Birthdays - A chance to eat too much cake!

Well, it’s just after 2am and I just spent a good forty five minutes with birthday boy Henry Jones as he opened a massive stack of presents from his good friends in Sydney (thank you for the Pringles Nicky!). As soon as the clock struck midnight out came the huge box that I had been hiding in my room for the past few days, a box that almost killed my arms as I lugged all 7kg worth of present’s home last Friday from school. And luckily for the birthday boy, he still has plenty more surprises to come! Including the one I brought him … A  UKELELE! WOOO :) I’m hoping he likes it, and better yet, the amazing wrapping I did for it. Because as I discovered, a ukulele is a very odd present to wrap and therefore large quantities of glitter and super glue came in handy to hide the fact that I literally got a roll of sticky tape and just wrapped it around and around really tight to hold everything in. It looks pretty fantastic though however is the type of gift one would be best opening outside. For Mr. ‘I just turned 19 two hours ago’, pancakes and French Toast are on the menu for breakfast with a chocolate cake at recess and Lemon Teacake after dinner tonight made my yours truly. Judy very kindly offered to host birthday celebrations at the Parish House and is cooking her famous Shepherd’s Pie for dinner, a mouthwatering combination of mince, vegetables and potato that make me very happy that my vegetarian stint lasted only two and a half weeks. So hopefully Henry has a good day and the kids are a little bit easier on him than they were today; twenty little terrors rocked up to Primary C today!

Pretty decent wrapping...

Yeah nah

Handmade birthday card :)

My day was a lot more chilled. By chance, Primary C had computing and then sport this afternoon which gave Sophie, Jenny and myself a bit of breathing space and a chance to organize their art activities for tomorrow where we have them for a good two hours nonstop after Mangarri. As a team, we’re getting pretty good at making activities from scratch and luckily have an amazingly stocked storeroom that always offers a new surprise of crafty goodies so hopefully that keeps the kids busy tomorrow.

I have a new role at Luurnpa. It’s not official but I have undertaken the role of ‘Popcorn Maker!’ We’re trying to raise money for the Grade Six students to go to Melbourne during the holidays and are selling cans of cool drink and popcorn at Mangarri time for a small profit. I took charge of making and bagging the popcorn today and everything was going great until I smelt something burning and the machine stopped. That’s right; I broke the simplest popcorn machine in the world. All I had to do was tip the kernels in, flick the switch and let technology do the rest but somehow the machine stopped spinning everything and the corns just cooked together and hardened in the spinny part (I’m so technical). I spent the rest of the break gouging at the mass of congealed mass of lumpy popcorn with a knife and eventually got everything out but the machine still did not turn on until a few hours later. Oh well, at least it’s not completely broken!

Yesterday all the Primary C kids were really well behaved and I had a good afternoon with them during their RE lesson with KP. Julian was so cute; he started playing with my hair and couldn’t figure out why until I realized that he was trying to get a sticker from one of their reading books that had somehow got tangled in my ranga locks out. When he had ever so gently removed every single strand from the sticker, he put it on my hand and then proceeded to allow me to help him with his word search. Well, help wouldn’t be the best word; more like do most of it for him. But after such a random act of kindness, I was keen to abide! I’m getting on with them all so much better than last term, probably because they understand that I’m here for the long run. Corryanne for example gave me so much strife the first few weeks I was here, always swearing at me, talking about me in ukatjaand saying she was going to get her Grandma to come and hit me every time I did something that she didn’t like. I think I realized that all her threats were empty and she was as harmless as any other nine year old around about the same time that she finally figured out I was on her side; every time I told her off, it was to stop her getting in even more trouble from the actual teacher. Another Primary C student, Danielle used to tell me that I wasn’t her teacher and she was therefore not going to listen to me every time I gave her an instruction. We’re now pretty tight and even though she still gets moody with me, she’s nowhere near as naughty as last term and for all these kids it certainly has something to do with the improving mood of the classroom, aided by Jenny who ensures the kids are kept polite, hard working and well behaved!

I think I may have figured out what that random community ceremony was that we suddenly became involved in on Sunday. For a few days last week some women of Balgo went on a Women’s Retreat of sorts which involved a lot of traditional ceremonies and from what I have picked up from the kids, law deciding. The ceremony on Sunday, I think, was reintroducing them back into the community and welcoming them home, hence the shaking of hands. Every time I asked one of my students what it was, they just looked at me and said ‘it was law’ and walked off. Finally I got a straight answer out of Julian and Danielle, as Julian tried explaining it to me before saying Danielle went and calling her over. She then kind of told me what it was about so hopefully I have it figured out correctly.

The weather is warming up. I feel really bad because I told James to pack as if he was going to Antarctica because last week it was impossible to walk outside with anything except ones face exposed, and even that was a struggle! But now it’s extremely bearable and more like spring than winter. I relished the colder weather as it gave me an excuse to wear all my warmer winter clothes that I love wearing back home, scarves included. Now it’s awkward when I walk out of the house with looking all wintery and by the time I get to school, I realize a polo shirt would have sufficed. Oh well, I’m sure it will get colder again soon!

It’s official; I’m hitting up Perth for the holidays! Yay :) It will be a really good chance to catch up with everyone during a time where I know Balgo will not miss me as the community is pretty much like a ghost town during school break. It’ll be so good to be able to celebrate the parental units’ birthdays; both turning 21 again, while catching up on all the P-Town goss (P-Town, yes, no maybe?) The weirdest part for me about coming home after practically been away from most of the world for four months is the things that I’ve missed. I haven’t exactly been keeping up with current affairs nor new music, movies etc. and this is something that was made very aware to Henry and I when James kept listing all these new songs and artists that we had never heard about but were all the rage back home. So I’m totally keen on getting up to date with the political situation of Australia because I have found that I don’t have time to read all the Labor newsletters the Party sends me while also updating the iPod and getting the kids of Balgo hooked on something other than Justin Bieber. And I suppose I can squeeze some time in there to re-celebrate all my friends 18ths. Keen!!

Well I’m off to make a Lemon Teacake and chocolate frosting, hopefully without waking up the entire house. Lindsey made an early birthday cake for Henry at the Brothers House today and it was SO yummy but with two more to go today, I’m sure I’ll be all caked out by tomorrow night. Not to mention Henry, enduring that awkward moment when you get sung ‘Happy Birthday’ to thrice in twenty-four hours. At least he gets presents!

Ps. Happy Winter Solstice, also known as the shortest day in the year. It was yesterday. It’s all uphill from here!