Hughes Kimberley Calling

As I headed off for my sunrise walk this morning my attention was caught by a vision lying across a car bonnet at Mirrilingki. The Drug and Alcohol programme was still on and a collection of older people were gathered around a campfire, warming themselves up as this morning was very chilly. As I ventured closer I got the giggles and was trying not to be rude. Lying across the bonnet was the hind quarter and leg (complete with hoof) of a bullock (or killer as they call it). I asked would they be offended if I photographed it as it was something you did not see in Coles. It was thawing out, lying in the sun, complete with flies.

Today we were doing another creative writing activity in the computer room. I only had 5 students writing stories, whilst another was doing very basic literacy activities from a book for 4-6 year olds. As I could not get around fast enough one girl threw her things on the floor with a “f#$% you then” whilst another typed in hot pink letters in the largest font “f#$% you, you big hole”. It is hard not to lose your temper, but they are just struggling with both their confidence and their literacy, and want you to hold their hand every step of the way. It is very challenging.

After lunch I said we would do Science and then could train for the basketball competition on Friday. As they started complaining and tormenting each other I had a brain snap and for the first time in my 20 years of teaching I wanted to throw a chair in anger. Instead I walked out and slammed the door and took ten minutes to recover. I was not going to jeopardize my career but it was a symptom of the exhaustion and extreme stress this teaching creates. The culture shock, resistance, rudeness and severe under resourcing had taken their toll.

After a while I went back into the room and calmly talked to them about anger management. How they just let fly at the slightest provocation, yet I have to try and be polite and positive at all times. Walking away is often the best option, rather than responding in the heat of the moment. These girls live in a community where violence fuelled by alcohol and a sense of hopelessness is a constant companion. Many of the community are in incarceration due to their inability to control their temper. I did not want this future for these girls but I could see unless something was done many were heading this way. We talked about alternative strategies and they genuinely showed remorse for their actions. It is hard work, but this was one of the few days that I felt it was hopeless.

This evening I had a call from the Toad Busters lady to tell me of all the media interest in our toad. The story made the WA channel seven and nine news and the photograph I had taken of 2 students with the toad formed the background for the story. It was very exciting.

Lyn and Juliette found a dead baby brown snake while on the 4 wheeler.

After her late night I didn’t think Juliette would rise at 5.30 to help with the farm chores, but sure enough as soon as Lyn popped her head in the door she was awake and out of bed. As she dressed (she had packed her bag and would not let me check it at all) she constantly asked as each item was put on “Is this what farmer girls wear?” So, attired in her jeans, riding boots, jumper and pink cowgirl hat complete with tiara and flashing lights, she set off on the 4 wheeler motor bike with Lyn.  Mike and I had the luxury of a sleep in and some time together.

They went off to feed the cows, turn on the irrigation, feed the chooks, collect the eggs, and pick some veggies and fresh grapefruits for brekky.  On returning she helped Lyn set the breakfast table outside. She was absolutely in her element and had slipped into saying “our farm”. Lyn and Damian were equally delighted to have her.

Breakfast was a delight with freshly squeezed pink grapefruit juice which is sweet and tasty, followed by cereal and fresh home baked bread. It was hard not to just sit all day and chat as they are such great company and the lifestyle and scenery is so relaxing. I could feel the stresses of the last few weeks slowly ebbing away.

Eventually we made a move to go into town as we had our fortnight’s shopping to do and were then heading off to the local school fete. Juliette was very excited at this prospect, thinking it would have large rides for entertainment. Once again at the markets we saw so many people we knew and constantly stopped for a chat. The local produce is now in season; the veggies come straight from the farms a couple of kilometres down the road and so are wonderfully fresh.

The school fete was a very humble affair, with the only ride being a merry-go-round type thing run by too old country guys and their dogs. It seriously was a home made job that looked like it had been put together from offerings of the local tip. When there is nothing else on offer the kids learn to make do and so they lined up thinking it was great.

