Mama-ku Christmas

It was a quiet, merry Christmas today in Blackstone. Eleanor was presented with an enormous trampoline (it didn't look that big in the box), which now dominates the backyard. While I was initially worried that it would be out of bounds during the day with the heat blooming on the dark mat, I realised with one stroke that the hose would be enough to turn that problem around.

The view

So early morning, I finally got to properly see the view from the back yard. On tippy toes, it's always seemed good. But in one second bouncing bursts, trouser hems wet, it was even better. Enhanced by the view over our neighbour's yard and highlights of the community to the west. I was reminded of the joy of simple play as a child, and briefly recaptured the moment (only this time without fear of plummeting through the springs on landing).

I am yet to see if the trampoline was a good idea. Eleanor loves it, so it scores top marks there. The main concern is that it will attract lots of bored kids to jump the fence into our backyard when we're away. While I'm perfectly happy for kids to bounce, the problem is that generally it doesn't stay at that. Bouncing turns to disagreements, which becomes frustration and then anger. The nearest thing takes the brunt of all that miniature burst of pure energy, and there is much to vent one's feelings on in the backyard. Fingers crossed ...

The day progressed apiece. After ambling through only half of the food we'd prepared, much of it spontaneously generated with the useful help of Fred's new iPad and online recipes, we marshalled to join the local police sargeant who had opened the pool for the afternoon. A kind gesture by him to give of his time, and one much appreciated by the kids.

The first thing Al said to me when I arrived was 'you wouldn't have thought there were this many kids in the community!' Indeed, it was packed full of leaping, backflipping, dunking, laughing bodies. At least 25 or 30, with more coming in and out, enjoying the rare opportunity to use the pool so tantalisingly close but sadly locked most of the time.

Unfortunately there is no youth worker at Blackstone at present. There seems to be inordinate trouble getting youth workers, paying for them and then encouraging them to stay. When the Shire hurdles the former two, the latter normally knees them after six months. It's a thankless task being a youth worker. Working late shifts, always in demand, constantly needing to find something new to do with limited resources, remote management. Since the best youth workers are young themselves, the sense of adventure wears off after a few months and the job just doesn't seem that attractive anymore. The only ones I know who have stayed have either been community members or temporary visa holders seeking permanent residency.

This evening, as the night closed in, the sounds of the community church wandered over the sky. Hymn songs in language. The unique cadence of the chairman's voice by megaphone, drifting across to the edge of the community.

Christmas lights on solar softly twinkling, the summer glare put to good use. The day is done.

Go quietly

I had a pretty stressful day today.

When I came home and lay in the hammock, the first thing that popped into my head was this: the only people who had a unified view on today's situation were Aboriginal staff and those living closest with them in their communities.

As always,  I am struck by the immense power of culture. About what we take to be normal, and therefore unexamined, and how we interpret 'abnormal'.

Take a simple, and perhaps innocuous thing like 'bad' language. While staying at my brother's house not that long ago, I because acutely aware of the different standards of what we would each regard as acceptable language. I counselled my daughter on a few occasions that while Daddy or Mummy might say certain words, they weren't okay where we were staying.

Personally, I think 'butt crack' is a funny way to describe someone's bottom, but clearly that's just my sense of humour! I'm not particularly fussed by the word 'bugger' either as a general expression of frustration. After doing protective behaviours, I also try to focus on using the proper names for private parts to demystifying for children and adults alike what is basically just a word for a body part. All these revelations were from within my own culture context. What about a context where cultural values and their manifestations in personal and social interactions were markedly different?

Living here, I hear a lot of swearing from the kids. Now that I know a bit of the local language, I'm even more aware of the frequency of swearing. The 'f'word is thrown around a bit, but that doesn't seem to worry the parents.Who am I to judge?

In fact, who I am to know? There is a whole lot more here that is different from other places. People encourage little kids to retaliate physically when they are aggrieved. I remember being slightly shocked when I heard another staff member telling me that he'd observed a parent gently encouraging their baby to 'stone' (ie throw little rocks) at a toddler sibling who was annoying her.

