Keeping an Open Mind

Note: Portions concerning our experience at Aboriginal immersion camp have been removed from this post. Why? We don't want to diminish the experience of next year's program participants by giving away what's best discovered with a fresh and open mind. For this reason, we have decided not to post anything else concerning Aboriginal camp, which ended up being a very intense and personal experience for all of us. We hope you understand.

--Andy Bernstein, program leader

By Drew Hubbard

It is time for yet another blog post for all the family and friends to read. Just for reassurance, we have all been good students and followed the most important rule, which is not to die; for anyone who is concerned, no crocodile death rolls or poisonous snakebites have occurred. Hooray! We have all learned that, as in any land, if you respect and are aware of your surroundings, then you will be just fine. We have also followed the second most important rule, which is to learn. I believe I speak for everyone when I say it is easy to learn here. Not only does the beauty of the country and the climate make learning all the more enjoyable, but the classes are also absolutely amazing and full of so much information we never would have been able to experience in the states. This combination has made this experience already surpass any of our expectations, which we are all very thankful for. Thanks moms and dads!

The most recent educational lecture was on Feb 4^th by Dr. Adam Shoemaker, a professor and Deputy Vice Chancellor at Monash University. Our fearless leader Nat explained to us how privileged we were to receive this lecture. She was spot on, as it was extremely fascinating. Dr. Shoemaker has been working with this program doing this lecture for more than 20 years out of the pure love and passion he has for the subject. He has enough passion for teaching this subject that he actually flew down for the morning just to do this particular lecture, even though he had to be back in the afternoon. He started things off by asking a seemingly simple question that pulled a deep discussion out of our group. That question was, “What is Australian literature?” This brought up other confusing questions, such as whether an “Australian” writer had to be a citizen from Australia living in Australia or could be someone who was an Australian citizen but lived in another country. A good example he brought up was a famous Australian author Thomas Keneally, who has written many Australian-based books, but his best-selling book was Schindler’s List, which had nothing to do with Australia. Is this Australian literature? I guess the complexity is what makes this topic so exciting. Another writer, Peter Carey, is an Australian citizen who writes about Australia from New York. I guess there is an element of what writers claim to be which makes them an Australian writer of Australian literature. We then explored the history of Australian literature over time.

Of course, the first Australian “literature” comes from the Aboriginal peoples. Their stories were carried on through oral tradition as well as art found on natural surfaces of rock and tree bark, but they did not develop a written language or history. Much of this was composed in order to tell stories as well as pass on the knowledge that the elders knew of creation and the natural world that surrounded them. We then learned about literature as it progressed after the settlement of the British.

Late 18^th century and early 19^th century literature consisted mainly of shipboard diaries and letters from the convicts coming over to settle Australia. This type of literature was full of writing that aimed to make sense of the unfamiliarity surrounding them and stylistically often resembled British literature. From the mid-19^th century, literature increasingly contained a sense of pride in being different from the homeland. Much of it was strongly influenced by the land, which can be seen through poetry known as Bush ballads depicting the “true” Australia. The 1890’s brought two of Australia’s most famous poets, Henry Lawson and AB ‘Banjo’ Patterson, who depicted the environment and hard work in the bush. Their work was so influential in establishing an Australian identity that the late Henry Lawson received a state funeral in which the state premier read his eulogy. During the 20^th century, literature was strongly influenced by Federation (in 1901 the Australian colonies established a federal government) and war. We then went into how Aboriginal literature evolved through these times.

Aboriginal literature during the 20^th century was very dynamic. David Unaipon was a writer who sent his material to the first major magazine in Australia, the Bulletin. He was a very influential political figure, and the Bulletin put his writings together into a book. Unfortunately, Unaipon had gone traveling for nearly a year in western Australia when the Bulletin wrote to him to get permission to publish his work, so he didn’t respond to the letter that the publisher had sent. William Ramsay Smith took advantage of this and bought the publishing rights and published the book under his name. Sadly, this did not break any rules. Eventually after many years Unaipon’s family acquired the rights to the book and published it in the original version that was intended. This was an extremely interesting lecture about literature, and that is coming from a science major.

The rest of our last day in Sydney was full of busy packing and shipping out large amounts of excess clothes brought with a much colder climate in mind. I mean really, why in the world did I decide to bring over 4 pairs of blue jeans? I know for a fact I’m not the only one! This day was particularly tiring because of the combination of packing as well as the intense heat of the day. I have to say, I have never sweated so much while packing in my life. And for that matter, I have never sweated so much doing nothing at all. A good night’s sleep involves falling asleep covered in sweat, waking up covered in sweat, and sweating immediately after the morning shower. Although I really can’t complain too much; I’m writing this from Australia, while the majority of you are reading this having to deal with cold weather. I don’t miss the Oregon weather one bit and I hope you’re enjoying it! As the night drew to a close, it was clear that the weather had gotten to us all, and we just wanted to go to bed early and get ready for our journey the following morning.

After the last sweaty night of sleep in Sydney, we all woke early in the morning and set off toward Aboriginal immersion camp in a bus. As the bus drove over the harbor bridge, we said goodbye to the city we finally understood well enough to give directions to lost tourists on the streets. I have to say that it is always a good feeling to give directions to someone in an area that 3 weeks ago seemed like a different planet.

That feeling of being on a different planet soon returned the moment we were dropped off the bus for the Aboriginal immersion camp. . . . We were asked to walk behind them in a single file line until we arrived at a circular dirt ring used for ceremonial purposes. Here we were told the importance of using smoke from a fire to purify ourselves, so we all took turns kneeling before the fire and prepared our minds and hearts to learn from the uncles and aunties at camp. This whole experience of entering someone else’s country and following the rules was already teaching us their ways.

Uncle Paul and Uncle Wayne then taught us the 6 L’s in their culture: Lore, love, look, listen, learn and lead. Lore, in short, is the idea of the dreaming or creation and how knowledge surrounding it has been passed through generations over time. It means the stories for everything in the nature that surrounds us as well as the laws that indigenous peoples must abide by. Once you begin to know these things as you are taught in their culture, you begin to love them. It is through looking and listening that you learn, and if you learn enough and understand Lore then you will become a leader. This is a person who is chosen to pass on the knowledge as a knowledge-keeper. These are the people, such as Uncle Paul, to whom you must pay respect, because they hold the knowledge that has been passed down for thousands of years. After this introductory lecture, we were then placed into separate Aboriginal groups that were to be our “mobs.” We were then each given a plot of country to which we belonged. We learned that the land does not belong to us, but we belong to the land because it gives us everything we need. We then were given time to explore our country and to understand the animals and the plants within it. . . .

Nothing is as simple as it seems because everything in their culture has a specific purpose and story. This has been such a beautiful learning experience, and being immersed in such a rich culture has made it hard to describe in words. We are being taught the ways of their culture, which is over 200,000 years old. To me, this is something so beautiful that I can humbly say my words do not grasp it one bit. I am very sorry for the length of my blog, but I think some things such as this shouldn’t be explained vaguely. To all of you caring friends and family at home, know that we are learning and having an experience that none of us could fathom before we came. I guess it’s time to go to bed because everyone is covered in lots of bugs! Wish us luck and maybe that way we won’t get eaten by all of the bugs in camp.

Favorite quote from my leader Uncle John: “For every great man, there is an even greater woman behind him.”

I apologize for the lack of pictures, but the last day of Sydney no particular photos were taken of worthy note. The first day of Aboriginal immersion camp no photos were taken because we were all unsure of how they would take that.