Half way through the term

AROUND COMMUNITY

The kids are resourceful. They have added a second set of wheels to the front of this green bin. It adds another dimension to ‘Bin Isolation’ !!! There really isn’t much for the children to do in community so they need to get creative. The boy pushing the bin is in my grade.

This big fellow wanders around the community always wary of the camp dogs and kids with sling shots. Sling Shots are the new fad here. Unfortunately, the kids like to make the rubber band part from a football bladder. The sports shed at school is running out of footballs very quickly….grrrrrrrr

Well, here it is…the new perimeter fence that goes around the school and the teachers compounds. It is 2 metres high with spikes on the top…. But we have seen kids climb them already!!! The only people it will keep out are oldies like us!! Breakins are a constant threat so we can’t let our guard down. We keep everything locked. This is out the front of our house.

This car full of kids were out at the airstrip to farewell a patient on the RFDS (Royal Flying Doctor Service). When a patient needs hospitalisation, or it is an emergency, they will be flown out. Today a little baby was being flown out and the family had to work out who would go with it. They had lots of choices!!

This picture is not a good one because it is taken from behind a screen in the clinic but it is of the fighting that is a constant at the moment. You can see spears, boomerangs, shields and many other weapons. (Plastic bottles full of rocks are a favoured weapon) !! The fights are between one family and it seems, the rest of the town. There are some serious injuries but it is mostly screaming at one another.

After one day of fighting, Jeff and I were walking down the road and it never ceases to amaze us what we find! This dolls legs were later spotted at the basketball court.

We often do a 5 KM walk out to the airstrip and past the cemetery. This night Jeff was standing at the gate of a very nice square of nothing. It looks like they built a fence and gates for a cemetery, but it has never been used. Maybe the ground is too hard!! The cemetery that they use is about 400 metres away!

We ran into this young man and his friends who were holding this Bush Turkey. It was a young one and it had a sore foot. The locals love to eat Bush Turkey but this was clearly only a baby. The birds are huge when adult and last year one of the students offered me one! I told him I was vegetarian so he said ‘would you just like a leg then’ or maybe you can come hunting with us. Eventually he understood.

Rusty enjoying a walk in the cool evening.

KIDS, MY FAVOURITE SUBJECT

Thursday is our cooking day. Today we are making a carrot cake. I’m not sure how it happened but we forgot to add the sugar to the cake. It still tasted nice though. Patricia is lining the cake tin to stop it sticking.

So, here is our sugarless carrot cake. During the day we have a container of cut up apple and carrots to share around. The children don’t really like the carrot too much so they were horrified when I said we were making a carrot cake. I assured them that it would taste great…but without the sugar I was worried. However they loved it and wanted to take some home to their family.

Alexandra and Patricia were proud of themselves for being able to complete this very hard Tetris.

After school sandwiches. The kids are given a sandwich at the end of the day which they really look forward to.

Each morning we have a club’s program that is aimed at getting the children to school for breakfast and an activity before school starts at 9.00. Another teacher and I have a crafts club this term, last term we taught table tennis. This little cutie is navigating a pom pom. The children had never heard of a pom pom and were impressed when they made one.

PIZZA NIGHT

Each Friday night 6 of us gather for Pizza and desert. We take it in turns for hosting the Pizza night and the person who is cooking pizza the following week makes the desert. Sometimes desert is just chocolate, but at the price of chocolate in the community, I always make something. We were eating decadent brownies in this picture. I had never made Brownies and now I know why…. So many calories!!!

MOONLIGHTING!!

I have done a few shifts at the shop and in this picture, I was collecting items that didn’t have a price label and then I would print the label and re shelve them. We had to wear masks on this day as a Corona case was found in Halls Creek and our shop had a couple of days of only allowing 5 people in. (I was not a fan of the mask as it kept fogging up my glasses). This was never going to last as the 10 people waiting outside were all standing together. Our community are not good at social distancing or even staying in the community.

