Where the bloody hell are we?

By Allison Perry

While studying here in Australia, I have made it my own personal mission to create an all-inclusive list of slang words unique to Australia.  During our week at Aboriginal camp, I added more words to my list than ever before.  Words like mob, meaning a group or family group, and yarn, the Australian equivalent to shooting the shed, were taught to us by our aunties and uncles during the camp.  However, my favorite words that we learned were not Australian slang, but rather Wiradjuri.  Bingi and mingaan are the Wiradjuri words for brother and sister, because even if we gained nothing else throughout that week, we all definitely became brothers and sisters.

After many tears were shed and hugs were given, we left Wollombi—but what we left was not nearly as important as what we left with.  It wasn’t until our last few hours at camp that we realized our time there had really touched a full range of emotions.  Constantly being challenged and always learning, even from our very first minutes at camp, forced us to step out of our comfort zone and become much more flexible.  By the end we felt closer to one another—can you say triple bunk beds?—and more importantly we got to know ourselves a little better.  But don’t forget about the learning (because trust me, we learned). We became sponges and soaked up as much as possible about music, dance, native plant use, lore, astronomy, sustainability with the land, bush medicine, and language.  However, that list did not begin to cover what we learned through a simple yarn or a dip in the river.   We learned a little about what it’s like to be a modern Aboriginal Australian and especially how important family and one’s mob are.

Drew and Emily learning the lightning dance from Uncle Wayne while at Aboriginal camp.

Our wonderful aunties and uncles, who were our teachers throughout the week.

One of our leaders, Philip, brought up an idea that, even a week and a half later, I cannot stop thinking about.  The idea was that despite everything our Aboriginal aunties and uncles have gone through, including loss of access to their sacred lands, racism, and neglect, they are still very fortunate because they have their culture.  This is something that I think we whitefellas need; they have everything that we are lacking, from a sense of solidarity with their people to the implementation of the phrase "it takes a village to raise a child."  By the end of the week, I felt a twinge of jealousy that our aunties and uncles would continue to live with the ideals and customs that we had a mere taste of for the week and we would head back to our western ways.  A stronger sense of family, history, and shared cultural practices is something I wish we had a little more of.

And so we left.  Two hours later, we were right back into the hustle and bustle of Sydney.  We arrived at a hotel smack in the middle of the city, which left at least some of us feeling something close to culture shock.  As soon as we got into the lobby of the hotel, our strings were cut for our first week off for independent study.  We were left with our stipend, hotel room keys and instructions to follow our cardinal rule of the trip, which is to not die. I am happy to report that we were all able to successfully follow that rule.

For the week off, our group scattered all over Australia.  A large faction went off to explore what Melbourne had to offer.  While there, some went to the music festival Good Vibrations, saw an Australian Rules football game, and basically got to know the capital city of Victoria.  Emily and Sara went to visit one of Australia’s most iconic places: Uluru.  They learned all about the famed rock from both the Aboriginal and white perspective, took in the oppressive central Australian heat, and got to add a dingo to our list of wildlife sightings.  Marni spent her week being productive while in Sydney, working to edit her upcoming novel.  Melanie also spent the week working on her independent project by visiting Bundanoon, a town outside of Sydney that has banned the sale of plastic water bottles.  She interviewed a city council member who was a pivotal player in making that happen.

Our meeting point after our independent week was in Adelaide, South Australia.  Because some of us were in Adelaide for just one night, we were unable to really get to know it.  However we did find out that Adelaide is in a different time zone than the east coast of Australia—a thirty minute difference. This difference is bizarre and completely off-putting; I didn’t even know there could be time differences in increments less than an hour.   Despite this confusing quirk, our whole group managed to make it on time to the rendezvous point.  We then set off for Broken Hill, a small mining town north-east of Adelaide, and back in New South Wales.

