It’s Friday, Friday, Gotta get down on Friday

We sure did get down and party on Friday! Today was literally nonstop and I am absolutely exhausted but spent the day having the best fun with all the kids of Balgo. It was seriously AWESOME! It began with a bush trip with my Primary B class, swimming with the Primary C class, nail painting with the girls from Primary B and C and then to top off the day a disco at the shop. As you can see, nonstop but a lot of fun.

The chances for the bush trip weren’t looking too good when I walked into Primary B to find only five kids. However three more came fairly soon after me so we were pretty pumped it was all going to happen, especially as it had been the main source of bribery during the past week and we couldn’t let the kids down. The kids entertained themselves with Warwick making sailor hats (which looked adorable) while Mindy and I went to fill up the two troupe carriers. This was met with a bit of a problem when we learnt that despite it being well past 9.00am, the shop had not yet opened and wouldn’t until they received a call. Unbeknown to us, every morning the school calls Dallas, the youth worker to tell him there are enough kids at school to open up everything else. Dallas then rings the shop and the Wirrimanu community office and gives them permission to open to the community. It’s a good system and an excellent way of making the adults get the kids to school however was a chronic pain in the butt this morning for us. So Mindy got onto Meg who got Dallas to call the shop and even though we fudged the system a bit, we got going.

Jay Jay and his sailor hat

Back at school we got all the kids that had returned their permission slips in the troupies, bar one. Jake. He wasn’t yet at school so Mindy decided to drive around pass his house to get him. Jake must have been waiting for us or something thinking we were going to pick him up regardless because as soon as the troupie came around the corner, in he jumped. WAY easier than the wild goose chase I thought we were going to embark on. And away we went! We headed down the Mulan road which was a breeze as it had recently been graded and no longer had car shuddering bumps that usually induced car sickness in people like me. Apparently we’re taking advantage of the great road to trek out to the Mulan shop tomorrow, an adventure I always enjoy because the shop is jam packed with a whole heap of things the Balgo shop doesn’t have. It’s just one of the ways we entertain ourselves here in the desert; the Mulan shop.

It only took fifteen minutes before we arrived at Takamarra, a small but swimmable dam in a beautiful desert setting. It was amazing how bare and desolate it was despite coming off as somewhat magnificent. We got the kids changed; girls in one troupie, boys in the other (not the best change rooms we found because of all the windows, in hindsight ‘duh!’) and they jumped in the water, coming out almost immediately because it was ‘too cold!’ The brave ones soon got over it and splashed around having a ball while others explored the rim of the water, often bringing me to an interesting object with a torrent of ‘look here, look here!’. Jake pointed out cow/horse prints while Justin screamed when he found some kind of colourful bug before deeming it to be dangerous and pummeling it with countless rocks. Trent found a water beetle that kept jumping off his hand while Justin also found an ‘itchy caterpillar’. He told me that I’d get itchy if I touched it so instead I prodded it with a stick and laughed when Justin said the stick would now be itchy. Warwick got the kids into skipping rocks and they put Mindy and I to shame with their amazing technique. Jay Jay was able to do about five skips somehow getting the rock to bounce miles out of the water with each jump. It was incredible! After about half an hour, we got the kids back in the troupies and headed off to our next destination, the Water Hole.

Tjakamarra

Lining up for Muesli Bars

Primary B

Swimming!

I can almost hear Jake saying 'Look here, look here!'

The massive Bush Turkey feather we found. Photo courtesy of Justin

  

Trent and his water beetle

The gross bug. Kind of pretty though

  

Opening some Bush Tucker

Jake

Jay Jay

On the way there we had a bit of an issue where the water container in the other troupie fell over and wet all the kids so Mindy literally stopped the car in the middle of the road to fix the issue. Jay Jay ran up to our troupe saying ‘it wasn’t me, promise!!’ He is quite the cutie, but very naughty so that made him sound a bit guilty.

Literally, the MIDDLE of the road!

On the road again, Leanne sighted a dingo that looked way cuter and friendlier than any of the dogs around Balgo. Nequita kept screaming ‘let’s catch it!’ and when I asked her why, she said they made good pets. I was pretty pumped; first dingo that I’ve seen around Balgo! The Waterhole looked a lot different from when we used to come and swim in it during the wet; the stagnant water was covered with a thick film of algae and it looked like something that could make you sick with one touch. Having being well for a while now, I made a conscious decision to stay well away. However the kids were more interested in the bush fruit that surrounded the area and brought me all sorts of things to taste. I tried Witjirki (probably not the most amazing spelling!) and a tiny little berry that Justin told me was ‘bush mango’. We even found a type of small chilli looking fruit however the kids weren’t too sure what it was so decided not to try it because the red colour made it look a bit threatening. We walked down the steep cliff down by the water for a look around and the kids took pleasure into throwing rocks into the water; the first time Mindy thought it was a kid jumping in and went mental before he realized. On the way back the cheeky kids led us up the naughty way where you basically have to rock climb for about two metres to get back up. Not happy!!

The Witjirki Tree

The Rockhole. Ew

Robyn and her bush fruit. It was quite tasty

Witjirki

Justin and what he said were small bush mangoes

Kids down at the rock hole

Yeah Primary B!

