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what's Ngukurr like?

I went to a party in Darwin on Saturday nite and there were a few Important People there. While mingling and making small talk I was asked a few times, "What's Ngukurr like?". I found myself completely incapable of giving a decent answer. Any suggestions appreciated... I just don't know how to answer that question...

bad health

It's common knowledge that health in remote communities is in a bad state. Good then, to read a couple of stories calling for action. Read this and this . There's no doubt that this mob here aren't very well off when it comes to health care. Just today, one of the language workers came to me cranky because he went to the clinic and the big blister on his foot from a scalding wasn't treated. Later, another of the language workers nearly collapsed in pain and has been at the clinic all day. He'd been scheduled in for an urgent colonoscopy and gastroscopy but of course the process takes a couple of weeks and he has to have it done 320kms away in Katherine. He's really quite sick now and me and all his family are very worried. But how much can you expect when there's only two nurses here today. That doesn't seem like much for a community of over 1000. And there's no doctor here til tomorrow. I don't know anything about health care but would

school excursion

Today was scorching hot. It hit 41 degrees (at least). Luckily me and some of the language mob were joining in with a school excursion to the Wilton River, a nice little swimming spot about 30 mins away. The excursion was for the transition class - all five year olds. They have excellent local teachers and I brought along 4 language teachers. There was a lot of swimming as well as some language classes (the kids broke up into 4 different language groups and the assistant teachers joined in very well too). Plus one old lady showed the kids how to make a coolamon out of paperbark and their regular teacher made a paperbark raft and floated one of the students on it. We all had lunch, a cup of tea and it was quite a relaxing day and definitely a good way to pass time when it's 41 degreees. Here's a couple of pics. The first one is all the kids and their teachers at the Wilton River crossing. They're laying down like crocodiles. And then there's me with a bunch of

Roly who?

I've mentioned before that I'm a bit of a fame whore. And so I'm rather pleased with myself that a little article I wrote is currently appearing in a Melbourne street rag. But what is really neat is that the mag is not something I would thought I would ever be asked to contribute to. It's the inaugural issue of 'The Design Papers', a street mag put out by the National Design Centre in Federation Square. A designer called David Lancashire contacted us here and asked for a few 'pidgin' words. When I explained that what we speak here is Kriol and it's not a pidgin, they asked me to contribute a piece. So David Lancashire did some graphic design to illustrate the Kriol words I gave him, a wrote a piece about Kriol at Ngukurr and Peter Muhlhausler wrote a piece about pidgins. What I didn't get was what a design magazine had to do with pidgins and Kriol, but the story goes is that design can be used find common ground when language can't bri

payday, cards and nappies

Today is payday and that means it's time for the big card games to start while everyone's cashed up. After school program today I was driving around with the two guys who teach Waagilak. We drove past one camp where there was a big group of people playing cards. "Gardi, bigis kadgeim jeya." (Woah, big card game there). I said. My waawa, W, said, "Thei nomo sabi gu la toilet wen thei la kad". (They don't go to the toilet when they're playing cards). "Maitbi thei gu la toilet jeya igin." (They probably go to the toilet right there). And we all chuckled. Then my maari T goes, "Thei maitbi plei garri kimbis". (They probably play with nappies on). And we all chuckled even more. Hahaha.

the proles

George Orwell's 1984 was written in 1949. I first read it 12 years ago and am re-reading it now. One great thing about the science fiction genre is that by stepping outside the world we inhabit it lets you look at things from the outside and can offer clarity when you relate the fictional world back to your own. Here's an except from 1984 that is quite striking: "The Party taught that the proles were natural inferiors who must be kept in subjection, like animals, by the application of a few simple rules. In reality very little was known about the proles. It was not necessary to know much. ... They were born, they grew up in the gutters, they went to work at twelve, they passed through a brief blossoming-period of beauty and sexual desire, they married at twenty, they were middle-aged at thirty, they died, for the most part, at sixty. Heavy physical work, the care of home and children, petty quarrels with neighbours, films, football, beer, and above all, gambling, fil

