mike.andrewartha

2008 Mon 13th Oct The week went fast!

Posted by Mike on 13 October 2008. There are 77 comments.

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Its been a few days since I last blogged and a lot has happened so will try to be brief. Thanks everyone for your emails and messages, it means so much!

Now to answer your questions: Santa Teresa is 80 km southeast of Alice Springs over a dusty, bumpy road which is quite rough in some parts. No I haven't seen any snakes but I have seen a Kangaroo just after dark while driving from Alice Springs. Yesterday and today hit just above 30 degrees but its been about 25-30 due to wind and a few days of cool conditions. The brothers have all the normal stuff for breakfast although all the milk out here is UHT which I am not used to drinking all the time but I'm getting used to it. Also the tap water is full of calcium, at least its drinkable but has a noticable taste and it affects all the appliances that use it so you end up having to replace or at least clean them every so often. There are about 20 kids in the class that I am in at the moment however we never get all of them to school at the same time... the most we have had is 16 one day this week and on friday we had just 5 kids attend. The plan is to head into Alice on the weekends to stay with the brothers there. Alice also has cell coverage so I will be contactable Fri - Sat and will usually head back to Santa for Sunday. I will be back home on the weekend of the 7 - 9th Nov.

7/10/08 - The brothers went on a door knocking mission this morning and ''encouraged'' the kids to come to school so we ended up getting more then the last few days. I was moved into the J2 and 3's class as the the seniors was a bit full with the extra student teachers helping out and running sessions. The teacher Elaine is one of the Aborigional teachers at the school and is helped out by her daughters most days. The kids talk to the teacher in the local Arrente language so I usually just observe and help where I can by doing photocopying and getting supplies. I was introduced to the class, shared a bit about myself and also taught them a bit of Maori which was cool. Most of the classes usually involve basic reading, writing and then colouring in the photocopied pictures. They have been learning about local animals and creating their own stories around these animals. While school was on, there was a meeting held in the community (interestingly this wasn't widely known about by the locals... not a good way to start big changes to a small community) regarding possible changes to the way alcohol is dealt with in the community. At the moment there is a total ban on all alcohol but some government people want to introduce controlled drinking in the community (as alcohol is heavily taxed over here - just like NZ, I'm sure its in the governments best interest to promote drinking here :-| ) . Over the week there has been a lot of talk about this and I don't think that controlled drinking will work, it will only bring back the old problems the small community faced previously with family violence and others bullying the non-drinking locals. With the strict ban on alcohol, the locals drive to town to get their drink, drink at the boundary of the community and there have been accidents caused by drunken driving when the locals are commuting, however I don't think this will stop in the new system (it still happens everywhere)... its really about education the locals and getting them to think about what they are doing, promoting sober drivers etc. Whatever happens, I hope the decision is made with the communities full backing rather then 'in the best interest of the community'.

8/10/08 - This week there have been a few visitors which I think has had a disruptive affect on the kids. In the morning it was reading and writing and in the afternoon Elaine read to the kids a local tribal story and the kids wrote down a few lines of the story and coloured in the pictures. Its quite exciting being in school to get a refresh of my scizzor, handwriting, written maths and colouring in skills which I don't use in the office. Memories of how much I enjoyed art and how frustrating it was to find the correct coloured crayon come flooding back... no matter how hard you look for a black one, you always end up finding a blue or purple one :-) Also when using felts it was always the yellow ones that would go off-colour first (due to the other darker colours mixing into the tip). School finishes each day at 2:30pm which is very early for me as my usual finishing time at work is at 6pm (or sometimes even later) so I have been hanging around Br Laurie to see what needs to be done. Cleaned the kids toilets today, the spray they use to disinfect the bowls was potent and I was almost knocked out by the smell + the feeling of the disinfectant as it fizzes up your noes.... ugh :-( Then I was sent to do a couple of extra things at the local sister place with fixing up their computer and helping a builder with their door. Then went on a trip to Alice Springs with one of the brothers to get some supplies. When coming back along the road from Alice it was dark so we stopped in the middle of the road, turned off the lights and got out of the car... it was sooo quiet and beautiful! The only light was from the bright moon.

9/10/08 - Teacher was away this afternoon so it was just her daughter and I in the classroom. We had colouring in time in the morning and in the afternoon I was put in charge of the boys with their maths, man they were hard work!!! After lunch we had a road safety visitor talking about the importance of wearing a seatbelt in the car and helmet on a bike. Poor "Dolly" (his 'quiet' assistant) got a battering in a play cart showing the difference between wearing a seatbelt and not... it was a rough looking road worker with a strong auzzie accent playing with a toy car, so funny for me to watch at the time but quite serious as a couple of the community members passed away last term due to driving while drunk near Alice. Then did some photocopying and got the kids to write stories about desert animals until it was time to go home. Over the week we have had armtour (part of nasca.com.au) come into the school and run sports activities with the kids. They are made up of professional sports men and woman who regulary visit Aborigional schools in remote communities to encourage them. Some of our group were even in the recent olympics and won medals. They ran a half an hour slot in the morning with games such as t-ball, cricket and ran exercise routines and small games such as poisionous rope or team ten pin bowling. The sessions were great fun, they interacted with the kids really well and the kids really got into the games and had heaps of fun + hopefully got a lot out of them. We had a BBQ run by the armtour on thursday and I got a photo with Danielle's bronze medal, she represented Australia in their Softball team. I was kindly invited to the armtours accommodation for tea (mainly leftovers from the BBQ) and it was great just to socialize with a group my own age in the community but it was also kinda weird not to have a beer in my hand haha! Straight after the BBQ we went over to "the Club" and played with the kids for a few hours. The armtour crew gave out prizes, food and danced with the kids. It was heaps of fun and I managed to pull out some of my crazy dance moves which made a few of the kids laugh (although I'm still not sure if they were laughing at or with me lol).