As we drove I became increasingly happy watching the landscape change from city to bush.  I have recently found that many of my favorite experiences thus far on the trip have taken place when we are away from major civilization, and I got really excited when we drove away from all of the big buildings and traffic.  Along the way we were lucky enough to see wild emus, or ‘dinawan’ as we called them at Aboriginal camp.  Eight hours, two movies and several country towns later we made it to Broken Hill.  Contrary to its name, Broken Hill is actually a very cute place.  We explored a little before dinner, found out that there really is not that much more to the town than a main street, and ate dinner.  After a long day of riding in the bus, we were all in the mood for a relaxing evening.  It’s incredible how doing nothing will wear you out.

We woke up bright and early the next morning and started off our day by heading out to The Living Desert Wildlife Center just outside of Broken Hill.  We were met by Mark Sutto, a ranger and local Aboriginal expert who told us about the local people, who call themselves Danggali or Barkindji.  While at Aboriginal camp, we were taught all about skin groups or moieties, which in essence are large family groups.  We learned about and became members of the different skin groups: Ipai, Kumba, Cubby and Mauri.  However, at the nature preserve we learned about the two different skin groups of this particular region, the Kilpara and Makwara.  These skin groups help with the management and protection of their totem, or guardian species.  Because moieties are charged with knowing everything about and watching over their totems, they manage hunting, fishing and harvesting practices of their totems.  These methods seem to be the Aboriginal equivalent to modern conservationism.

One of the rock sculptures present at the Living Desert Wildlife Center.

Mark talking to us about Aboriginal shelters or ‘kurli,’ made out of Cyprus pine trees.

Despite their efforts, the landscape of this region has undergone dramatic changes throughout the past 200 years.  When minerals were found beneath the surface during European colonization, trees were cut down at the astonishing rate of 1000 tons per day, changing the landscape forever.  The trees have never re-grown, and now low-lying shrubs are the major ground cover in the region. 

Our next stop of the day was Penrose Park in Silverton, a little town northwest of Broken Hill. We ate a quick lunch and then went to the Silverton Hotel and Pub, where for a small fee of two dollars you can take a “test” and become a member of the Silverton Hotel for life.  Our fearless leader Nat took the challenge and passed with flying colors. (PICTURE)  Looking around the tiny town, I caught myself wondering: where the bloody hell are we?

A lunch break is not the same without a playground—this is the one we found at Penrose Park.  

Nat “taking her test,” first by balancing a potato on her forehead, then by rolling the potato into the funnel in her lap. (Photo credit to Anna-Brooke Gutzler)

Where the bloody hell are we? The view from Silverton.  

We then moved onto The Pro Hart Gallery.  Kevin ‘Pro’ Hart is one of Australia’s most famous artists, and he was originally from a town just outside of Broken Hill. The art was beautiful. If any of you back home are interested in finding out a little more about Pro, he also starred in several DuPont stainmaster carpet commercials.  They’re pretty entertaining and here is a link to one of them: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qb4n8yc2so.

Our final stop of the afternoon was at the Royal Flying Doctor Service airfield and museum.  The Royal Flying Doctor Service (RFDS) is an amazing organization that provides medical attention to people in remote locations across Australia. This institution has been around for 83 years, with their first flight taking place on May 17, 1928.  Each year RFDS flies a distance equivalent to seven trips to the moon and back, and last year the Broken Hill location assisted in 432 emergencies.  Not only does RFDS provide emergency attention, they also travel to remote locations and host clinics to perform routine check-ups. While at the airfield and museum we took a quick tour, watched a movie and checked out the museum. I found this organization to be unbelievably cool because they provide aid to places that would otherwise have no options to get help.  With a country so large I cannot imagine how scary it is to need medical assistance in almost complete isolation.

The Royal Flying Doctor Services airplane hangar.

After a quick dinner and relaxation break, we continued our marathon day by having a lecture about the Murray-Darling River system.  Brian Stevens gave us a ton of background information on how dramatically droughts and heavy rains affect the Darling River system.  Due to the lack of rainfall in 2003, Broken Hill was three weeks away from completely running out of water.  I thought this statistic was particularly striking because water is something I know I take for granted.

I am definitely looking forward to spending the next few days out in the bush and disconnecting from the outside world for a little while. That’s all for now, but rest assured we mingaan and bingi are having the time of our lives.