that munanga linguist

Tuesday at Ngukurr and the relevant adjective is 'reluctant'. I just didn't really want to be here. I had such a lovely and relaxed weekend in Katherine and I didn't want the stresses of work to come back so soon. And yes, much of Tuesday was spent dealing with humbug: trips to the shop, trips to the office, giving lifts to people, letting people use the phone. I somehow managed to get some time to myself to have a bit of lunch and then (after another couple of interruptions) even had a quick nap. I started to feel better after that. What was interesting was that in the face of my distinct lack of motivation, we still got stuff done. I started working with someone new on Ritharrngu and that was good. We sorted out this week's language class and without too much fuss. Today was a better day. I was a bit more enthusiastic and content about being here. Thankfully, I was also much more relaxed than last wednesday. (Wednesday's represent a peak in my stres...

Yeah, well, like I said, I left Hodgson Downs to go to Katherine. I watched the Hodgson Downs mob lose their football game, poor things. And after that, I had no plans except to chill out and take it easy – eat, sleep, watch DVDs, whatever I felt like. R and J were away and kindly offered me their place to crash at. Thanks guys. It actually turned into a lovely weekend. I met up with my banji (brother-in-law) from Hodgson Downs and ended up hanging out with him all weekend. He’s a lovely guy and one of my few good friends out this way. What’s really nice about hanging out with him is that he doesn’t drink or go to the pub, so I ended up having a healthy weekend and went to bed early and got plenty of much needed sleep. I’m still pretty amazed that my banji doesn’t drink or smoke or even drink softdrink. It’s almost unheard of, as far as I know, to find young guys from communities who are like that. Anyway, we just hung out all weekend, watched DVDs, went to the movies (Million...

Well, it was Friday morning at Hodgson Downs and I was organised. How did that happen? I didn’t really have anything more to prepare and no urgent last minute jobs so I waited to smoko and picked up old Cleo, old Stephen and old August to go and teach the high school kids some Alawa. The class went really well. Or as good as can be hoped when your audience is a bunch of teenagers, most of them sulky teenagers. The best part of the lesson was that old Stephen really was the main teacher. I was merely his assistant. Often, it’s the munanga – me – who ends up taking the leading role because the speakers can be a bit tentative about taking the leading role, but not today. Stephen and the others spoke Alawa, and I wrote down what they were saying. Stephen and the others made the kids speak up and repeat after them and I just pointed to the words on the board. Eventually, it was Stephen who was up at the board pointing to the words and making the kids say it. If only the kids had’...

It's only thursday and i can't even remember what i did on tuesday... lemme think. Tuesday we did planning for the Ngukurr language program. That went okay, although it's not flying along like last week. We didn't have anyone to help out for Nunggubuyu or Ritharrngu. Everyone else was a little distracted or something too, but we did get a fair bit of work done. Oh, one of the committee members, E, came to ask about that bloke who I was having problems with (see the previous post). He was asking why he was being a bit full on and reassured me that everything was fine and I've got everyone's support. That was lovely. By the end of the day, we had lessons planned for two and a half languages. But somehow I was still working at night, making worksheets n flashcards... just little jobs. crikey, i need to take it easy. I didn't get to bed til late, and didn't feel very refreshed in the morning. So the morning of language classes, and it was erratic a...

A munanga who works at the shop here, A, is making a Tshirt that will say 'no humbug' on the back and I told her how it's spelt in Kriol - 'nomo hambag'. That's going on the front. Haha... can't wait to see it. Speaking of humbug, I had a tough weekend. Well, in one way it was a good weekend because I didn't go anywhere and chilled out at home all weekend. But in another way it was tough to avoid the humbug. For example, at 9:30, my good friend K asked me over for a morning coffee. I arrived an hour and a half later. Between 9:30 and 11, N and J arrived and needed to call Gove hospital, R came and asked for some toilet paper, G came over to use the phone and the R came back wanting me to help her get a tyre off a rim. Ah, but somehow I managed to do not too much. I even managed to watch two dvds, one was totally rad: Princess Mononoke, an anime movie... very good, exciting yet beautiful. I never thought I'd get into anime movies but this on...

well, I'm only staying here for one night. And I only came to talk to the school and community members to see if they wanna start having language classes again. I didn't really have any actual language work planned. But the old people are so keen that they basically organised themselves to do some language work with me. After the usual stuffing around and to-ing and fro-ing, a group of old people were patiently sitting together, all interested in doing language work. So I came along and luckily had improvised some language work we could do. Five Alawa speakers all helped put language to a little fishing picturebook. It was pretty cool. A couple of younger people also took an interest. One of the best things for me was that one of the old men who was helping has never worked with me or spoken Alawa to me before, even though I knew he could speak the language. So it was great that someone new felt comfortable doing language work. (The other good thing about this guy doi...

