the students and their carers before the council to account for their actions. He would also organize a community meeting that all parents would be expected to attend. Let’s hope something positive comes from this.

Summer reading the girls’ stories.

One of the most delighful friends I have made up here is Summer. Her and her husband Damian live in a caravan on site at the roadhouse. Damian is a surveyor and this is the second Dry season they have been here as he works as a contractor on the road building project for Team Savannah. They are doing major realignment and bridge building on the highway. This bridge is necessary as Telegraph Creek was the reason we missed our flight to Broome and it halts traffic between Darwin and Broome, a major highway, whilst it is flooded.

Summer is a journalist, and expecting their first baby. She worked as a reporter on the Gold Coast for channel seven. Now she does corporate work from the comfort of their caravan. We meet and go walking together most mornings just after sunrise. We have just clicked and both appreciate each other’s company greatly.

I had been talking with Summer about how excited the girls were by with their creative writing efforts and I asked her would she come to class and read their efforts. She was my special guest this morning and she read the storiesfor the girls in her best news reading voice. She also discussed with the girls what her job entails and how she makes her living using words. She then showed them a number of video clips of her presenting stories on the news. For a final treat she taught the girls how to introduce a news bulletin on the radio. They all had a go and had lots of fun.

Today we had a wonderful school assembly. It is not often the High School are able to share their work as it is not colourful and their Maths is not entertaining. Today the girls shared their creative writing stories. I read them out in my best fairy telling voice and the younger kids were amazed at how exciting their stories were. The girls themselves were too shy to read their own stories, but they were very keen for me to read them. It was great to see their big smiles and the cheers from the other students.

The boys also shared their work on assembly. They have been working on animations in Technology and these were projected on to the big screen. The kids laughed and loved watching the characters and their antics. We then had numerous awards to distribute and at the end everyone felt a real lift as it was a great celebration of what the kids can do.

Yesterday Juliette confided that the boys in her class were trying to kiss her. I spoke to her teacher about this as she seemed quite upset. This afternoon she came home and told me that she too had been sneaking kisses off one of her peers. She has great taste as he is a delight, with the hugest smile and most gorgeous nature. Sister Alma, last year’s principal sent a message to Juliette to tell her that he was already her boyfriend. The boys just adore her as do all the kids because she is so full of life, friendly and has an imaginary world and range of fairy dresses second to none.

Tonight we relaxed around the fire and once again were joined by the local constabulary and various other friends under a star filled sky. Juliette had been playing in a large box making it her home. We found her fast asleep curled up inside of it.

This afternoon the Drug and alcohol programme began at Mirrilingki. This is a programme to encourage people to remain grog free. It consists of people who have been sober for a long time right up to people who are currently alcoholics and may have had to attend or be locked up. The programme is organized by Sister Theresa, the Josephite sister who began the school in the community all those years ago. They bring their families and live in for a fortnight and attend a variety of counseling and health sessions.

A couple of Juliette’s class mates had families staying at the programme and so this afternoon she was joined at home by a girl and a boy from her class. A couple of Mike’s students also dropped by for a nulinga (cup of tea). One of these older boys brought Juliette over a painting he had done and presented her with it. The little boy from her class (who was not her love interest who she had been kissing) sensed some competition and so ran back and brought over his art work for her. She loves all this attention I can tell you.

Grass fires in front of Barrumundi Dreaming Mountain Range. This range is an integral part of the Dreaming for the women of our community, it is a womens sacred space. The Argyle Diamond mine cuts this range in half. Aboriginals do not believe in ownership of land, but rather you are the custodian of it for future and past generations while you walk upon it. This is such an important aspect of their culture that they walk barefoot upon the land to maintain this bond. Many are deeply disappointed that in their negotiations with the multinational they never fully understood the extent of the operations and feel ashamed that they have not been good custodians of the land for their ancestors.

It is hard for those of you who have never been to the tropics to explain how great the contrast in seasons is. We have had no rain since February. The cracks in the ground are widening. In the part of our yard where we do not water, they are now about 5 cm wide. The ground which a few months ago was so moist and sodden has slowly dried and the dust is fine and powdery. The countryside, which on our arrival was a lush green, and full of so much life, is now brown spinifex, dry and brittle as all the moisture has gone. The bones on the bulls are becoming more obvious through their hides, and the gardens are their favourite havens as they are desperate for moisture.

