Firstly and most importantly, Happy Easter everyone! Whether you're celebrating the five day weekend on the Central Coast, Sydney, overseas or even in a remote Indigenous community, I hope you're having lots of fun!
Yesterday marked Jenni's and mine one week anniversary of living together and tomorrow marks our first week in Warruwi. To put it simply, I love it here.
Ok I admit it, it is remote. There are very few distractions like shops (we have one general store that stocks everything from washing machines to four bean tin mix) or movie theatres (we have none) or nightclubs (it's a dry community). It is an expensive 1.5 hour flight on a small plane to Darwin and there are a whole range of creatures that can eat you, including sand flies. Man, those sand flies are nasty bi-atches. But what Warruwi has is a supportive, close-knit community that works and plays together. This community spirit is simply something that you will never experience in the 'burbs, where it is unlikely that you know your neighbours as friends.
I'll give a summary of the past week, however that week was unique. Next week we'll properly be teaching our small groups. Jenni and I mostly assisted in the kitchen serving five meals a day to the students, as the usual coordinator is having a baby and needed to go to Darwin to have scans. This was hard sweaty work with intervals between meal breaks spent in the classroom. Although this week was hard and definitely wasn't on our project description, it actually was a fabulous opportunity to meet all the students and get our presence known around town. Kids are the biggest gossips after all and tell all their family and friends about the newcomers to the island community. Today at the shop for example, the check-out lady, said 'you're the new girls to the island, you're teaching my four grandchildren!'
After school at 5.30pm most days the teachers get together for a walk, a bike ride or even zumba! This has been fabulous in getting us used to the island and seeing some awesome sunsets and moonrises. We have also been lucky enough to see a sting-ray jump out of the water, a small pod of dolphins, a sea turtle, so so much fish and many brumbies. Unfortunately however I haven't seen a crocodile yet!
Yesterday was Good Friday and Jenni and I had a lovely holiday! Louie the policeman took us our to Bottle Rock to go fishing. To put it directly, we massively failed at the fishing part. We had three rods which caught nothing except two rocks where we lost the lures. However there was also some reels happening and we caught five little fish. Jenni and I with our southern city sensibilities however made Louie throw them all back. They were too small to eat so we weren't going to keep them. The biggest part of the day though was my oyster eating. That's right, I don't and haven't eaten seafood ever, and Louie was picking fresh oysters from the rock shelf. Jenni and Louie were having a good old chew and Louie not understanding the whole anti-seafood thing dared me to eat one. I figured that it was fresh, it was sustainable and there were so so many on the rock shelf that I ate it. That's right, that slimy, salty goop went down my throat followed by a gush a water. It was foul!! Why on earth are oysters a luxury and/or romantic?? Could someone please answer that for me? The view however made up for the oyster eating and the lack of fish. It was amazing and is an untouched paradise. If it wasn't for the crocodiles, sharks and box jellyfish it would have been amazing to go for a swim in such unpolluted and fish-fulled waters.
In the evening we went to a BBQ with the teachers and art centre coordinators. It was really lovely and just exactly what we do at home with lots of meat, salads and vegies. The only different aspect of the whole affair was the lack of alcohol. Everyone was drinking orange juice!
I've been learning so much as well about indigenous and island culture from the kids. There are range of different names in language for crocodile and apparently the eggs and the tails are the best parts of eat. You can eat the green tip of the green ant, but you have to be careful as they sting! Turtle eggs are also a pretty popular meal. If you're older sister has a child then you're its 'little mother.' I can't wait to learn more.
So its heading towards dinner time and we have a treat- we bought a pizza! So even though I'm in a remote community McCains reheatable pizzas reached me! Yum!
xx
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