Football

We're sitting in the couch in the lounge room, & Tim is watching the footy, doing a sudoku. We could be at home! But here we are in Wadeye, and "home" is a long way away, literally and metaphorically. That's not a value judgement about how things are, though.
We had a great flight here from Darwin. There were 2 indigenous families on the plane, one with a newborn baby, the other with a child with leg in purple fibreglass plaster. The other travellers were white people coming out for various things - 2 we had met in Darwin during briefing, 2 we chatted to while waiting for the plane; they came out fir the day, to talk about paediatric services. Then there was a group of 5 and Tim took their photo (their camera) with all the small planes in the background.

One of the cultural educators had said, you step off the runway onto the dirt. Actually some of the streets are bitumen. It's a flat dusty town. You can tell the white houses: high wire fences and barking dogs. Aboriginal people here have lots of dogs, and we've been warned to carry a stick, but we haven't been threatened at all. We live about 10 minutes' walk from the clinic, and have pretty much got the route sorted now. The cut off corner, bouganvillea, old rusty truck tray, then our lane. The house is great! 2 bedrooms, nice open lounge & kitchen, a verandah at the front, lockable carport (like a garage but more breezy) and lockable clothes line area (similar.. Clothes dry fast). Front gate is locked all the time. The Wadeye knock is a rock thrown on the roof! There have been a few break-ins, and this aspect of living here is hard to accept, even though we know it's just a few people who do this. Even harder is the fact that mostly, only food is taken.

We're just back from the festival: the annual Wadeye festival is on this weekend. There's been music and dancing. As a new song was started, a different group would get up from the audience and dance. Someone explained that each group was a different cultural group, and each would get up when it was "their" song, and point to their country. There are several different cultural groups in Wadeye and surrounding area. It seems that they share a common language, which is taught in the school. Both primary and secondary schools here, swimming pool, Catholic church, store (not as expensive as we'd been led to believe), and hey - fruit and veggie shop, and butcher! Also PO, police, centrelink, women's centre, preschool/creche.... And of course the clinic! More about that later.

Back to the festival. We watched the kids enjoying the dodgem cars (footy is finished and Tim has just shown me some photos) and jumping castle. So much fun! Two hot greasy-food vans.... buff or croc burgers.

It all continues tomorrow. A footy match at 3pm - we'll go along to that. I'm sure that one won't feel quite like home! There'll be fireworks to finish off the night, after more music.

We wonder if we can relate in any meaningful way, especially in such a short time. But it's a stretching experience to be here.