My address!

Hello everyone! How are you all? I'd love to hear from you and find out what you've all been up to! My postal address (if anyone is inspired to write to me!) is -

Kormilda College
Berrimah rd
Berrimah
0828
NT

I've been quite busy this week-yesterday I worked from 7.30am to 7pm!! I was only meant to stay in the dorm until 5pm, but I was enjoying hanging out with the kids, plus I had to clean up all the paint that we'd left behind after our activity (that took a while to do!!!) I've had about 3 extra hours added to my timetable, which included shifts that I work in the residences. That pretty much involves laundry, hanging out with the kids and running activities and homework help. So all really exciting stuff!!!!

Today we took the middle school indigenous classes to the national wildlife park, as a bit of a day off from school. It was a great day, although it was very hot and tiring to walk around in the glaring sun all day, whilst looking after a group of boys! I bought my video camera, which they very much enjoyed using, although they weren't too good at keeping it steady so the video is quite hilarious to watch!!! :)

My new residential shifts are in the senior dorms, which I haven't ever really had anything to do with yet. So far, I help out in middle school classes and at the girls middle school dorm, so hopefully this will give me a chance to get to know the older kids whoa re closer to my age! It's so funny, whenever a student asks me how old I am, they always seem really surprised that im 18-they reckon im 19 or 20! (thats the first time anyone has overestimated my age!!)

I'm loving hanging out with these kids and building relationships with them. It's been fascinating to learn about their culture, things like what their Dreamings are, and what kinds of foods they eat when they're at home!

Anyway, I've gotta go now, I'm off to see a circus performance and I'm meant to be meeting the other gappies right now! I hope you're all well, and that life is abundant and challenging! Please feel free to txt me, or email me, and I'll try and email as many of you as I can soon!!!

Songman

One of the teachers who lives at the school recently lent me an autobiography called "Songman", which is the story of an Aboriginal Elder's life. At the age of seven, Bob Randall was stolen away from his mother as part of the scheme to assimilate mixed-race children into mainstream white society, which was achieved by cutting them away from their traditional homes and everything that was ever familiar and safe to them.

I've only read a few chapters into the book, but already the pain and trauma that this man has had to endure at the hands of the white missionaries who were "called by God" to "save" these children is evident and shocking to read. How these people could have preached a Jesus of love and compassion to the Indigenous people, and then treated them with cruelty and hatred, I will never understand. Perhaps I don't want to be able to understand.

But the amazing thing is, that despite the fact that Bob was degraded and treated as inferior, and even though the missionaries and teachers never demonstrated simple love towards the children, it seems that Bob began to recognise God's face in the natural world around him:

"I began to realise that the God that was being talked about was everywhere and in everything. Life was God in all things and it was only humans who were in the position of denying that, through our confused minds. Everything was already completely perfect, a dance of creation, a celebration of life itself in the land, in absolutely everything."

Pretty cool hey! Instead of discovering God in the people around him, he found it in the natural environment. How sad it is that we treated the Aboriginal people so abhorrently. Sometimes I wonder if there couldn't have been another way to do things. How could we have come to this land in peace? I wonder what alternatives there could have been, and if those alternatives aren't too far gone to reclaim?

Christ himself is our peace. He made both Jewish people and those who are not Jews one people. They were separated as if there were a wall between them, but Christ broke down that wall of hate by giving His own body.
Ephesians 2:14

Good days and bad days

As with anything in life, at Kormilda College you have your good days and you have your bad days. Yesterday was definitely one of the days that I probably could have done without!

The entire day was spent with class M15-the naughtiest kids who are all plonked together in the same class to stop them from disrupting the learning of the other Indigenous students. So as you can imagine, this classroom is a riot most of the time. Despite this, this class is one of my favourites, probably because they are all the misfits!

However, yesterday they took 'misbehaving' to a whole new extreme level. Firstly, it was Friday, which meant that they were tired and ready for the weekend, and their concentration was totally out the window.One of the boys decided that he didn't feel like working, so he proceeded to kick chairs around, piff textas at the wall as hard as he could and yell obscenities at the top of his voice in protest to the teacher who was only trying to help him. (On a positive note, he did agree to pick up the mess of textas after he stopped his rage)

Next was music class with M15. Absolute chaos for an hour and a half. The teacher was trying to get the class to play some music together as a band, but three of the boys decided that they preferred to make as much noise as possible on the drum kits and with the electric guitars. Very selfishly they ruined the whole lesson for the rest of the kids, who were being very cooperative.

