Throughout this year, an Australian cohort of past exchange teachers will put together activities for current exchange teachers to attend if we choose. It's really a wonderful offering and they do it voluntarily. It would be like us coming home next year and hosting all the current Australians who are living in Colorado for a weekend, say, in Crested Butte.
Two weekends ago, we got to spend the weekend with exchange teachers from Colorado, Washington State, The UK, Scotland, Ireland and Canada in an area about 5 hours south of here called Jervis Bay. Few quick orientation facts--it was much cooler than Newcastle and the water was fr-fr-fr-freezing. We didn't go in. We saw far fewer people and inhabited areas than we're accustomed to seeing in Newcastle and north of here. I hadn't realized how much I missed the New Zealand flavor of the rich, green untouched land. On our drive down, we saw leaves changing on trees which we hadn't seen in Newcastle (though this week it is beginning here too). We saw rolling, green pastures and farm land with old trees the size of hot air balloons lining the drainage paths in the crooks between the hills.
We stayed at a university satellite location on a reserve that is completely owned and managed by aboriginals--so they can keep their land in the condition they see fit and allow visitors on their terms. The campus we were on had a huge kitchen, communal bathrooms and tiny little cabins that looked a bit like jail cells before we laid out our sleeping bags and freed our clothes from our duffle bags.
This is Jordan feeding a wild King Parrot (though we don't think this was the parrot's first time being fed)
Just a cute little tidbit that I don't want to forget: the kids slept in their own little room next door to ours (walls thin enough to hear each other softly snoring) with bunk beds. Jordan chose the top bunk. The first night there, they each crawled in bed, pretty excited about having their own room. We said good-night and went back to the big kitchen where the adult party was going on. About 10 minutes later, I went back to check on them and they were laying right next to each other on the bottom bunk, half asleep and all cuddled up together. Apparently, we learned the next morning in detail, Jordan couldn't sleep. Gabe said, "Try falling asleep for 10 more minutes and if you can't then you can come down and sleep with me." Something like 10 minutes passed and she let him know she was still awake so he told her to come down and so she did. They both reported sleeping soundly all night long.
Anyway, chatting with the other teachers and spouses of teachers was probably the most interesting part of this weekend. Many teachers, if not most teachers, are struggling with the same issues Mark is. Many teachers are having a significantly worse time than Mark is. Some people are pretty unhappy with the part of Australia they are living in. Many people seem to have been handed the challenge of accepting what is and finding the good in it. It was sort of disheartening to hear all the frustrations and struggles. I was surprised there were so many. There were also some people who were having a blast and saw their teaching situation as just a downside to this whole year. There was only one person who is standing out in my mind right now who truly enjoys their teaching experience. Otherwise, the complaints were mainly about the frustrating lack of resources and the incredible discipline problems. Most people were enjoying their co-workers. But on the whole, this was a pretty upbeat group of people and there were a number of them we really enjoyed. We all welcomed each other into our homes and made sketchy plans to come stay in their different towns. I left there feeling indescribably lucky that our final match of the four that came our way was in Newcastle as it is clear to me now that we could have been placed in a pretty undesirable part of the country. Thank you Prue for choosing to come to Colorado!!
We went on a dolphin watching cruise (and as I may have said in an earlier blog, it is my opinion that these sorts of cruises should all be about 45 minutes long rather than 2.5 hours but what are you gonna do?)
And here is one of the many ways we found to entertain ourselves during the remaining two hours we weren't actually watching dolphins...this is Jordan being a bottlenosed dolphin.
The highlight of the weekend was a several hour long, intimate presentation by two aboriginal people who came to share with us their culture and history. They were very personable, hilarious and extremely informative. We learned about a piece of grass that, if you pull it out by the root, which looks like the white part of a celery stick, and blow on it, it will emit a high pitched sound. The vibration of that sound will be picked up by snakes both friendly and deadly, and they will come to see from where the vibration is coming. This is how aboriginals brought snakes out of the bush. They'd be ready with a rock that they'd throw at them to kill them for dinner. They told us about a time they were presenting to a group of children at a school and some time later, a child was blowing on this grass in the playground and a red-headed black snake (very deadly) came slithering out of its hiding place to visit the children. They made us promise we wouldn't try that on our own.
I was affected by hearing so many stories about aboriginal life, specifically about how pure their culture was before white people intruded and how much has been lost for them in recent times. I am heartened by those who are finding their way back to their roots. These people seemed to have a gift to merge cultures without denigrating either.
We did go in the water on our last morning not because it was warm but because it was irresistible. You could swim out quite far and be way over your head and still see the bottom.
We returned home on Sunday afternoon, the kids went to one day of school on Monday and then we were off to Sydney to meet my parents on Tuesday morning. Next blog...Sydney
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
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