Lists, Paintings, Camels, Keys, Funerals, Dingalings, Aerobics and Rainbows :)

I am absolutely blown away by how fast the days are going by. Take today for example; I was absolutely convinced it was still Monday because I had absolutely no recollection of the transition from one day to the next, just because things had gone by so quickly! It didn’t help that I was kept up most of the night by a fear that my washing was going to be blown all over the community, but that’s another story. What concerns me most is that I can’t really recall the time passing from the end of our Northern Territory trip to now. I think because most of the teachers believed the last term would kind of go slowly but we have had so much to do things have just flown by! It’s so intense and I can’t get over the fact that I’ll be leaving soon. Occasionally, the rational Steph will take over and for a moment I get this awful fear of panic that engulfs me as soon as I realise that yep, the year you never wanted to end is soon ending. Then the irrational Steph takes over and I think I’ve still got AGES to do all the things I want to do before I leave! I have a list, and it is as follows;

·         Go to Billiluna (achieving this on Sunday!)

·         See the Luurnpa Holes.

·         Buy a Balgo painting (sale coming up).

·         Camp out in The Pound (actually doing this with my class, stoked!)

·         Go to a 7am morning mass (it’s meant to be quite nice and I’ve been trying to go for a month. Every time the alarm goes off I snooze it and postpone it to the next. NOT THIS WEEK!)

·         Go to Yagga Yagga (don’t think this is likely because of the state of the road. Unfortunate, but I’ll be back eventually!)

I’m anticipating the last week and a bit to be epically fast paced as I attempt to cram as much into my time left, plus there are a lot of exciting things happening so there will be heaps to tell you all about. Therefore I’ve decided to do a Ten Day Balgo Countdown, from t-minus 10 days until I leave till day 0, when we fly out. Plus, with all the time we have in between airports if I manage to score free wi-fi or something look forward to awesome pictures from the mail plane; hopefully it won’t be raining like last time. Just what my mother needed; more blog posts to write essays of comments on! <3 you Mother dear.

As you all may have known, last Friday was kind of a special day. So special in fact that a Facebook event was created like a year and a half before it happened. The 11^th day of the 11^th month of the year with another 11 in it. Pretty cool really, especially if you’re like me and consider the 11:11 time to be wish worthy. Anyway I spent 11:11am on 11-11-11 in the Mangarri room eating a plastic cheese grilled sandwich (not as good as normal cheese, but it’s growing on me) listening to Henry very emotively sharing with me his opinion of the significance of the day. Apparently it was nothing special. Tut tut Mr. Jones, tut tut! I don’t think the universe liked that very much because karma was thrown at him in the form of stolen keys. His keys were pinched from the mangarri room by a very sly child as he was sorting out lunch. It’s kind of a thing in Balgo; keys are very important and signify great power. Of course, everyone was on edge knowing a child with keys basically meant any room in the school was a target. So the very devoted Henry spent the ENTIRE weekend in the foxtel room upholding the job of the Luurnpa security guard, popping his head out of the room every time he heard a classroom door being unlocked, even if it was a teacher. The commitment to the position was incredibly admirable. Unfortunately between the hours of 2am and 5am on Monday morning when the incredibly fatigued Henry let his eyes rest the culprits stuck and broke into the Mangarri room. Fortunately all that was taken were some icy poles but in an uncanny twist of fate the door was locked with the missing keys inside the room. The keys were returned by the thieves! Sure, they shouldn’t have been taken in the first place but Henry slept peacefully all of Monday knowing the keys were safe and sound in his possession. A true happy ending.

There was a funeral held on Saturday to remember Margaret Bumblebee, a very special and much loved community and church leader who passed away last term. Two of my students were closely related and spoke fondly of her and I decided to go and show my respects that morning. I’m not a funeral person; I tend to cry regardless of whether I knew the person or not but I found this ceremony to be rather beautiful and in a way, more celebratory than sad. The customs and practices were very different but I found allowed for everyone to grieve a lot more and fully accept the passing of someone they appreciated. Faxes were read out with messages of love from those who were present and those who were unable to attend the funeral, people got up and shared their stories about Margaret and the liturgy was quite moving. It ended up being quite a mammoth funeral because so many people wanted to talk, a testament to the kind of person Margaret was. It was lovely and I’m glad I came. Unfortunately for the people of Balgo, there is another funeral on Friday, this one probably a little bit sadder because of the tragic circumstances under which the deceased passed away. I know I’ll definitely cry at that one, especially after seeing the beautiful mass booklet Sister Alice made and reading the lovely things people wrote.