Yesterday was the first day that I actually felt drained and tired, and even frustrated. I have never felt angry towards the kids when they mess up, but yesterday I was quite exasperated and at my wits end. It was quite a challenging day. Sometimes it feels like you waste a whole day and don't get anywhere, and it can be a bit disillusioning. But I think that at the end of it, I come to the conclusion that the more I struggle and come up against obstacles, the stronger my conviction grows that I need to be where I am, that I'm called to be in this specific place at this particular time. I'll be truthful, I'm not really sure what it is that God is calling me to do, but I am sure that He's using me even when I don't know how or when. Sometimes you don't need to know the answers or the way to go, you've just got a song in your heart and a prayer that you're living out, and the rest is up to the big guy. It's hard, but I have to hold onto the faith that compassion and love and joy can overcome even the darkest parts of our world, and I have to believe that God will work through me to bring these things into the lives of those around me.

So these times of weakness and heartache are important, because it keeps me focused on God and it reminds me that I have God to guide me every step of the way. In the end there is nothing to big for God to handle, and even when there is no conceivable way out or it seems that there is no answer, God is always calling us forward to imagine a new reality where all of our needs are taken care of. Where love is the most important factor.

Photos

And now for some more photos...





Dylan, after he stole my glasses! The Indigenous kids LOVED to take our sunnies, hats, and cameras and take millions of photos of themselves! My camera kept on getting filled to capacity with photos, and I had to keep on deleting stuff so that I could take more. About half of the photos that i had on my camera were slef potraits from Stevo and Dylan!

The gorge again!

Glenda and Anthony! Such awesome campers! Glenda was from another group that stayed with us for a little while. She is one of the few Indigenous students at Kormilda who takes classes with the mainstream, whereas most Indigenous students are placed in seperate classes to give them an extra help.

Anthony and I (note Anthony's wonderful bunny ears!) He thought that it was hilarious to give me bunny ears whenever we took photos, but what he didn't realise was that I was getting my revenge!!! mwahahaa!

Ok, now Stevo is one of those guys that never acts surprised or happy or sad. he's pretty calm most of the time. So I spent the entire day trying to get him to make faces for the camera-we had surprised faces, angry faces (which actually look quite scary!!), happy faces and thoughtful faces. This, in case you're wondering, is our thoughtful face. It's quite similar to surprised and happy faces. Good times!

This is one of the magical water holes that we swam in. The whole place was so beautiful and perfect! I actually felt like I was intruding just by being there. It was so isolated and clearly untouched by humans, and so it felt like we were trespassing somewhere forbidden. It gave me a slightly uncomfortable feeling, but at the same time it was deeply peaceful and serene.

This is the bank of the river where we were camping. A few of the campers spotted small fresh water crocs in these waters, but apart from that this was my main source of getting clean. And boy did i need it!!

Tomorrow I think I'll tell you about some of the Dreamtime dancing that the three boys did for our group around the fire one night! I hope you liked the photos!

Hunter!

Hello! Well, as promised, I'll now share with you one of the exciting things that happened whilst we were living out in the bush...

On the third day of camp, the third group of campers arrived at the campsite where myself and Lotte (the other gappie who came on camp with me) were staying at. Now, not that I had my favourites or anything, but I really connected with this beautiful group of young people. This probably occurred for several reasons, including the fact that we had a day and a half together as opposed to only one day. This particular group was 15 large, and within this there were three boys-Dylan (who is in one of the classes I assist with and was mentioned in a previous blog), Stevo (who is in the same class) and Anthony-who were the only Indigenous students. Even though they were boisterous, loud and attention seeking most of the time, they were very quiet and reserved around the white kids. Easy to understand if you're outnumbered like that though.

