It’s been a while since i posted my last blog. I’ve been pretty busy, and now i haven’t got easy internet access – except at work, and i can’t really be using that to post blogs in my first week! I’m posting this by connecting my laptop using my mobile phone…
I’ve got a home again, at last – in Maningrida. I arrived here on Sunday afternoon and started work Monday morning. Not much time to sort my stuff out – but then i’ve hardly got any “stuff” to sort out. I did eventually manage to get everything packed up properly (and a lot of it chucked out too) and got it dropped off at the removal company’s place at the Gold Coast. That was last Wednesday – and they reckon it will take between 3 and 6 weeks for it to get to Darwin. From Darwin, it has to get here by barge, which takes two and a half days, so i’m not holding my breath waiting for it to arrive!
In the meantime, though, i’ve got virtually nothing! No kitchen stuff, not much bedding, none of the various other things that would be useful in my new home. I had to buy a cup, a plate, a pot, some wooden spoons (because the pot’s poxy bloody teflon!) – and there were already a few plastic knives and forks in the kitchen here! But it’s very skeletal and not conducive to eating properly i’m afraid.
I’m thinking about flying to Darwin at the weekend, as my old friend, Donna, is in town for a week, from Melbourne, and i haven’t seen her for ages. This would also mean i could buy some essential stuff while i’m there – things i can’t get here, including food that i can’t get here.
There are two shops in Maningrida, and they’re not particularly cheap. Weirdly, one is quite a bit more expensive than the other though, and the cheaper one isn’t really extortionate. Between them, they do sell a reasonable range of stuff, but there’s a lot of things that you just can’t get here.
My new home is a one bedroom unit, with it’s own decent sized, fenced yard on three sides. It’s quite big really, with a large living room and a good sized open-plan kitchen. There are a couple of couches, a smallish round table with 4 chairs, and a weird little coffee table. There’s a big fridge/freezer in the kitchen – much bigger than i’ll ever need, i’m sure. The bedroom’s got a double bed in it, some built-in cupboards, and some shelves, and there’s still lots of space in there. It’s got windows on two sides – louvres with fly screen outside them, like all the windows in the house. There’s a bathroom, toilet, laundry, and a small storage room. It’s a pretty good place by any standards, but it’s luxury accomodation here – where there’s often maybe 15 people to a house!
Across the road in front of my house, there’s a park with the new swimming pool at one side of it. The local football team seem to train there most evenings – accompanied by a lot of shouting! Each evening so far, the sound of disco music has drifted across the park too, as a group of girls do synchronised dance steps to it outside a house in the far corner. And each evening so far the sound of clap sticks has been mingled with the disco music – the clap sticks are a bit further away, in the other direction, where (i think) the first stages of the male initiation ceremony is taking place.
From my house to the beach is only a few minutes walk. There are a couple of short beaches – with the barge ramp in between them. Every time i’ve been down there so far, there’s been someone either launching a boat off a trailer, or getting one back onto a trailer. Fishing is big here.
Maningrida seems like a pleasant, relaxed, and friendly sort of place. I’m sure there’s plenty of problems here, but they don’t seem to be massive and overwhelming, like in some places. There’s no real alcohol problem, either. Maningrida has a succesful alcohol control program and people with an alcohol permit can buy a couple of cartons of beer on one day a fortnight – so long as they act responsibly and don’t get their permit taken away. Or rather, they could – until John Howard stepped in the other day! Now, i suppose, anyone who wants to be able to drink will go and live in Darwin – unless, of course, Howard abolishing the need to have a permit to enter Aboriginal land means lots of illegal alcohol starts to appear, in which case there probably will be an alcohol problem here i suppose!
I’ve picked the right time to start working in an Aboriginal community in the Northern Territory, haven’t i? – just as Howard’s “Aboriginal Children Overboard” election campaign gets into full swing! Putting a few billion dollars into building housing, education, and health facilities in these remote communities would probably achieve considerably more than the half-arsed nonsense he’s pushing – but that’s not going to win him the election, is it?
Tags: Travel and Places by will
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