That afternoon back at the farm, Juliette was taken down to the jetty for a fish. She spotted a crocodile in the water nearby as apparently they breed in the reeds. Carl, Lyn’s son was kayaking in the river here when a saltwater crocodile chased him. There are a few salties in the lake but it does not stop the tourists doing canoeing trips. Mike and Damian set off to collect firewood for a campfire tonight as Damian and Lyn insisted we stay again (I don’t think they had their fill of Juliette yet). We did not need much convincing.

We set the table ready for the barbecue and were having nibbles by the fireside when Juliette decided at 6 pm that she was exhausted and wanted to go to bed without dinner. This turned out to be a good thing! We had a wonderful dinner together and were settled into good conversation when Damian threw a huge hollow log onto the fire. After a few minutes, a snake comes out of the log, obviously woken up from its winter hibernation. It slithered out of the log and dropped immediately at Lyn’s feet. She sat still whereas I jumped back and screamed. Damian and Mike were sitting on the other side of the fire and wondered what the commotion was about. Damian thinks snakes are magnificent animals and immediately was over to watch it, transfixed. Luckily Lyn moved as it slithered up and over her camp chair, across the grass and then climbed vertically up high into the branches of the large tree we were sitting under.

That was enough for us to decide it was time to call it a night. Inside we identified it using the Snakes of Western Australia book as a Taipan, only the most venomous snake in the world. It has white flanks (which were bubbled slightly due to the fire) and their heads are very narrow. They are rare in the Kimberley, but the surroundings here were exactly the habitat where it is found.

After this Damian and Lyn regaled us with their snake stories. Pythons in the cupboards, knocking groceries off the shelf during the night, in the chook shed with half a chook down its throat or wrapped around the toilet plumbing when you go for a midnight tinkle. He then told of the venomous encounters: last week a king brown as thick as his forearm was in the middle of the track, feasting on a goanna and how he walked under one of the palms and a whip snake (called so because they strike quickly and often) fell at his feet. I can tell you, that night every noise I heard set my nerves on edge. When we told Juliette of this in the morning she finally believed our warnings of the dangers of the snakes, as she had been sitting in the chair before Lyn and asked if the snake had taken her Barbie.

 The view from Damian and Lyn’s jetty across Lake Kununurrra to Elephant Rock

We had enough of the trials of report writing with extremely slow internet access and headed off to the big smoke of Kununurra for the weekend to kick our heels up and relax. We were staying tonight with Damian and Lyn, who at one stage were the volunteers who ran Mirrilingki. They now worked as volunteers managing the bishop’s mango farm on the banks of Lake Kununurra. Juliette had been so excited all week about going to the farm as she had met Damian and Lyn at Warmun and immediately were captivated by their warmth and love of children.

We arrived at the farm as the sun was setting. It was beautiful, with the farmhouse surrounded by huge old mango trees that cast shadows that gave a welcome respite from the relentless heat. Lyn and Damian have worked hard to restore the farm and its veggie gardens. The house was a long ranch style home of double brick. Almost all homes we have seen since arriving in the Kimberley were either metal dongas (like ours is) or made of corrugated iron so this was a treat to stay in a real home.

Mike and I were catching up with friends from Warmun, Damian and Summer for dinner at the Country Club and Juliette was staying at the farm. From the moment we arrived she was asking us to go out to dinner as she wanted to have Damian and Lyn to herself. She unpacked her bag and made herself at home with all her belongings lined up in the cupboard.

We had a lovely dinner, our first since leaving home without Juliette, a real grown up meal. Damian and Summer are great company but the temperature was freezing. We had dinner on the terrace and after 2 hours of teeth chattering cold I asked could we move inside. It was probably about 15 degrees, but after being warm for so long, my tolerance to cold had disappeared.

When we got home Juliette had only recently fallen asleep, having had great adventures all night such as building cubbies and holding baby turkey chicks. Lyn was going to wake her at 5.30 am to join her with the chores, it would be interesting to see if she preferred to sleep in.

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.