And now to Vietnam...

I have been meaning to blog about the amazing second half of my two-week sojourn in Central Australia. I really have, it was quite an incredible and inspiring time.

It will have to wait though. I came back  utterly exhausted, treated myself  to a quick little  indulgence, 

helped with last-minute organising for the Good Friday rally for refugees: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wNSOp2X_pWI&feature=youtube_gdata_player ,

spent the weekend drawing attention to the outrageous ongoing detention of refugees: http://newmatilda.com/2012/04/11/refuge-human , http://www.greenleft.org.au/node/50624 ,

and am now off to Vietnam for three weeks.

One day life will slow down long enough for us to  write about it... maybe after a week lazing on the beach at Phu Quoc...

Central Australia again

This week, for a change, my peripatetic life brings me to Alice Springs, to attend an Indigenous employment conference. With such illustrious speakers as federal government representatives, NT government representatives ("look at all the great things we're doing to encourage Aboriginal people to buy some white socks, put them on, pull them up, leave their land and get a job. They'll thank us one day"), and Generation One spokespeople (Aboriginal Australia's greatest friend, mining magnate Twiggy Forrest, reckons it's great if blackfellas can be just like whitefellas and become wage slaves to mining companies that have so far been such good news for Aboriginal people)... the less said about the conference the better.

I am, however, being put up at a rather flash hotel, a bit of a change from my usual field trip digs.

Here's the view from my hotel room:

I do love the landscape around Alice Springs. It seems art is never far away in this part of the country, and I was very pleased to see the yarn bombing movement has arrived in Central Australia.

Here's two pics from the Desert Knowledge Precinct, just south of town.

We were visiting the precinct as part of the conference, to see examples of some Aboriginal-owned social enterprises. I don't have a lot to say about that, wish I'd pay more attention to the awesome work the Centre for Appropriate Technology is doing though.


But some happened out there that made me see red. We were all sitting about in the sun, resting after lunch. I was sitting on a park bench beside a Balanda (non-Aboriginal person), and a few metres away a Yolŋu woman from up near where I work was playing with her young  daughter on the grass. The Balanda  was playing with her iPhone, and I soon realised she was taking photos of the woman and her daughter, zooming in to take photos of their faces etc.

Each time they turned our way, she quickly put her phone away and looked the other way. I'm not suggesting anything inappropriate here - well, yes I am actually: do people tend to sneakily take photos of white children? Was there some noble savage fascination going on? Why couldn't she just say "your daughter is so cute! Do you mind if I take a photo?"

I hated myself for not saying anything to her, but I was tired and avoiding all forms of confrontation, indeed any sort of interaction.

But then the woman playing on  the grass, who I know through work, struck up a conversation with me, in Yolŋu Matha. I managed to say to her, in language, "Is it ok that this Balanda  is taking photos of your daughter?", and while the Balanda focused on me with naive questions about Aboriginal language, Yapa and her daughter smiled at me and slipped away. So I guess at least they got to know what was happening and chose to leave the situation, but I reckon really it's incumbent on all of us to not tolerate racism, and to challenge it when we can, and on that count I failed...

When the conference was over, I grabbed the camera (you might have noticed I'm a bit enamoured with taking photos at the moment), and headed to a nearby Botanic Garden, with the rather pleasant name of Olive Pink.

After six days at this very flash, but rather lifeless, hotel here in Alice, I am missing Pete, and the tropics (where my skin isn't so dry it's itchy), and our rather humble but much more homely home in paradise, and the simple pleasure of being able to look in the fridge, rather than at a ridiculously expensive menu, to decide what to eat.

So tomorrow I check out and head to the airport - but not to fly home! I have five days of adventure to get through first. I am picking up my Yolŋu colleague (also my adopted sister), collecting a campervan, and driving to Yulara (the famed Ayers Rock resort about which I am sure I blogged last year). Yapa is beside herself with excitement at seeing Central Australia, and Uluru for the first time (I'm worried the cold is going to hit her like a tonne of bricks, that saltwater woman).  

I am beside myself with excitement because my aṉangu friends and family from Irrunytju, where I used to live and work, are meeting us at the Ngaanyatjarra Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjarra Women's Council Kungka Careers Conference. Two very special parts of my ḻife are coming together, and we're going to do lots of radio work - multi-lingual, cross-station interviews between aṉangu and yolŋu, as well as lots of fun workshops, and maybe teaching each other songs in Top End and Desert languages....

So, despite feeling tired and wanting to go home, I believe we shall have a ball.

Stay tuned...

Just cos it's cute

I have saved this photo onto my work phone, so whenever things get a bit stressful...