digression

Let me digress and leave Arnhem Land for a post, while I go back to the place where my interest in language was first sparked - Iceland - where I was an exchange student after I finished highschool. Now, Iceland has hit the news because it plans to start commercial whaling again, with a quota of 30 minke and 9 blue fin whales. The Australian government (my favourite thing in the world!!) responded with this criticism from Environment Minister Ian Campbell (thanks ABC News website): Senator Campbell says its a very irresponsible move. "I think it will raise doubts right around the world about Iceland's commitment to environmental issues," he said. "It is really a very sad day for the world, when a first world, developed country like Iceland should effectively tear up one of the great environmental achievements of the world from the last century, that is the moratorium on whaling." Okay, so I'm not into whaling as much as the next guy, but for Australia to cr

bush tucker 101

The other day old BR asked me to drop her down at the local billabong. This is just the kind of humbug that sometimes annoys me, but as a peace offering BR gave me the biggest yarlbun I've ever seen! (Which made it all okay.) Yarlbun is the Marra name for this bush tucker - it's the fruit of the water lily, a big seed pod that you get by going into the water and feeling around for under the surface. And these pictures show you what you can do with it. The first pic shows the giant yarlbun intact. Next, I've peeled the skin off, revealing the inside part bulging with lily seeds. Now, you can eat it just like that, like an apple, but as you'll see in the third picture, I've actually emptied all the seeds into a bowl. And that's how I ate it, just like cereal. Very tasty, and I'm sure very healthy. And the last pic shows a row of yarlbun that had been roasted on the fire - another good way to eat it. And thus endeth your first lesson on bush tucker.

a good but tired day

I’m tired. I find myself moving through each day here at Ngukurr with not much energy. Not really struggling, but just going through the motions, even though the motions are far from boring and repetitive. If I wasn’t so tired and in need of a good break, I would be really enthusiastic about my day today. Today was a really good day and most days we are still doing lots of good stuff, but I’m tired and am finding it hard to be inspired. But can I tell you about today? The first good thing that happened was a visit from Ted Egan, who is the administrator of the NT. (He’s is the Queen’s representative here, same as a governor, but only states have governors.) He’s been visiting Ngukurr for a couple of days and yesterday happened to be at the school when we were doing language classes. He was very impressed with what he saw (good job Marra mob!). He met the Marra teachers and asked if he could sit down with FR, our deadliest Marra speaker. So this morning Ted Egan came to Language

extinct?

a few weeks ago, an old lady passed away and she was probably the last full speaker of Ngandi, bless her soul. She was a deadly old lady who had done lots of language work in her life and contributed so much to all the work that has been done on Ngandi. She will be missed. After her death, one munanga here said to me ‘Ngandi is extinct now’. But is it really? We are still teaching Ngandi here at Ngukurr. My anggurl ET knows a bit of the language and is working hard to learn more. Twice a week, he teaches Ngandi at Ngukurr school and is doing his best to pass on what he knows. So for a few hours a week he is teaching the words and phrases he knows and the Ngandi kids are slowly learning. Can you still call Ngandi extinct when that is happening? My mami CD can understand Ngandi really well, although she is not a ‘full’ speaker in that there are things she doesn’t know and she hasn’t really grown up speaking Ngandi. But she can easily produce plenty of fluent sentences and knows a

i did it

I finally did my census the other day. Now I can stop whinging. Plus I missed a chance to be on ABC radio (again!) talking about our problems with the census. I was out bush at the time. Oh well, my celebrity status is still on hold for now. :)

maidi sta bin buldan

I was sitting quietly on the language centre steps this arvo after a noisy afternoon of language classes and my 4-year-old neighbour wandered over and started chatting (all in Kriol of course). After a while she pointed to the hill in the distance behind language centre and said, "yu gin luk shainiwan ting jeya?" (Can you see the shiny thing there?) "yuwai, wani tharran?" (Yeah, what's that?) I reckon it was just an aluminium can reflecting the sunlight, but she says, "maidi sta bin buldan." (Maybe a star fell down.) I asked her if she'd seen any stars fall down and she said no, she went to sleep last night and got up early to go to school. How beautiful is that? But then, I couldn't help think that when this little girl is at school, her white school teacher will not be able be access this child's observation skills, communication/language skills and imagination because this little girl's classroom is a predominantly English classr

bush trip!

