Blow-ins on the cold desert wind - Page 4
From Griffith REVIEW Edition 15: Divided Nation
© Copyright Griffith University & the author.
Written by Kim Mahood
I AM IMPRESSED BY THE TRAINING TEAM, who adjust seamlessly to the changing dynamics of the group, and keep everyone fully engaged. The day is spent outlining the structure of the federal government and the lines of communication from the community through to the various departments responsible for delivering services. Most people are not aware that there is both a state and a federal government. The most pertinent piece of information they absorb is that the budget is passed by law, and that once a certain amount of money has been designated it can't be altered, and must be delivered through the appropriate channels. At the community level, money is an arbitrary and unpredictable resource, so the notion that it is a finite and regulated commodity is novel. The trainers tell them that the money is provided by taxpayers. "Your money," they say. This bothers me, since I know that no one in the community apart from the white staff pays tax, although I appreciate the need for people to feel empowered. It's another of those irreconcilable contradictions.
At the end of the day, everyone agrees to come at nine the next morning. They say I don't need to drive around and pick them up, although they enjoy seeing me climb in and out of my car window.
"You should get that door fixed, Napuru."
That evening, on the downward haul, there's an air of hilarity among the workshop team. I remark that I feel like a hapless victim of fate, and we discuss the need for more hap to deal with events like this. This leads to reflections on being gormless and feckless. The next morning, the team leaders are sporting name tags that say Hap, Feck and Gorm.
At eight-thirty the wailing begins and my stomach drops. Someone has died, and I feel the fear we all live with that it will be someone you know and love. Life is so precarious here, death frequent and sudden. But it is Wendy's sister who has died in Derby, a woman whose life has been violent and troubled for many years. I join the group of people offering condolences, and sit with Wendy while the older women join her in the protocols of sorry business. So much for the nine o'clock start. It's out of my hands now; people will decide their own priorities.
Evelyn comes by to tell me she is going out with her family to kill a bullock. She says she will keep some rib bones for me, indicating that she feels I need to be compensated for her withdrawal from the workshop. She's learned as much as she wants to know about the "guvment". Her own concerns are closer to home, in the refined and complex politics of family and country. Rebecca has also dropped out with the excuse that she has to get organised to travel to her father-in-law's funeral. She wants to know if she can still have my shoes. We negotiate a debrief on the workshop when she gets back.
By ten o'clock there are ten people in the library. The new name tags of the training team members pass without comment. After all, people here go by names such as Rimikus, Spieler and Blah Blah. There is an air of empowerment among the stayers. They carry out enthusiastic role-plays of how to present a request to their state or federal minister. They have a far better grasp than I do of the labyrinthine structures at the lower levels of bureaucracy, which I have come to appreciate bear some resemblance to their own convoluted family and political structures. At the end of the day they are pleased and happy with what they have learned, and eager for follow-up sessions. The training team has a substantial list of adjustments to implement from the trial. Everyone but me seems to think that something has been achieved.
THE NEXT DAY, BESSIE COMES TO THE OFFICE and asks me to ring Peter Costello to ask him about funding for her outstation. I find the number of the Treasurer's office and tell her to ring him herself. Monica appears with a photocopied paper which shows the line of funding support for the Indigenous Protected Area.
"You can help me?"
"What for?"
She shows me the paper. "This for money in't it?"
"Only for the IPA."
She throws the paper in the bin.
Julie comes in and asks me when I'm going to pay her for her work as interpreter for the workshop.
"That's ACRO's business. They haven't paid me either. Where's that list telling us who to ring up?"
Fatima comes in and parks herself portentously in the chair beside my desk.
"Napuru, you know I'm always working to help people, old people and young people together and gardiya too. I should get paid for that."
Evelyn comes to tell me she's got some rib bones for me in the freezer at her daughter's house.
During a lull, I lock the office and make my escape. The community is quiet; today there are no visitors from the other world. The cold desert wind that seems to rise in agitation at the influx of too many outsiders has dropped, and the day is clear and sunny. I climb through the car window into the driver's seat, avoiding the broken mirror stem where the rear-vision mirror has been pulled off by a child doing chin-ups.
"You should fix that door, Napuru," someone calls out. "It looks like an Aboriginal car." Fatima appears at the passenger door with her shopping.
"You can give me a lift home, Napuru?"
In the car she says: "That was a good meeting. We should have more like that." ♦