As you drive along the highway you see the columns of smoke from grass fires which dot the countryside. At times the flames lick the sides of the roads, but these are not the ferocious fires of the gum forests that we have down south. These just burn gently, the flames only reaching a metre or less above the ground. Above the fire there are always eagles circling, waiting for an animal that is fleeing the flames. When you drive by a fortnight later, the ash is covered by a blanket of dark green new grass shoots.

During the Wet season, the night time temperature rarely fell below 20 degrees, and the humidity was constant. This meant that those parts of your body where perspiration gathered were prone to fungal infections. The microbes too make hay while the rain falls. Colds, ring worm, tummy bugs etc , etc afflicted our students constantly.

The Dry presents a different set of difficulties. Your skin is so dry, that your eyes are sometimes irritated and Juliette is being driven crazy by her nose. The mucus membanes and skin that line the inside of your nose are generally slightly moist from breathing in air with water vapour in it. Here, the humidity is so low now that this skin dries out so much it peels away almost daily.

The temperature though is delightful, a pleasant 10 degree low during the night, great for sleeping,with very crisp mornings. Then the days can be anything from 25 to 35. On one day it was 12 degrees at 6 am and 24 at 9am, so it quickly warms up. Because the days are still so warm, the night stands in such contrast, and so I feel cold very quickly here. The other morning I walked with a beanie and scarf and was wishing I had gloves.

Today I decided on a new discipline approach with the girls. They loved my student of the day award, and some asked me from 9 am could they be the student of today. I had successfully overcome this idea of being shamed by being noticed. Almost none of my students have parents who work in a conventional job to earn a living. A couple have artists as parents, one a teachers aide, and one has a mum who works on the road crew. This community though has a definite welfare mentality.

In an attempt to convey skills appropriate for the work place I changed the student of the day to Employee of the day. I explained what an employee was and how many students in the cities had jobs at their age. There is no way these kids would survive at Maccas getting $7 an hour, as they hit their parents and grandparents up for $50 at a time. Many resort to verbal abuse if their grannies fail to cooperate. So as the day proceeded I would reprimand any poor behaviour by saying they were sacked, explaining that you cannot speak to the boss like that if they were rude;  when they complained that they did not want to do something I asked, I told them that in the workplace the boss is not going to ask them what they would like to do; if they were too distracted and did not complete the work they had to stay in and complete unpaid overtime.

The reward for being student of the day was now the opportunity to do a couple of hours in the pre-primary or year 1 and 2 class as a teacher assistant. They loved to do this and so it was a great motivator. Also, it was a chance to show responsibility. Next term I  will hopefully expand the tasks on offer to include administrative work and also have their supervisor complete a form on their work readiness. Slowly, slowly we are making progress.

Today the students continued with their work on fractions. It is quite amazing how much they love Maths. Still though, as soon as they do not understand something they yell for your attention and dummy spit like crazy when you do not give it instantly. I suppose at least in Maths there is far less language to deal with and for all of these students, English is  second language. Kriol is what most speak at home with a smattering of Gidja.

Each Wednesday afternoon we have a teacher June who comes from Kununurra to teach Blue Earth. This is like physical education but based on lots of different games that develop various physical motor skills, how to work as a member of a team and most importantly some kind of cooperation.

We have been trying to have the high school boys’ and girls’ do this lesson together. As they have almost no capacity to work together. Many of these kids would already be sexually active, have lots of violence between the sexes role modelled at home and have almost no capacity for anger management.

So far almost every lesson has been extremely challenging as they are just so rude and physical with each other. The teacher June has the patience of a saint and the kids adore her. Over the couple of years that she has been coming, she has gifted many of the students with joggers, socks etc.

It was June’s birthday today and it seems out of respect for her the kids were brilliant. We had our best ever session. I am sure that next week it will be a disaster again.

Mike gets large numbers (around 15) every day. His roll contains 22 students and only 1 student lives under the roof with a mum and dad. Many of the rest either wander from house to house each night looking for somewhere to stay, are being raised by single mums or raised by a grandmother with numerous other children.

To make things worse he is now having added to his class roll those boys that have been expelled from their boarding schools and returning to the community. It breaks my heart to see him so down but the boys give nothing back. They love him dearly and come in the highest numbers they have had in a while, but the tension that exists in that classroom all day every day is wearing him down They have no aspirations and never attempt to rise up to a challenge like the girls do for me.

Everyday I begin with Mathematics. Since the girls stroll in over a 1 ½ hour window, this is the easiest subject to begin with as all the students are working on their own programmes of study. In contrast, we are expected to have a very structured Accelerated Literacy lesson. It was a disaster when I started with this as you were forever interrupted as the next one strolled in, and if no one arrived before 8.30 you had lost so much of your lesson.