Clearly not something that falls within the Western parenting values repertoire, but the existence of this little moment in time indicates a much larger, substantially different way of dealing with conflict. A way of dealing with conflict that is more open, more immediate and more physical.

There are undeniably times when that physical expression of emotions tips the line and becomes violence. The bar where this occurs, however, is not where I draw it. It is where it is drawn within the culture of the people concerned, and within the bounds of the law generally. Making judgment calls on physical displays of emotion as indicative of a broader malaise is, however, a very risky thing to do with confidence.

I am very tempted by the idea of what it would feel like to truly walk in the shoes of another. Where daily the world is unpredictable, when my culture meets the culture of the mainstream. The power of the mainstream. When having an open fire, instead of a barbeque or a kitchen, is a matter worthy of note. When interactions seemingly innocuous snowball exponentially into events of monumental personal proportions.

There is a general quiet, reserved wariness I notice in Aboriginal people I meet for the first time. As if perhaps I am being tested for the true quality of our time together. Is it with good intent or to judge? It takes a while to get past this, to begin to communicate as much as possible that I see their way of living as inherently valid as my own.

To walk in their shoes is a journey unimaginable in my mind. The gulf is too great. Making the gulf all the more important to note before I and others take a flying leap into the void between us.

Loaded up

The past three weeks, since returning to Blackstone, I have been on a clean out blitz. So far, at least 10 boxes of junk have gone to the tip. Six bags of clothes and toys are stored at Warburton, pending the opportunity to sell them at a discount rate. Two large boxes of books have been set aside to start the Blackstone Coffee Club book exchange.

And still I'm cleaning out. I've only done two rooms so far. I'm yet to finish the study or look into odd cupboards and storage areas that I generally avoid (under the bed, hall cupboard, and so on).

What amazes me is how much stuff we seem to accumulate. Most of it we use rarely. As I wonder whether to chuck out a small plastic car with a popular brand toy driver (currently a hot favourite with Eleanor), I can see why I still seem to have so much left even after all my hard work so far.

Be ruthless, I say to myself. But with every snap decision to 'just keep this, just in case', I find myself reflecting instead on how hard it is to get rid of things. Things that I've spent time earning the opportunity to purchase, with little apparent value in the end. Was it really worth it?

Which leads me to the old man that we helped on his way the night before last. We came across him, by the side of the road, front wheel off, digging a small hole to make room for the spare. With the help of jack lever, and some grunt work from Fred, he continued on to sleep with family that night in Jameson.

What struck me, however, was the extraordinarily utility of every single thing he had with him in that old, nearly falling apart, nearly empty car. The car worked (albeit a bit noisy with the muffler off). He had a spare wheel. Some tools. A torch and a knife. He said he was prepared to bunk down on the side of the road if we hadn't come past. With his bottle of water, some billy tea, a can of tinned meat.

The only thing he said he was missing was a box of matches. (I would add a working jack, but we had one). Not a bad effort.

Our car, by contrast, was so full there was no way we could have offered him a lift without ditching some stuff.

Which makes me wonder. Is all this really worth it? Is all this really necessary? Is it indeed better to have just barely enough, and fill in the gaps with the kindness of strangers and family?

I suspect so.

Child centred

Blackstone community playgroup

I was asked the other day, in the typically direct style of my manager, whether I was being 'child centred'. I was a little astounded at the time. Being child centred was exactly what I was doing.

The asking, however, alerted me to a singular fact. That my idea of the 'child' was markedly different. So different in fact that my discussion appeared to be about other people in the child's life, not the child in question.

I am happy I was asked the question, however, for that one point in time helped clarify something that has been exercising me of late.

To put it starkly, I have been quite concerned that perhaps I am spearheading an altogether new type of stolen generation. The generation that intervenes in the lives of children out of their best interests. That characterises their best interests in such a way as to make their current lives seem untenable.

That so tarnishes their everyday existence that almost any alternative has to seem better.

