Hey everyone!
You may have read this before (and doubtless will read it again) but it needs to be said: this program has touched a full range of emotions. Sure, our blog entries focus on the exciting, happy times but that doesn’t mean we don’t miss home. Eating apples and peanut butter does not normally make me tear up with nostalgia. But no one here eats that as an after school snack. They have apples. They eat peanut butter on occasion. But put the two together? Doesn’t happen. Which might explain why all of us have gone through an obscene amount of the goopy substance. John even suggested that we buy a huge communal vat to cut down on the expense. But back to my point. I wanted to seize this moment to tell everyone on the home front: you are missed. We look forward to our triumphant return. And in the meantime we are enjoying our home-stay families in Brisbane.
As I write this, a small tropical storm lingers outside my house and between lightning flashes I can’t help thinking how bizarre it is that I’m even here. Let’s ignore the fact that I’m currently on a freaking island in a completely different hemisphere and zoom in on the detail of my city: Brisbane. A city I saw for the first time on a television screen a little over two months ago. But back then it was utter chaos as stupid people tried to drive their cars through muddy brown depths of liquid. At the time this begged the question, why do people wait until the water is waist high before trying to drive to safety? Seriously! And now as I ride the crowded 333 bus each morning (Public transit! This small-town girl is learning how to handle life in the city!) I keep trying to spot the damage. Except I have a hard time locating it. There’s some construction but it’s pretty minimal—the type of roadwork you might see anywhere. Nothing that indicates 9 weeks ago the city was underwater.
As I said: bizarre.
But all of us are having a pretty great time and the past two lectures have been particularly interesting. The first was on the demographics of Australia, which may sound dull but . . . okay, it was better than I anticipated. I learned some interesting factoids. Like did you know that in 2010 the estimated population of Australia was 22,342,000 people? Or that that long string o’ numbers is roughly the population in New York alone?
I’m betting that you didn’t.
Here’s another pearl: Australia is the 51st most populated nation. And they have a large number of migrants in relation to the overall population (second only to Israel!). I could continue spewing statistics but I think that those mean far more in the context of a lecture than individually. I will say that we learned a lot about multiculturalism and the White Australian Policy of 1901, which is exactly what it sounds like.
It’s stupid of me to be disappointed that this country has a history of racism every bit as long and intense as my own but . . . I expected better. I was particularly miffed when I heard in our next lecture that Australia wasn’t keen on accepting Jews who had just gone through the Holocaust.
Not cool.
But I think it was the second lecture that really connected with me. We discussed Australia’s war history, which frankly I knew absolutely nothing about. I had heard of ANZAC but it was pretty much limited to its association with the brand name of a biscuit. However, for everyone back home, ANZAC stands for Australian New Zealand Army Corps, which has a far more interesting history than even the most delicious biscuit.
Turns out that Australia was brutalized in World War I. 417,000 Australians served. 58,132 died. 156,000 were wounded. My problem with statistics is that they tend to feel impersonal. What relationship can you form with these strings of numbers? What got to me were some of the chilling headstones that fill the battlefield graveyards of Europe. You see, only two bodies from WWI were returned to Australia—a general’s body and that of an unknown soldier. The families who had lost husbands, fathers and brothers were left creating last words for a distant headstone with fewer characters than a tweet on twitter. Here are a few of my personal favorites:
Far from those who loved him in a hero’s grave he lies, our son.
Another life lost. Hearts broken for what?
Where’s our daddy?
The pictures of memorials with name after name inscribed upon them left us feeling awed and humbled. Especially when it was pointed out that most of those men who died were our age. The great potential that was lost . . . tragic.
Yet out of this horror has come a sense of nationhood. This war shaped Australia. There is a sense that this island nation was put to the test and it pulled through. But at the end of the day war is about killing. It’s a justification for the most horrific acts imaginable. And the lecture made it impossible to ignore the fact that the U.S. has been mired in military strife for the past 8 years. I’m not proud of myself for ignoring the troops. For willingly pushing that out of my mind because I don’t want to consider the great sacrifice our men and women in uniform are making. It’s too discomforting to consider. That’s my weak justification at any rate.
But we keep running across memorials that phrase it concisely: lest we forget.
We owe it to the dead to personalize the lists and statistics. Something I hope I’ll do when I open the newspaper instead of skipping straight to the comics.
Garfield can wait.
The following photos were taken at the World War I Memorial in Canberra.
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