Numerous meetings. Lots of 'community consultation'. Permission forms. Buying food, fruit n veg, camping gear in Katherine. Hiring a troopy from Darwin... I'm exhausted and the trip hasn't even started yet. We're going on a big bush trip tomorrow. 4 days and 3 nights at a place called Towns River. There'll be about 30 of us in 4 troop carriers. It's pretty huge. I've been left with most of the organising (my main co-organiser recently became a widower and hasn't been working) and I'm buggered already. My situation hasn't been helped by being on the verge of anxiety attacks for the past week because I've been irrationally fearing the worst (like no one will come, everyone will starve and complain, we'll get lost, everyone will have a terrible time etc. etc.) But I'm looking forward to it now. And so I should, I've put lots of work into it. The trip is for Marra people. It's for old people to go to Marra country

What census?

Was there a census last week? If there was, us mob at Ngukurr know nothing about it. I know thismob here already get a pretty raw deal but no census? I thought they had a referendum about that in 1967 making it illegal to leave Aboriginal people out of the census. John Howard, your government is shit.

to English

I don't like discussing the various 'curiosities' of Kriol because historically creoles are plagued by being noticed for the 'cute' things they do with the superstrate language. Or in otherwords, creoles are always mocked for being 'cute' or 'bastardised' versions of their derivative languages, and not appreciated in their own right. But I noticed something great about Kriol today. You can use 'English' as a verb, meaning to speak to someone with English. Today my wawa A was outside talking away to two munanga he used to work with and his wife comes in and says, 'yu wawa jeya ingglishbat' (translation: Your brother is there 'englishing'). She was giggling about it, because her husband's English isn't all that flash, but he was there having a good old yarn to these guys. After I heard that, I realised I'd heard it before. I remember my banji telling about a white girl being interested in him, but he couldn'

Conference

Hey all. Sorry I’ve been slack with my blog. I was away from Ngukurr for a few weeks. Part of my time away was spent in Brisbane going to my first ever linguistics conference. 8 days of conference! Well, 3 days of conference then 5 days of linguistics courses. It was pretty full on, interesting and fun and very much a different scene from what happens here at Ngukurr. The main thing that struck me while at the conference was how different the two worlds of linguistics are – one world being the on-the-ground, community-based, community development, applied linguistics stuff I do here at Ngukurr and the other world being the world of academic linguistics which is what dominated the conference. While I find that world interesting and it definitely has a lot to offer, sometimes I couldn’t help thinking what little relevance it has to people like the guys I work with at Ngukurr – especially things like historical linguistics and typology… I can’t stop myself from thinking sometimes ‘y

Go Roper mob

A few weeks ago, most of the people I work with started a Batchelor course (Batchelor is the college/university based in the NT specifically for Aboriginal people). The course they’re doing builds language work skills: reading and writing language, recording, teaching – all the same stuff we do here anyway. But I encouraged these guys to do the course so they can get accreditation for the training they’re already doing. And so a lecturer came out to get these guys started and we’re continuing meeting twice a week for tutoring sessions to get through the course. Yesterday morning only three of the students came but we got some good work done. They practiced using the minidisc to play recordings and then make their own. I helped make sure GB was doing it right and then off they went, all recording each other in Marra saying the bush tucker names they’d written down the day before. After that, we listened to the recordings and then transcribed FR’s recording. Well, I shouldn’t say w

Language workshop at Numbulwar

I've already blogged about the workshop we had at Numbulwar a few weeks ago (see below) and now here's a photo of everyone at the workshop. Biggest mob, hey? (And I've already sent it round with a press release... hehe...)

baby steps

To put it very simply, my job involves revitalising as many as 7 endangered languages, which is … well … pretty huge. And it’s a job that can only be done in baby steps. And sometimes I see some of the baby steps… and on one hand, they’re not much, but on the other hand, they represent something quite significant. A few weeks ago, we put up some signs at the shop showing the names of eight animals in five different languages. This could easily be perceived as a fruitless activity – firstly, because hardly anyone is literate in their language and wouldn’t be able to read the words and secondly, the vast majority of people here seem pretty uninterested in their language. But four weeks on, two of the five signs are still sitting there at the shop and today I looked at the Ngandi one and someone had graffitied ‘Thompson’ at the bottom of it, which is the surname of the vast majority of Ngandi people here at Ngukurr. It’s only a little thing, but it means that that language, and the f