Does it sound familiar? Do we all, each in our own generation, make personal and community decisions with the best of intent that are fundamentally misguided. How will we look back on this time, with the benefit of hindsight from 2061?

Will the markings I make on indelible electronic records be scoured over with simmering outrage by future researchers, not even yet a faint possibility in their yet unborn parents eyes? (There is considerable optimism in this future forecast - the assumption of a world that continues to sustain historical inquiry as an endeavour both worthy and necessary).

In any case, assuming the world continues as it is, how will my small part in it come to be regarded many years hence?

I'm not preoccupied with my personal record, more my personal values. Is this action now, quite simply, right or wrong?

A wise guide once told me 'you just know, when it feels wrong'.This intuitive affirmation has been a useful lighthouse for me in many decisions. Working back from a wrong feeling to work out why, then coming forward again with a clear rationale.

Which leads me back to the original question. Was I being child centred? The wrong feeling I got was steeped in a profound sense of disadvantage. The voice of the family so quiet, so solitary, so unique as to be effectively inaudible in our perfect English conversation.

Yes, this is wrong. This child is with family, on country. Visible. In fact, more visible than many. The many we do not see who in fact need the brutal, scarifying light of our attention.

Instead, we turn to those who are least like us and ask about 'the child'. As if the child is somehow able to be considered separate from his parents, his culture, his community, his identity. As if the child can somehow be distilled down to an essential blood and bone, a statement of milestones and achievements and little else.

For discussing the parents is discussing the child. Discussing the community is discussing the child. The child is more than just that. The child is part of a bigger whole.

While I think there are times when the child's 'best interests' seems to outweigh all those people that in fact make up who the child is, the times when this are true in my world are rare indeed.

A mirror and a window

I received an email from a good friend. It makes me cry each time I read it (which has not been often, for exactly that reason). I have been prevaricating about how best to respond.

On the way home today, I realised this was indeed the best way to respond.

Openly. Opaque, yes, for the general reader. But an open letter, nevertheless, which is important in itself.

Good friendships come rarely in life. Good friendships across generations perhaps even rarer (maybe for want of opportunity rather than any other inherent reason). Friendships of a certain deep hue need to be treasured, nurtured, sustained.

I have always prided myself on being a protector of such friendships. They have been precious to me in ways that fill a hole in my soul, excavated in the lonely rooms and halls and open spaces of institutional living.

I wonder sometimes what kind of end my aged body will come to, if indeed I make it long enough to age well. I linger on the thought that perhaps I will come (almost) full circle back to one of the more instrumental times in my life, institutional living.

I hope that I will die at home, in my bed, with loved ones nearby. That would be a lucky death indeed.

Death and life are intimately woven into each other, much as we choose not to acknowledge this.

I have become quite attuned to the possibility of imminent death. Passing road trains. A sliding turn on a freshly gravelled road. Another funeral. The sight of a small child going face first into the water, so close but too far.

It feels very near. I idly wonder on long journeys if perhaps I'll get cancer. I morbidly consider if a recent bruise heralds the onset of leukaemia. Or if one of my many moles will turn on me while I blithely smooth sunscreen on my face daily.

Having had very little experience of death, I feel its presence near. When will my luck run out? And when it does, will it be sudden and I will have had no time to say.

That I forgive you. That I choose not to forget either. That I hold certain moments precious in the memory of my life.

I feel the same way and I'm sorry too. We'll be friends again and take our imperfect perfect selves along for the ride.

Dazzling white all around

I'm back. At last. Heave a huge sigh of relief (it's been a long short time away).

Like all spells in a different country, it's been a very productive time for self reflection. Helped no doubt by studying a complementary uni subject (aka Critical Reflective Practice) and some significant personal challenges.

I've been mulling over this post for a while. As seems to always happen, my creative juices start to flow as soon as I hit the long red dusty roads again. Already I've clocked up 1700k and it's only been a week and a day since I stepped onto the tarmac at Kalgoorlie airport.

Now I have to distil my experiences of four months in Toowoomba into one return blog. The result: the dazzling power of white.