Now that I have got them all working at their own pace and tick them off against the learning outcomes as they achieve a new skill, they are pumped and don’t want to stop Maths. I suppose making incremental measureable gains is more motivating than something as huge as literacy, where incremental gains in reading are hardly noticeable but require a huge effort.

I chastised a number of my girls who consistently arrived late as they were not gaining any knowledge of Maths. They retorted that at least they came. I said that in the work force the boss is not going to take that attitude.

This afternoon we had an Aboriginal musician, Peter Brandy work with the students. Peter has won numerous Indigenous music awards and some of his music has been used in TV shows. His involvement with the students is sponsored by the Save the Children fund and is aimed at building self-esteem within the kids.

Last year he worked with the kids to write a song based on Warmun. This year they were going to record this with the kids singing. They were making a CD which featured other Indigenous people that were involved in their programmes in the area. One of these was a song writing group for young Aboriginal fathers. They would come together, teach the fathers’ how to interact with their children and then spend some time developing a support group, using song writing as the glue that bound them together. This group of fathers is now known as the Deadly’s (this is the Aboriginal word that covers anything that is great).

Peter has a beautiful song that is probably his most famous called Long Time Ago. He drew a picture and explained to the kids that this tells of the story of a group of Aboriginals who lived on the banks of the Ord River near Wyndham. As the family group was crossing, the old man was at the end of the line and was taken by a large crocodile. It was obvious that Peter was held in great esteem by the kids as they were the best behaved I had ever seen them.

Now Peter is related to a number of members of the Warmun community and so I was surprised that when I asked where he was having dinner that night he replied the roadhouse. I invited him to join us instead. It seems that Peter has had his own battles with alcohol in the past and is now keen to distance himself from those negative influences. It is almost like a badge of honour amongst those that drink to get someone to successfully fall off the wagon.

Over dinner, Peter and I were discussing the problems on the African continent and he made the observation that almost all places that have a strong connection to sorcery have huge problems. He shared his experiences with some of the men who practice sorcery in Halls Creek. This town has a large following who believe in the supernatural, and Peter blamed this for part of their dependence on alcohol and the huge social problems that have occurred there as a result. The Indigenous are incredibly superstitious. It never ceases to amaze me how genuine their belief in huge creatures that will kill them if they venture into a different groups country is.

After dinner Peter pulled out his guitar around our campfire. He has a wonderful mellow voice. A crackling fire, beautiful melodies, good friends gathering, a million stars above- what more could one ask for. Life here can be really great.

We had received a request from one of the St Aloyisius parents from Mike’s school in Sydney of she could pass our blog address on to a journalist friend. Her friend works for a parenting magazine and had been asked by her editor to write an article for their Fathers’ Day edition. When she had heard about what we were doing this year she thought it would make a great story about a father doing something a little different with his family.

She emailed us a long list of questions that she would ask on a telephone interview. Mike and I sat down together and answered the questions. We emailed them back to her in case we were not a suitable story possibility.

Mike spent 1 ½ hours with her on the phone today and she was very excited about the things we had raised in answering her questions. I thought we would just be one of a number of stories about Fathers’ Day, but it seemed we were it.

Tonight we had no mass as no priest was available. Those of you in capital cities have trouble getting priests; you can just imagine the challenges we have here. Since the parish priest finished at the end of last year, they have been unable to find a new permanent priest and so the fill ins have come from far and wide: rural NSW and India.

We awoke with our tent facing beautiful Lake Kununurra. As the dawn breaks many photographers come to photograph the magnificent scenery and bird life. I was amazed that with the peak tourist season, tent sites were now occupied right on the shore of the lake, about 1 metre from the reeds. This is the very same place where only months before on our first visit here we had spotted about 30 pairs of beady eyes glaring at us from the water. Salt water crocs have also been spotted in there.

This morning we breakfasted at the Kununurra markets which operate on a Saturday morning during the peak season in the local park in the centre of town. It never ceases to amaze me how in a place where we have only lived for such a short period of time, we always find so many people we know. We had managed to meet Summer and Joan from Warmun for brekky but also ran into countless others.

The markets are great as the locally grown fresh produce is now ripe and we are no longer tied to the days old produce from Coles that has been transported half way around the country. The frozen mango cups are also something else.

We headed back to Warmun around lunch time. Had a nice dinner together and then had a number of people gather at our campfire after dinner, including the obligatory visit from the local police on duty.