two big weeks

We've had two big weeks and today is the first day I've had to relax (and try and make sure I don't get sick from too much work... and play). Last week, the Education department held a Language Revitalisation workshop. It was at Numbulwar, a community about three hours away which is actually on the saltwater giving it a stunning location. The workshop was pretty mega. The Ngukurr contingent totalled 13. Go us. Monday was our travel day and we waited and waited for the troopy to arrive from Katherine (carrying another 8 people headed for the workshop). Finally at 4pm they arrived. By then I'd already recorded old F saying a few words in Marra and then adapted our little computer game into Marra. And five of the men were long gone as they were travelling by plane. We set off before 5pm so it turned dark on the way. A few pauses and some water in the fuel line was nothing compared to the troopy getting bogged not far from Numbulwar. Our little Hilux had to act a

ai bin gulijap krai

"Ai bin gulijap krai" means 'I nearly cried'. Here at Ngukurr, middle aged and older people all have stories about being banned from speaking Language at school. I don't hear the stories that often, but I know they're there. I don't push them because I worry they might be painful or make people feel no good. But in the press release I sent around a few weeks ago, we approached the issue. Here's what I wrote (it was published in the Koori Mail): Once banned, Elders now teach children language "Older generations of Aboriginal people in the southern Arnhem Land community of Ngukurr were banned from speaking their traditional languages at school when they were children. Decades later, a dedicated group of the same people are putting their languages - now endangered - back into the classroom and teaching new generations. Now in its second year in its current form, the language program at Ngukurr Community Education Centre incorportates five langaug

Ola langgus mob

Believe it or not, but this motley crew is responsible for the revitalisation of Ngukurr's endangered languages. And they're deadly. Standing left to right are my mami (mother) R, baby M, and my wawa (brother) A, who are the Rembarrnga mob. Then there's my maari (mother's mother's brother) T, our Waagilak teacher, then me, then my nephew D, who works on Ngandi and my magarra (uncle's daughter) B, a Marra teacher. Sitting down are my anggul (uncle) E, our Ngandi teacher, my anti F, a Marra teacher, and JBJ, our chairperson. Thank you to my mami Sophie for the photo.

media whore

I'm too vain to not be excited by being mentioned in any kind of media... and I'm doing okay at the moment. You can see me on two blogs: bulanjdjan talking about the opening of the Community Language Library last night, and the other bulandjan talking about me dancing (performing more like) and the big disco at Ngukurr last weekend. Apart from that, I was interviewed by ABC radio and the opening of the Language Library last night. I just went to air around the NT and might be on Radio National too now. And a press release I sent around about the Ngukurr School Language Program has got a response. The April 26 edition of the Koori Mail has a colour photo on page 2 and the story on page 28. But my name isn't mentioned on that one... so I can be a bit humble. :-)

Thenkyu main boi

Last week, someone new joined in with teaching our language program – but this time it’s someone young! And not only that, he’s really good and seems to be enjoying it so far. He’s only about 20 and helps old E teach Ngandi. Ngandi is really endangered so D, the young guy (my nephew), doesn’t really know the language but he has good brains and is picking it up really quick and running with it. Best of all, he is pretty outgoing and a naturally good teacher. Pretty exciting really. But what was surprising to me was finding out how different it is to be working with someone young, someone who I can relate to a bit more. I didn’t think it would have such a noticeable effect. It felt really good to be working with someone who naturally understands me a bit better (and I don’t mean in terms of language, I mean in terms of interests, attitudes, values etc.). But then I started feeling a bit sad, because I realised how I am always working hard to understand and relate to the older peo

playing around

I slept very badly last night, even though I was very tired. I thought I would collapse into bed and go straight to sleep, but instead laid there watching telly until I got sleepy at 11pm. But that’s not the end of my story. Sometime later, my mobile phone woke me up. I thought someone was sending me a text message. I woke up and looked at my phone but there was no text message and no missed call. It had definitely made a noise because the phone was lit up too. But whatever noise my phone was making was totally unexplained. It was just after midnight. I fell back into sleep easily but woke up a couple of hours later and couldn’t go back to sleep. I sat there awake for a while, getting eaten by mozzies. Eventually, I sat up and reached for the fan switch to turn it up. At the exact moment I turned the fan up, the touch lamp on the other side of the room went on. In two years, this touch lamp has never turned on for no reason. So this afternoon, I told this story to my two