On the forth day, in the morning, we all went for an explore down the gorge that we were camped near. I know right now that I am going to fail terribly at attempting to describe the mysterious and overwhelming beauty of this place. Totally ancient, yet with an atmosphere of something just being created the day before, this place is entrancing. I wouldn't be surprised if this wasn't a significant place for the Aborigines when they lived here. Apparently there was some Aboriginal art on one of the gorge walls, but the area was too massive and we couldn't find it. The gorge was littered with gigantic boulders that looked as though they'd been tumbled there by a giant, the river was fresh and cool, there were several swimming holes, sandy banks, jagged rocks, little frogs, goannas, massive fishes in the water, spiders, and I even found a crab shell! The walls of the gorge were sheer, the sky was opened up above us and we were totally isolated.

In the photo above, i was trying to capture the clear, perfectly blue, hot sky. Never a cloud in the sky out in the bush! I don't think I saw one all week!

So anyway, I'll put up some more photos of the gorge another time, and now I'll get on with the story...

So as I said before, the Indigenous kids seemed a little shy. But by the forth day, they had gained a lot more confidence and were mucking around with the others. In comparison to the three boys, the rest of us white fellas looked totally incompetent in the natural environment. We would gingerly climb over the rocks whilst Dylan would leap like a wild cat from boulder to boulder, and never did his feet fail him. He then showed us how to catch the little frogs by trapping them in his hand on the rocks, and would entertain us by throwing them in the water for the fish to gobble (although I put on a casual face, I was internally horrified-I love frogs!). So already I was really impressed by the boys' ability and knowledge about how to survive in the bush, and yet the real fun hadn't even begun!

As I was on my way down one of the rocks, I came across Dylan and Anthony under an overhang, and beside them lying on the ground was a dead goanna!! I was like "Dylan, did you kill that goanna?" and he said very matter of factly "yeah miss!" I found out that he had spotted the lizard, carved his own spear from a stick and thrown it, only to aim true right through its throat! I asked him if he was going to eat it, and he replied "I only kill what I'm going to eat miss!"

Thus the group clambered over the rocks back to the camp, where Dylan proceeded to cut out the organs of the goanna (if you want to be grossed out, read this sentence, if you don't, skip to the next paragraph...the heart was still beating 20 minutes after it had died)

Dylan new exactly what to do-he cooked and cut the goanna for us all and shared it with everyone (gonna tastes like tough chicken!). He knew how to remove the yucky tasting bits, he new how to stitch it up, he new how to place it in the coals, he new how to cut up the cooked meat. Such knowledge!

Check out the photos! I love the fact that Dylan the hunter has his frowning, serious face on!

It was a very special occasion for all of the group. it was very special that Dylan shared the meat with all of us, but that's the Aboriginal way. What belongs to one person belongs to the whole family.

It was also special because it gave us a chance to reflect on where our food comes from. The group leader, Nick, took the opportunity to remind us that we must always respect the life that is sacrificed for us to live (remind you of something else?) In our culture, it's so convenient to grab some meat out of the fridge, and we often don't think about the process behind where our food comes from, and we don't acknowledge the animal that had life. It's easier to only think of the end product, and probably more comfortable.

So that was an account of one of the things that really inspired me out in the bush. We often forget how intelligent Aboriginal people are, and we think that our way is somehow more superior. Silly us, I couldn't even catch a baby frog!!!

I'll share some more of the camp adventures next time, there are a lot of thoughts and experiences that I want to write about for you!

I hope you're all going really well, wherever you are and whatever things you are doing!

Home again

Yes, I'm home again...well I actually got back on Friday arvo, but have not had time to sit down and blog until now!

What can I say about camp...it was incredible and exciting and i learnt a bit more about life and faith and people. I think for a little while I was really out of my depth with a few things and I was feeling really challenged and a bit confused, but I got through it and things are better now!

Just to summarise what I was doing-
-50 kids, split into four camping groups. I spent about a day with each group.
-Most of the kids were white, and about one third of them were Indigenous
-We were camping on a block of privately owned land that is closed to the public, and Kormilda's year 9 camp is the only time that humans enter the area! So totally untouched and wild as you can get! God's garden with as little interferance as possible!
-I was there as a support to the outdoor ed teachers, so pretty much I helped out with the rock climbing, did odd jobs and spent most of my time getting to know the kids and being a big kid myself!

Over the next few days I'll write more about the things that happened over the camp and how I felt, but for now I think I'll have to call it a night!

And thank you thank you thank you to everyone who has been keeping in touch! I'd love to hear about all the news from down south, and about what all of you guys are up to in your busy lives!! :)