It’s bedtime now, but I’m not at Ngukurr, I’m at hodgson downs, a community about 2 hours from ngukurr. This time last year, I’d just arrived here at Hodgson Downs and started doing two months of fieldwork for my honours thesis. It was the first time I’d ever lived on a community, but that 2 months was overall just fantastic and nowhere near as difficult as my time in ngukurr seems to be. So coming back to hodgson downs gives me a good feeling and I usually find being here a breath of fresh air. But I was a little bit nervous about coming here today. It’s been four months since I was here last. That’s a long time. Ngukurr is now more familiar to me than Hodgson Downs but it never used to be like that. But after a day here, I’m happy. A lot of people were happy to see me – old people, parents, teachers and kids from school. Not before long, two old people were speaking Alawa to me and teaching me again. Unfortunately I could barely understand what they were saying! I’ve been ...

I woke up this morning and had that first moment of the day when your mind is clear and serene… and you know how after that, you start processing your day and becoming aware of what’s going on… well, first thing I remembered was ‘oh my god. we’ve got language class today and we’re teaching five languages!’. I managed to remain a little bit calm and old N came round early. She’s really sick at the moment but still pushing on. At 9:30 we were at the Batchelor building and old N was scrubbing out the toilets because they were too dirty. We both cleaned the men’s. There was frog poo everywhere. We opened up the tank-part and old N kicked 15 green tree frogs out of the home they’d made for themselves. Haha… she was flicking those frogs everywhere. Soon, the language mob started to join us and we started preparing. The Nunggubuyu mob sorted out their lesson. The others were doing fine. Except for my poor old uncle E. He’s the only one who’s been working on Ngandi. And he’s old an...

Well, I haven't posted for a couple of days and I've had a busy couple of days. Today, we held a special workshop to try and get this Ngukurr language program working properly. I was a bit stressed about holding a workshop because we don't normally do things on a big scale like this but I didn't have anything to worry about. It went well! We had a bit of funding for it from a federal government 'indigenous women's leadership' program that one of our language workers is a part of. So we had stationary and catering (sandwiches, tea and biscuits :-)) and we used the flash Batchelor adult education building. We had people from each language group there, which was a first, and the support and interest seemed good. All very promising. By the end, everyone said they'd be ready to go to school tomorrow to teach language so fingers crossed and our language program will be happening properly! Now I just wish education department or someone could give us fu...

Saturday evening at ngukurr and I’m doing something a bit different. I’m sitting outside my little shack in front of a fire with a giant bream cooking on it (well, a big bream, maybe not giant). As with most Saturdays I was humbugged for this n that. Saying no isn’t an easy thing at all. Today’s ‘lucky winner’ was old B, my cousin or ‘magarra’. (NB. she was the ‘lucky winner’ because there usually at least 4 or 5 different groups of people wanting me to take them somewhere). Anyway we left late which suited me so at 2 we set off for to a place for fishing. We tried a couple of places and caught a few fish and the country was beautiful. Unfortunately, it didn’t feel like anything I hadn’t done before and I could’ve easily stayed home, but it was still a decent way to spend an afternoon. I couple of nice people came on the trip. Actually it would have been really lovely if I didn’t have a negative attitude and am eternally thinking about getting out of here. This morning was muc...

Thursday already? This morning i had a quick chat to old B - my cousin, or 'magarra' - cuz i hadn't seen her for a couple of weeks. She was sitting next to her sister, old G. They told me they were going to paint me black. 'What for?' i asked. 'To make you into a blackfella so you won't go away', old B joked. That was pretty flattering. I must be doing something right here. Meanwhile, some other whitefellas (munanga) aren't giving Aboriginal people a fair deal at all. Mr John Howard is who I'm referring to. I'm so scared about what's gonna happen when the Howard government has power in both houses. Today I heard that they're considering changes to the Land Rights Act so that Aboriginal land owners automatically have to grant leases for people to use their land. I can't even begin to express how the thought of this government pushing through a change like that makes me feel... talk about blood boiling. That John Howard s...

good photo no? it's courtesy of C... thanks C! and no, i didn't scale a steep cliff-face, i arrived top-way and then took one step down to the next ledge and then stepped back up again... hehe

dammit! i was sposed to be posting regularly but now look at me... so much has happened in a week n a half and i may never write about it... well, i'll start with today... i got a new cd today! what a treat. it's a soul/rnb singer called John Legend and it's lovely. it's nice to have a new cd. so i've just put it on after eating a kangaroo green curry and i've watched will n grace too, so i'm winding down nicely after a busy day. bush court was on again at Ngukurr today and i was busy there helping out A who is a Kriol interpreter. it went fine, which in Ngukurr terms means it went really well... hehe. Then, at 4:30 i went for a trip with my Mami N, her husband J and an oldman, D, who I call Dedi. J is the chairperson of Ngukurr Language Centre and wants to build a bowshade out the back. It's a traditional kind of shade structure with wooden poles, rails and is then covered in paperbark to make a nice outside shade. you see, language centre is...