still here

Hello to anybody still looking at this blog. I'm still here at Ngukurr. I just haven't felt like writing much lately and haven't had anything I wanted to get off my chest and on to my blog. I suppose the longer I'm here the more ensconsed I am in life here and the more normal life here becomes for me. But yes, I'm still here and not going anywhere. Literally. The roads out of here have been cut for a couple of months now. Luckily, I got to fly out of here a month ago for a week or so, but since coming back I haven't been able to leave. Which is fine, but it's now four weeks which is about my limit before going a bit stir crazy and spending too much time fantasising about being able to go to a cafe and pay someone to make me a nice coffee. Don't ever take those things for granted! I'm hoping to be able to drive to Katherine in a week or two, but there's another stinkin cyclone hanging around which might have plans of thwart.

feeling proud

Since last week, I've been noticing that I've been becoming more and more proud of the language mob here at Ngukurr and that my love for them has been growing. And today was a bit of a pinnacle, with two politicians coming to visit us here at Language Centre. Not that anyone did anything special today while they were visiting, but just that they're here doing what they do makes me proud. The main reason I've been feeling this way lately is because I've been having a lot of problems with the main office in Katherine - rock bottom staff morale and poor management. In the face of those problems I've been really grateful for this mob here and the support they give me and the consistent good work we do together. But it's funny. Their support isn't revealed through sitting down and talking about things and them telling me everything's okay and I'm alright. It comes through them just being them, being happy to keep working with me, an implicit expr

Blanggangga

Here's another bush tucker. This one is a white currant. In Marra, it's burlanggangga (or 'blanggangga' when it's said quickly). In Rembarrnga, it's gorrowon . Mmm... tasty n sweet.

bush tucker time

Now that wet season has happenend (sort of) there's lots of little fruits growing around the place. This one is a kind of black plum, or in Marra: gulinja , or in Rembarrnga: wujal . Tastes good.

Funding time

At the moment, I’m feeling very uncertain about the future. Worst case scenario for our funding is a disastrous one where Ngukurr Language Centre wont be able to have a linguist working there and it’ll basically close, like it did for two years a few years back. Best case scenario is that there’s nothing to worry about and that we’ll keep going the same way, but even still, we can never be sure from one year to the next what’s going to happen. When it comes round to funding application time, these things weigh on my mind… what if there is no funding. What do this mob do then? What do I do then? What has been the value of the past couple of years if it’s just going to fall over again? It’s not a good way to work, always with the knowledge that it could all be over soon. How are you supposed to achieve anything in terms of community development when things can only develop ‘subject-to-funding’. It’s a big reason a lot of Ngukurr residents grow tired of hearing about the latest sc

something satisfying

Last year I blogged about giving some of the language workers here spelling tests. Well, I’ve continued doing some work with two of the language workers trying to explicitly teach them about writing down their language, Rembarrnga (which doesn’t have a completely straightforward spelling system). I made them a big syllable chart and have been giving them tests on writing down just syllables. Then I’ve been giving the spelling tests, writing down some simple words. It’s pretty amazing. Really, these two are still at a pretty low level, but they’re learning. They’re thinking about breaking words down into syllables now. And they seem to actually enjoy doing the work. But the coolest thing is that yesterday after giving them a syllable spelling test and a word spelling test, they sat there and kept practising on other words and even sentences. For instance, my mami R, she wanted to write down this sentence: Re-ngœnœ nga-nguna (I’m going to eat my meat, which sounds better in Kri

'the man' is getting me down

Anybody seen that movie 'School of Rock'? ... where Jack Black's character is talking about sticking it to 'the man' and talking about 'the man' being any kind of oppressive force - being a specific person or just a general force. Well 'the man' beat me hands down today and it's getting me down. 'The man' came at me from a few sides too, which makes it even harder. I shouldn't really go into details for fear of getting too bitchy but just wanted to say that I don't feel so great right now. I just want to learn, work with, teach, record, transcribe, write down, speak, listen to the endangered languages here and the people that speak them. But it's just not that straight forward. It never is I suppose. Bobala mi. In other news, I got an anonymous Valentine's Day card today, which is quite funny.