The community pool was closed after the first school holidays and the people who run it went home for 3 months. Jeff and I had to go and turn the pool back on for a service man. It sure was different to our little pool in the back yard. We were pleased when everything worked as it should with the help of the pool man on the other end of the phone.

THE NEWEST ART PURCHASE

The Art Centre is a dangerous place for us to visit. There are so many beautiful paintings which are made more special by knowing the artists. Jeff chose this painting by Noonie Lulu. The white figures in the painting are Witchetty grubs! The art is available to purchase online so I have added the website if you are interested in having a look at the art.

http://www.balgoart.org.au/

BUSH TRIP

Last week we headed out on a bush trip. We went to the Luurnpa Dreaming Site. This is where the Giant Luurnpa rested after saving the desert people from dying of thirst. The Luurnpa Dreaming story is called…’Luurnpa The Magical Kingfisher’. The bird is important in this community and we often see them. Our school is called Luurnpa. We were not allowed to take photos of the resting site.

After we visited the Luurnpa Resting Site we stopped at the pink car at our access road. This is where we turn off the Tanami Track. The kids loved being out in the country.

ENJOYING THE WILDLIFE

Kim found this Thorny Devil in community and brought it to school. The kids love to show off wildlife that they catch. Rosy our office lady swapped the lizard for a football.

Jeff and I got to hold ‘Linus’. It was really calm and had no intention of biting.

THE CLINIC

The clinic has four treatment rooms, an Emergency room, a doctors room and a small pharmacy. They have an ambulance which is on call with two nurses (or one nurse and a receptionist!) 24 hours a day. There is usually one doctor and often two during the day and anywhere between 4 and 7 nurses on in any particular week. The white building on the left is the morgue. It has room for two occupants. The catholic priest is the towns official undertaker.

This is the ED room in the clinic. On several occasions patients have had to stay in the ED room for more than 24 hours while waiting for the RFDS to arrive to take them away.

Jeff has been using his surveying skills to map the town and all its houses. There are about 90 houses in Balgo and this is one of the three maps that he made. He has noted on the maps where residents live. This is a great help as clinic staff spend the day finding residents to bring them into the clinic for treatment. The school also makes use of the map when they visit parents.

This “old man” was visiting Balgo from Northern Territory and enjoyed telling a few stories at the clinic while waiting for treatment. His name was Jones – the surnames of residents here are an interesting mix of names. There are the westernised names that sound familiar to us such as Jones, Lee, Milner and Cox etc. There are the unique names such as Tobacco, Surprise, Sunfly, Mosquito, Darkie, Bumblebee, Lightening and Wallaby (and Grubb!!) which always make us smile. And then there are the names that sound aboriginal such as Njamme, Mandijarra, Tchooga and Nanala.

ART CENTRE

This tractor sits outside the Art Centre and it has recently been painted. It made the perfect prop for a photo after a great afternoon at the centre.

We were met in the Art Centre by this little kitten, the kids all wanted to have a hold and the Art Centre staff just wanted to get it out. The artists work on the floor and they had visions of dot paintings with paw prints!!!

The reason for the visit today was looking at family relationships for our Culture program. Each student was asked to paint beside a family member. My class was fortunate because each student had a mentor. The elder spent time teaching their charge about their style of painting. The kids did such a great job with their painting.

Alexandra had her ‘other’ mother Dulcie helping her. As you can see Dulcie paints beautiful pictures with quite a unique style.

A LONG WEEKEND TO REMEMBER

Of course our long weekend started with the obligatory photo at the pink car at the access road.

We had a nice convoy going!

Along the Tanami we came across two cars that were abandoned and burnt out. They didn’t even manage to get the cars off the road.

Our long weekend was 4 days as we had an extra day tacked onto a regular long weekend. Living remotely gives us one extra day off a term. We headed off to the Bungle Bungles which is about an hour North of Halls Creek on the way to Kununurra. We camped 2 nights near the Bungles and then went to Kununurra for Jeff to go to the dentist. Then 7 hours back to Balgo.
The Bungle Bungles were spectactular.