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senators, kangaroos and pubs

Friday was an interesting day. I was at Hodgson Downs and Alawa classes were cancelled. This was because there was an official opening of the new secondary school unit. The opening involved ‘important people’ flying in for the occasion: the big two were federal senator Nigel Scullion and NT education minister Syd Stirling. It was all a bit of a circus really. I ran around for a while thinking I should be trying to network and talk to people about language stuff, but then I stopped and sat down with local mob… at one stage all the teenagers, another point with the old people… and found that much more pleasant and satisfying. I don’t even know where to start with this lobbying and politicking business. It was good sitting down with the local mob… they weren’t fazed by the circus at all.

So while I was watching the ‘circus’ I was sitting next to an old man who humbugged me to go hunting that afternoon. It was about the best offer so after lunch we went off, me, two very old men – my banji and the old man who gave me my skin name - and one overweight middle-aged guy, my magarra. We had one gun and five bullets and drove about 50kms to a place where there were kangaroos, drove slowly, waited till we spotted some, then tried to shoot them. Well, we used four bullets and got one kangaroo. Not too bad really. I didn’t do anything except drive and lift the dead kangaroo into the back of the truck. I had to chuckle though, cuz I still had my good shoes and jeans on from being at the ‘official opening’. I was very well dressed for lifting bleeding kangaroos into hiluxs.

We got back to Hodgson Downs about 4:30. I dropped the men off and went on to Katherine. I got there at about 7:30, ate, had a few beers and then had an urge to hit the pub, partly because I hadn’t done that for ages and partly because it was J’s last weekend in Katherine and I wanted to have a fun nite with her. Well, I had a few drinks, got a bit drunk and went to the same old bar and pub and niteclub. Nothing new or exciting, but it was fun. But the best part… I still hadn’t changed my clothes and so in one day I’d dragged the same clothes across about 500kms and brought them into contact with senators, ministers, dead kangaroos, big culture men, and lots of drunks… hehe…

Comments

Anonymous said…
Yep, you're well and truly gone now. No hope for redeeming you out of the territory!

(When are you in Melbourne again?)
Greg Dickson said…
july 01... woo!

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