sad

I haven’t written about this on my blog before because I didn’t know where to start and I still don’t really feel like going into details. But at the end of last year, two days before I left Ngukurr for my Christmas break, there was a tragic and hugely significant death here. The entire community was, and still is, in shock and disbelief about it. The man that died was an old song man, a very important culture man and someone that everyone looked to for anything to do with ceremony and culture. He was also a completely unassuming man, always happy and smiling and never caused trouble for anybody. He was a cute little oldman too, which really belied his knowledge and strength and importance. And he died in a tragic way before his time. It’s awful. Anyway, today, after two months, his body came back to the community. I joined the procession towards the end and it was really moving, really sad, but there was also something really matter-of-fact about the ceremonial aspects to the pr

two 'ordinary' days compared...

Today was an extraordinary day – but in a strange way: it was extraordinary in that it was a completely ordinary day, but it was quite manic and exhausting for me. There are some things about this job that I just can’t get used to and still fight against or stress about which only succeeds in tiring me out. One thing that I just can’t deal with, without getting cranky or stressed, is the way that some people I work with will just interrupt me when I’m already talking to somebody/ doing something and ask me something or ask me to do something else. Sometimes it’s just ludicrous! The short-tempered voice inside my head just wants to say ‘Can’t you see I’m already talking to someone!!’ The other thing I’m still struggling with is that coming from my worldview it sometimes looks like the mob I work with spend most of the day doing not very much and don’t seem to want to do very much. It conflicts so badly with the endless list of jobs I have running through my head and my determinatio

good ol reflexive writing

Here’s some more reflexive writing a la my anthropology university courses… Sunday afternoon and I’ve had a pleasant day pottering around home on my own, cleaning, doing washing, whatever I like… doing my own things in my own time in my own space – times that I treasure here at Ngukurr. Then a guy that I sorta know and 5 other people arrive (2 I also sorta know) asking to buy and burn some CDs. I do this occasionally for people – sell them blank CDs and help them burn them. Anyways, that was cool – I said yeah, they stood on the doorstep hesitating, I told them to come in. I helped them out and asked if somebody could learn to burn them and then go on and do it. That was all cool. It all was all cool really. They burned CDs and were here for about 20-30mins. But I realised that even this seemingly simple exchange stressed me out. After they left I realised that I’d tensed up and was breathing shallower and needed to relax and take some deep breaths. I’m trying to work out why

'Coming back home to Ngukurr'

'Coming back home to Ngukurr' is a line from a song by Ngukurr's most famous band called 'Yugul Band'. And yes, I'm back in Ngukurr. And it's fine. I've been away for a couple of months, in which time I've been working in Katherine and spending time in my house there, had Christmas and New Years in Brisbane with my parents and friends, got smacked in the head and had an operation. Lovely. I got flown back in to Ngukurr because the rivers are up and the roads impassable. That trip had it's fair share of trials including humbug and a pilot forgetting to pick me up from a remote airstrip. Nice stressful way to start my next stint here at Ngukurr. My first morning I walked around saying hello to lots of people I hadn't seen since I'd left and it was lovely. Everyone was happy to see me back and lots of them had heard about my 'incident' and were concerned. It actually made me a bit emotional, getting a sense of how much people

been so long

sorry sopi and others i've had a month long break from work and hadn't felt like blogging. actually, i still don't feel like blogging but i thought i'd better say hello after my mami's capital letter comment. i'm in katherine and have been back at work nearly a week. i should be off to ngukurr next week. i can't say i'm looking forward to it, but i know i'll be fine when i get there. it's proper wet season now so it looks like i'll be flying in to ngukurr and then will be there until the rivers decide to go down again (or jum jum in alawa). that might a good couple of months. i had a good break but it didn't really go as planned thanks to the guy who decided i would be the target of his random act of violence and fractured my cheekbone for me. that was followed by some minor surgery. fun fun. i'm still a bit sore about it - mentally and physically - and i'm not my usual cheery self at the moment. apart from that, my brea