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...