When we got back to school the kids got changed and half of them pretty much tried to have a nap as soon as they went back into the classroom. It was cute. However I went straight over to Primary C where they were having their swimming lesson and mucked around with them for a while, attempting to get Sherry back into the water. She is slowly but surely getting there and we are very proud of how far she has come.

This week was the first time we had the new and improved Fun Friday with Primary C and Primary B. Mindy and Ale took the boys for sport while Sophie, Meg, Jenny and I did fingernail painting with the girls. We scrubbed their hands clean, got them to pick a colour (there were a lot of different shades of pink so that was a popular colour and a browny purple which Sophie and I decided after much deliberation was beige) and got to work. Me being the worst nail painter in the world was not too confident but did alright on Shoneille, Leanne and Sherelle. They looked really good until the girls requested a stripe of a different colour on their nails as well. It looked really dodgy but the girls loved it. They then turned the brushes to me and I have two hands with the funniest looking nail painting in the world; one with beige polish and the other with bright red. They attacked Sophie as well so at least I have someone around with manky looking finger nails. Sherelle and I have a bet going that we can both stop biting our nails and grow them longer than each other. For all those who know me well know that I’m a chronic nail biter and have being since I was two. However Meg said to me today that licking a toilet bowl is cleaner than biting your nails so that’s motivation enough to kind of stop the nail biting. That’s a very disgusting thought. We finished off the afternoon with pancakes, made specially by Jim, the amazing pancake cooker. The girls thoroughly enjoyed the afternoon of manicures.

Frena and Jilara with all the different types of nail polish

Shoneille, Sherelle and Leanne with their lovely Steph painted nails

Mine and Sophie's nails, super dodgy. My other hand has red nail polish ALL over it. But the girls had the best time and it was really cute.

Frena helping Robyn.

Pancakes!

I am really annoyed because for most of the day I had a massive bit of glue on the lens of my camera (no idea how it got there) and am hoping it didn’t mess up any pictures but if you see a splodge on any of them that’s just me being silly and not checking the lens is clean before snapping away! My apologies.

The disco was great! Everyone had a ball and the kids were really well behaved. The only problem I had was with the girls dancing. It’s kind of really grown up, wrong and belongs behind closed doors involving a lot of booty shaking and some epic hip contortion. Sophie and I attempted it and failed so despite the fact that we are kind of grossed out by their moves, it involves a fair bit of skill. I got clambered over by a whole heap of Kindy kids, especially Thomasina who spent a heap of time trying to get me to pick her up and dance, which I did a lot because she’s so irresistibly cute. The funniest dancer was Delwyn who was also quite put off by the girls dancing and waltzed in front of them and started imitating their moves for a laugh. It was HILARIOUS! It was like two separate dance floors; the boys and the girls. The guys were great fun to watch and had some interesting moves; Julian being the main groover on and off the dance floor. They were all really embarrassed when I tried to dance with them so I’ll keep away from them in the future to save them any humiliation; must be the cooties.

Kamus

Jungalee

Me and Oriel

BART, Robyn, Danielle, Shoneille and Irvan

  

Thomasina

NOAH!

Dad, this picture is just for you.

Dad LOVES Noah and always asks about him, even though he's never met him. I think he just likes hearing all his naughty stories. But he told me that Noah was his 'Brother'. Cute Dad, I think...

Shania, Danielle and Samara

Renelle

Renelle, Leanne and Breanne and Nequita who are sisters

Renelle, Leanne, Robyn and Brianna

Sina trying to get me to pick her up and dance

Sina, Celia, Delina and two kids I've never seen before!

Choneille, Joash, Chloe (love what she's wearing) and Bonita

Mainly the boys dancing to 'Black or White' by Michael Jackson which they LOVE! I got mainly the boys because it seemed kind of wrong to film the girls the way they were dancing but I think Danielle got a bit of camera time on this one so :/ anyway, enjoy. I hope it works!

OH!! Almost forgot to tell you all that I brought a webcam off eBay three weeks ago ($4.72 with free postage, wooo!) and hopefully when I can get to a computer with Internet and unblocked Skype we can have actual Skype conversations. Looking forward to seeing some friendly Perth faces! :)

Big weekend coming up. Saturday is choka block filled with art shopping (wooo 30% off!), lesson plans with Sophie (we’re planning the entire week of art lessons in Primary C), cooking room cleaning (it’s slowly getting there), the Mirli Mirli and cleaning my own place. Sophie and I have got to find time for some Grey’s Anatomy sometime tomorrow as we’ve been planning a marathon for ages and the season finale of Season 7 is playing in America RIGHT NOW so I really need to watch that as well. So psyched! And on Sunday we’re going to Wolfe Creek!!!! The plan was to watch the movie and then sleep over but it has turned into just a day trip which will still be a lot of fun and good to get out for a drive on Sunday. Stay tuned for some Wolfe Creek horror stories! EXCEPT someone told me today that the actual Wolfe Creek kidnappings happened miles away in the Northern Territory, but the movie was made at the meteorite crater because it was kind of a spooky place. However for those who have seen the movie disregard everything you saw because A, there are no sealed roads anywhere around there, B, there is no shed and C, be prepared for a REAL insight into Wolfe Creek in a few days! Adios amigos.