Undoubtedly one of the most interesting things to strike me about my work back in the 'mainstream' is just how transferable what I've learnt is to other cross-cultural situations.

I can't get away from just how damn white I actually am. The odd 'look and feel' of that statement first struck me when I was reading an article about working with Aboriginal people. It posed the interesting question of what answer you would give to someone who came up to you on the street and said (all casual and chatty, in good interview style) "so, what's it feel like to be White?"

The question in fact seems ludicrous. Umm, what do you mean? the most likely puzzled response.

You know, White, non-Indigenous, Caucasian, Westerner. White.

Oh, um, I'm not sure. It feels ok, I guess.

It's a pretty hard question to answer. But unless I stop to ask it (and I only just avoided bringing you all into my assumed white loop, by not saying 'we' just then), I will hardly have the self awareness to see where I daily go wrong.

A fun way to spend the day - for some!

For example, my first question, after introducing myself to a refugee community leader: 'So, what do you do?' This I asked to someone who only 2 years ago was living in a refugee camp, who had arrived in Australia, learnt a new language, found somewhere to stay, navigated enormous personal and social change, and commenced study for a new future. And my opening fallback question is what does he do for a job! What on earth was I thinking?... or rather, wasn't thinking.

As it turned out, that meeting proved to be one of the highlights of my Toowoomba stay. At the end of a fascinating, engaging conversation, we shook hands with genuine feeling and went back to our respective worlds, a small rope bridge thrown out between us. Some shared moments based on the truth of our own experiences, many of which for me were grounded in what I've learned out bush.

My whole time on bitumen has led to not one blog post . The deceptive solidity of the ground beneath me, where (almost) everyone and everything makes sense just as it should.

What grounds us is our culture, but it's not as solid as it seems. In fact, it's a dazzling white fragile fabric beneath.

So while I relentlessly strive for a better, slimmer, more perfect me, what am I leaving in my wake? What values am I fostering in my child, unconsciously, despite the best of intent? Some things can't be shifted by thought or good intention along. They are deeply embedded in the fabric of our daily personal, family and social interactions.

Only by being aware of the threads of that dazzling white, do I begin to see it for what it is. I won't ever be any different, but I hope I can start to better appreciate and value the alternatives. See the strengths where other see the deficits.

See the small child happily playing while others notice only the things around him.

With humble thanks to the team at Mercy Family Services Toowoomba (especially Frances, David, Melina, Nicole, Rachel and Candice - what a great bunch of people and a great place to work!).

A word(le)... watch this space

Click on the thumbnail to see the word picture in more detail

 - all the main words from my blog since it's been created.

I'm soon returning to the blog... one more month.

Kunda (shy)

I am preoccupied tonight by concerns about my shyness.

Not shyness in the usual sense. I think generally people would not regard me as shy. Would be more likely to use words like confident, assertive... maybe reserved.

Undeniably, deeply shy am I. This has been borne home to me this week when I consider how little I know people in the communities I live in. Communities that I have been living in for many years.

How easy it is to engage at a surface level, through the prism of interactions primarily in a non-Indigenous world. Gravitating towards non-Indigenous safety zones. Validating priorities that don't reflect reality outside my working space.

This reinforces to me how deeply culture guides our interactions, for it's not for want of intent or interest on my part that this has occurred. Get out of your cultural depth, and what happens: ghettos. Not in the pernicious sense of the word (although this is certainly possible, at its extreme) but in the sense of familiar worlds. You and me. Not us and them (and we know who we are).

Just like I observe that Eleanor, nearly 3 years old, has a completely different way of interacting socially within her own cultural context and outside it. An easy confidence, quick to play, hesitant to share, but essentially comfortable. In a cross-cultural context, not too bad but her genuine cross-cultural forays are few. Outside her context, she copies what we do. We stand up against the wall with our legs crossed, so does she. We sit on the verandah edge, so does she.

