We had a cultural afternoon at school on Friday to try and encourage children to come to school. As we sat on the balcony, painting, the pungent smell of burning kangaroo skin was carried on a whimsical wind. The children didn’t lift their heads from their work but smiles broke out among them and they became more animated. When it was finally time to go down there, the burning skin had long been scraped away, exposing perfectly cooked flesh of pieces of kangaroo tail. The pieces of flesh were ripped into shreds and arranged onto bits of damper. The children pushed and hustled each other in the back of the line, but became perfectly calm the closer they got to the tin roof that covered a small block of concrete.
Within minutes eagles began to circle and dive, and as more approached they seemed to move into what looked like a holding pattern for aeroplanes. As one dived, and flew away they all moved closer to the ground and on by one dived for scraps on the ground. And like one would toss a scrap to a dog, the children absentmindedly flicked pieces away, some of which were swooped up by these magnificent birds before the scrap had become aquainted with the ground.
After the children finished, two old women, sitting on a blue tarp under splatterings of shade from a sickly tree, tapped sticks together and sang with voices that swooped and rose like the eagles. The sound was hauntingly beautiful and despite the breakdown of culture in the lives of our children, they grew quiet. They stopped teasing and listened. It was a feat rarely seen without the promise of soccer…the children became silent.
Some of them got up and danced with another old lady, stamping at the ground with measured severity, and moving their arms to imitate the animal that the song was about. There was one, where they stamped and moved around like they were aeroplanes, and seemed quite different compared to the other dances. One of the Aboriginal teachers told me afterwards that the dance had been a way of telling the story of an American fighter pilot, who, during WWII, lost control of his plane and crashed near Borroloola. The Aboriginal people rescued him and nursed him back to health before returning him to his regiment. This dance, was the embodiment of how recently the traditional culture was more or less intact. As they danced it together on the oval, under the shadow of the eagles, and with kangaroo tail still trapped in their teeth, how, possibly, some culture might still survive.
I spent an entire day by myself yesterday. I had minimal human contact and only left the house at 11.30pm because I was hungry and although i had turned down a dinner invitation from my neighbour, I was hungry and she graciously allowed me to come and get some leftovers to take home.
I did however make a new friend. I had gone to the toilet as one does...and as I flushed, out of the corner of my eye saw a little leg scramble back up under the rim of the bowl. I flushed again to see if it was my imagination and a little frog plopped into the toilet. I had a quick chat to him and went about my business. A few hours later when I returned to the bathroom he was there having a lovely swim. I waited as long as I could, not wanting to pee on my new friend, and also not wanting him to panic and jump onto my backside. Eventually I had to reach in and pick him up, then pee, and after flushing (the sound of which gave him a little fight) I put him back. This lovely interchange occured every few hours until I decided to take him for a walk. He sat with me as I typed some emails, and tucked his legs under his body like a newborn as I cooked some toast.
I called him Greenie after my flatmate who just left Borroloola. She got the name when, on the second weekend we were here, she was wearing a green shirt as we went to a party. Due to the unimaginable stress of the first week of school, the fact that our belongings had not arrived and thus had nothing to cook with and had eaten cheese and crackers for a week and we were both beside ourselevs, we got drunk. After an hour or so Amandas face turned a little green, becoming more green as the night wore on and the drinking games began. After that she became known as Greenie. And now that she is gone...i have a new greenie.
I decided to go for a walk in the late afternoon, just as the shadows begin to creep over the planes, through the streets, their cool breath warning of a chilly night ahead. I put my i-pod in both my ears, though only the left earphone plays music. I walked brisky, my feet melting into the bull dust as i stumbled over the loose corregations in the bush road. Two toddlers wandered in the road ahead of me. On squatted down, her nappy just brushing the dirt, as she looked intently at a rock. Another, no older than three and also wearing a nappy rode around on a two wheeled bike. A younger child toddled naked towards me. I took my earphone from my ear and bent down to say hello, but her mother walked out and stared at me in a manner that told me to move on. I replaced my earphone and continued up the road. The dogs from the houses ran at the fence, barking and pacing, sometimes even running into it as if i was a giant walking hunk of meat, though it was somehow more flattering than when I would walk past construction sights in Mexico and the men would do the same.
I carried a rock in my pocket as protection so that if any of the dogs did get out I would at least have something ready to throw. I was just entering a rhythm of music and my steps when I suddently noticed the fast sound of moving sand behind me. I swung around, one hand on the rock in my pocket and one instinctively covering my face as a large dog, jumped at me. His foot caught my earphone wire, tearing them from my ears. The dog fell to the ground and as he was about to pounce again, I took the rock, lifted it above my head, and started to bring it down onto its skull when his tongue darted out and started licking my arm. I recognised a scar on his head. It was Chopper. He is the dog that belongs to everyone. If he was a man, he would have a wife, and 6 mistresses. All of them would know but he would be so charming and make them feel so special that none of them would really mind. Chopper, (who has also been named Wolf, Billy Bob and Dog by people who thought that he had adopted them) makes you feel like you are his long lost owner. He will faithfully follow you around, sit outside your house, eat your scraps and he never whines or begs. Then, just as you are getting emotionally attached, he will dissappear. Chopper followed me the whole way on my walk, occasionally running into the bush to chase something but as soon as I whistled he would come bounding back and lick my leg as if to apologise. I walked up to the top of tank hill, the one hill that overlooks Borroloola on one side and flat plains on the other. I could see bush firesgorging on the trees that blanketed a ridge in the distance then vomiting plumes of smoke.
It had been a long week at school and was physically and emotionally exhausted. Frustration takes up a lot of energy and it makes me angry that parents just dont send their children to school. It not only sets them up to fail in life, but it also affects the other children. The children who dont come are not used to structure which means that time that should be invested into teaching goes to behaviour management. Children who dont come have lower levels of achievement which, if there is enough of them which there are, effects the general standard set for the class. There is no excuse for a parent violating their own childs basic human right to have an education. So I had been mulling over these things, watching the sunset and the fire in the distance, and had become so frustrated and angry and sad that I started to cry. Chopper was at the other side of the hill, and even though I cried silently, with a few tears dribbling down my cheeks, Chopper came running over, he looked up at me and, like a good friend who knows that sometimes nothing needs to be said, he sat at my feet.
I patted the corse fur on his head and, knowing there was nothing that I could do about the situation, I headed for home. I slumped down on the couch and two children knocked on my door. They had just came to say hi and that they would be at school tomorrow as they had been away for a week. I gave them a big smile and told them that I looked forward to seeing them there.
The transition teacher teaches a letter of the alphabet and its sound each week and this week was the letter N. The children did lots of different activities to consolodate their learning and one of them was making noodles. They made them, ate them and then copied a piece of writing that said 'here are my noodles'. They then had to draw a picture of themselves with their noodles. One of the boys, who was clearly confused by all this talk of noodles, drew a picture of himself...with his own noodle...prominantly hanging down. Oh the joys of the awkward moments of a transition teacher.