I am suddenly overwhelmed with cuteness and there is nothing to worry about anymore :)

JUICE NEWS 12: Yes We KONY! (Kony Parody)

Via Juice Rap News

Stormy afternoon at Mandorah

Today we decided to catch the ferry across to Mandorah. We had heard good things about the pub there. Mandorah is connected  to Darwin by land, but it's a long meandering drive, as opposed to 20 minutes on a ferry.

Privately I have been hoping for a cyclone this evening, so I get out of a two-day "team-building" work trip starting at 5:30am tomorrow. But that's another story. Anyway as we set out the skies seemed clear enough, and we happily left Darwin behind us.

Apart from the pub, with a few hotel rooms and a very lovely view back across the water, we're not sure what else there is at Mandorah. Possibly with bikes we could explore further afield, if Pete wasn't allergic to cycling. Nonetheless, we found  the pub had everything a pub needs to make a pleasant afternoon:

A child-friendly attitude;

a praying mantis, good for practicing close-up photography;

and plenty of fine Irish cider.

So we settled in, and much to my delight a storm brewed over Darwin. We watched, and photographed, the city disappear, reappear, and disappear again as the storm moved across the water.

As I watched the storm move towards us, and seemingly engulf the jetty from where we were about to catch our return ferry, I fantasised about getting stuck overnight at Mandorah, with nothing but pub food and whiskey chasers, and missing  my early flight to Nhulunbuy tomorrow.

Alas, we got home safely, although negotiating a wet jetty and  slippery boat deck after a few drinks is inadvisable, to say the least.

So, it's off to Nhulunbuy I go tomorrow, the less said  the better, then two weeks in Central Australia, which I am truly looking forward to, then the national Easter refugee rights convergence in Darwin (see http://refugee-rights.net/darwin-2012/about/), then three weeks in Vietnam! Woohoo! If nothing else, hopefully my blog posts should get more exciting...

Weird dream

I had a dream last night that Earth was conquered by alien shellfish in giant city-destroying spacecraft. The aliens themselves were tiny, prawn-size things with lobster claws. They wore preppy little vests and long-sleeve shirts.

They provided English-language pamphlets on how we were to behave BUT THEY MADE NO SENSE.

It bugged me all day.

Only in the Territory...

This will be a short post to show some of the madness of the place I now call home.

First up, the cover story of today's paper:

Apparently Harry the Croc is psychic and has picked Gillard as the winner of Monday's leadership ballot in the ALP. This is the front goddamn page of the only paper produced in the NT. This is what counts as news of national importance here.

Local politics is even worse:

The mayor of Palmerston has been stood down and placed on the banned drinkers list because he threatened his neighbours with some golf clubs because their dogs were too loud. The banned drinkers list is a small exclusive list of a few hundred people who are not allowed to drink, this existence of which means everyone has to hand over their licence to be scanned every time they buy take-away.

The deputy who should replace him is now being investigated by police because there is a report that he was seen nude inside his house. What precise law there is against being nude in your own house I'm not sure of, but I rarely claim to be a lawyer.

Maybe there will be a new law and order campaign based on this new interpretation of what one can and can't do in their own home. The slogans for such a campaign write themselves. "Are you now or have you ever been nude?" "If you see something, say something." "Be someone! Report domestic nudity today!"

I mean I know that there is a lot of nudity in the NT. The build-up is noted for such behaviour. Some places wait for the first sparrow of Summer. Canberra waits for the first magpie attack of Spring. We wait for the first nude drink-driving arrest of the Build-Up. This year, it was a couple. Romantic, I guess.

But if you think this is just the result of the NT News (a News Ltd. rag designed to drive out the local union-run paper of substance that preceded it), THINK AGAIN! Look at this from the ABfrickenC:

Dr David Bowman, a professor of environmental change biology at UTAS has suggested that we introduce elephants to Central Australia to help fight bushfires. I mean, introducing invasive species to Australia has always gone so well, don't you think?

Good grief can you imagine if elephants reach cane toad plague proportions? Apparently, they can also have a bit of a problem with grog, destroying African villages to get to stills. I'd like to see the the banned drinkers register work there.

"I'm sorry, Babar, I can't serve you."

"BABAR SMASH!"

That the above image was the second image that came up in a "BABAR SMASH" Google search restores my faith in humanity somewhat. It's from http://zoofights.squarespace.com/zoofights-vi/2011/7/27/double-eelix-vs-kali-babar.html. In no way will I vouch for it or its SafeForWork status.

Maybe this is just a response to the "anything goes" planning department here in the NT. UTAS Prof looked at the massive development plans for Northern Australia and just said: "Fuck it! Introduce elephants! Mad Max-style anarchy can't come soon enough for these Territorian nutbags." Or maybe Tasmanians are just crazy.

Anyway, I'm off to get three forms of ID and a note from my doctor so I can have a drink.