It was also Jenny’s birthday on Saturday. We marched from a funeral to a celebratory morning tea, quite opposites. I missed a call from my future employer and when returning the call, apologized for missing her, saying I had firstly been to a funeral and then to a birthday party and had my phone off, something she said was rather surreal and certainly a jam packed day. It was a lovely gathering, with everyone making a bit of sweet food and combining it all to provide quite a spread. I think I’m still full from it all!

Corryanne was learning about baby animals with Jenny yesterday morning and what the different names are. When asked what a baby duck was, she responded with ‘a dingaling’ and couldn’t figure out why Jenny and I were laughing so hard. Eventually, she did herself when Jenny told her the real name. I just loved the confidence of her response, almost as if that was what she had called it her whole life. Not a bad name really, could change it! That’s something I love about working in a primary school; you never get the day you expected and are always laughing at the cute things the kids say or do. Not a dull day ever!

There is community art exhibition in a few weeks just for students in Mulan, Balgo and Billiluna. The only stipulation of what the kids have to create is that it has to be something in their community. Primary C painted big pieces of butcher paper with some incredible designs. Julian did a dreamtime story, Francis did a picture of emu hunting, Tegan did a picture of the wind blowing things around and so many amazing creations were produced. I will have to get photos of them when they’re at the display but at the moment the only one I have is Renelle’s; a painting of Mulan road. It is so good and certainly anything better than anything I could do. I hate it when nine year olds paint better than me!

Jealous of the skills of a nine year old. Oh dear...

I have joined an aerobics class! Now that’s not something you expect to hear from someone living in Balgo, but it’s the truth! Rhonda at the Trade Training Centre is developing fitness classes and has enlisted a few of us to trial some of the routines before they are promoted. Sister Nola, Jenny, Rhonda and myself have started with a 3 mile workout DVD and once we get the hang of that will move on to latin dancing, belly dancing and Pilates. The good thing about exercising in a group like that is that I myself know that I’d feel rather embarrassed if I got sick of it and just gave up. Having other people there pushes me to keep going, as does my presence for them. It’s a win win situation for everyone, plus it’s a lot of fun and I certainly feel great after a workout. It also helps we’re doing it all in air-conditioned rooms, score!

Ok, so now here is why I explain why I was worried about my clothes being scattered all over Balgo. Yesterday, I realized I had no clean clothes as I hadn’t found a few hours where I was completely sure it wouldn’t rain over the weekend to do my washing and hang it out. That’s when you know the wet season is in full swing! Yesterday I finally did the washing and when it hadn’t rained by 6pm, I put everything out in the hot humid air hoping it would all dry by the morning. Not to be. About 9pm I heard the pitter patter of rain on the roof which eventually increased to what sounded like a pool being emptied over the house every second. It was intense. The lightning and thunder was non stop and the wind threatened to pull the glass of my windows. Things fell off my shelf because the thunder was so close and the wind so fierce. That’s when I began to think I was either going around in borrowed school uniforms for the rest of my time here or in my dressing gown; basically all I had. So I lay in bed waiting for the storm to slow down enough for me to fall asleep (I don’t think it did, I think I just got so tired I passed out) and awoke to find my clothes still miraculously pegged on the line, just absolutely soaking. After a rewash (they were pretty grimy as well, blurgh!) they were hung out and dried before any more rain was dumped on them. Brother Martin said we had 55mm of rain last night, enough to get the creek running this morning. And they say this is a desert! HA!

I thought I’d finish with the below photos of a rainbow that coloured the sky the other day. Actually, remembering now this was the same day that I watched two dogs attacking the camel (the dogs were winning, camel went psycho!), the day after the camel freaked out during a rainstorm and came and hid under the roof of the Trade Training Centre, watching us do our aerobics and the day before the camel got into our yard and wouldn’t budge. We spent half an hour trying to get her out. Wow, these pictures sure did stir up a few camel stories I forgot to tell you, which is strange because I wouldn’t dare associate a rainbow with a camel…curious. Enjoy :)

A double one!