A few people have said to me 'what an experience she's having!' but I know that's not true. She's living in a remote Aboriginal community, but she's really a Westerner in a Western world. She spends 95% of her time with her parents, in our world. She interacts as we do. She's not living a remote Aboriginal life in the way you might imagine it. Those comments about experience presuppose an immersion that she's not having. Her context is Aboriginal, but her experience is Western.

Mainstream suburban living in the Ngaanyatjarra Lands

So as I find out more about where people live and who they live with this week (by virtue of a series of unrelated events), I am struck by a profound awareness that I should know this information already! I live here. Why would I not have a basic awareness of certain family groups, where they generally live, and who they generally are related to?

The reason being is that my contact is tiny compared to the totality of my life here. The reality of an office environment that dictates documentation as proof of accountability. That targets individuals for reasons informed by Western values not local realities. That dictates enormous amounts of travel to neighbouring communities for reasons of efficiency not effectiveness.

And when I have spare time, I chose comfort. Familiarity. Even when I know I shouldn't, and maybe it would help if I just got out more and talked to the family across the road rather than waving a friendly wave as I searched for my front door key.

I'm kunda. Shy. Just as I would be if I were immersed in a culture overseas and sought out the local Western cafe. Just to relax, read a menu in English, and order a drink that makes sense. It's not really experiencing the place, but from outside it certainly looks like you're there (just don't look too hard or you might find it's harder than you think to really be in an unfamiliar place).

Desert discos

Desert discos pump through the night air in small communities. Organised by the boys (and girls) in blue, a rare positive treat from the justice system.

Dusk approaches, trestle tables with music equipment, stands with coloured lights. Little kids gather, their eyes alight. Anticipation.

Coppers and staff mill about, set up barbeques or gather together chips and drinks for small profit sales (profits returning to various events from playgroups to footy jumpers). Dogs congregate, the scent of sausages wafts through the cool night air.

Dusk settles on Blackstone, out the back of the station

In Warburton and Blackstone, discos are held outside the police station on a sweep of lawn kindly laid by the federal government. In other communities, any covered area will do. The community hall, its walls torn and rusted. A bower shelter for the equipment, next to the single power socket, open air for the disco hall.

Cars drive the few hundred metres to disco tunes, filled with families of all ages. Night falls swiftly. The music starts and the air begins to thump, stragglers draw in.

Young men watch the young girls dance. Boys eager to copy music rap videos. Young girls shy and smiling. Little kids toddling, under foot.

The centre of the dance space filled only by the occasional happy worker, moving to familiar tunes of city venues or nostalgic moments past. Young kids ripple around the edges, practising moves. Preparing.

Suddenly a boy darts from the shadows. A rap scene snippet flies from his thin arms and legs, cap turned backwards. The crowd noise rises and he darts away. A second boy jumps out, newly brave. Shorter snippets of TV African American dance, he flees.

Three girls on the sidelines take a few steps forward. Twisting and gyrating in unison, arms flung in simulated abandon above their heads. Hips rotating a mesmerising smooth tight circle. Sexual energy in tiny bodies, emerge and captivate. Kunda (shy), release and hasty retreat.

Occasional bravery pushes one or two girls further forward, abandon increases, spotlight of attention intensifies. The moment cracks, they dart from centre to the comfort of shadows.

Little kids, just standing, dance with easy flow, unmoved by the subtle shifts and tugs of adolescents testing. Rites of passage hiding in the shadows, just behind older siblings and cousins.

The night draws closer and older kids move away, searching out darker shadows, the music a backdrop now.

Gradually dispersing, lengthen and retreat, music still pumping in their ears. The energy fades, back into houses and small fires lit. Another disco night.

Another desert night.

For some of the sounds of the night: The Yabu Band, 'Beautiful Girls'

Low-lying dinosaurs of Ilkurlka

Dinosaurs roam the earth still.

Or so I was led to believe by Fred on our previous trip south on the Aboriginal business road from Wingellina to Tjuntjuntjara.

"I just saw a low-lying dinosaur", he exclaimed as we bounced along the two wheel sandy track.

I was disbelieving, to say the least.

This time, proof.

What do you think?

Should we send out the authorities?