We find ourselves this summer, back in our happy place, reflecting on a year that seems like something from a science-fiction film. Covid dominates our thoughts and interferes with our holiday plans but when I look back at the last few months of 2020 we actually lived a fairly normal life in Maningrida: School and work. Cooking and swimming. Friends and fun and a friendly camp dog called Max when we get the chance!
I'm incredibly heartened by my small efforts in litter collection in Maningrida. I decided that this was my opening to talk about broader environmental issues on my Facebook group Maningrida Eco Warriors. We aimed for a monthly clean up and I think we managed 10 this year so not too bad. Later in the year the support from the local council and especially from Lachie at the pool meant that we could make it into a more sociable occasion and it was lovely to connect with some like-minded people. I like to think that interest in this small achievement pulls people to the page and that they might start to engage with other environmental issues too.
We managed to get a weekend in Kakadu with Shelley which was another wonderful mini-break.
Petty crime has increased in the town with a spate of break-ins and destructive events. This is mostly a result of the night-time wanderings of a bunch of disaffected youth. Our friend Amy was frightened and distressed by a break-in at her house when she was alone with her kids one night though luckily very little was taken and no one was hurt. I had a credit card stolen at work and over $3000 was spent at the local chicken shop (mostly on cigarettes) before the Amex called to report the unusual activity. Fortunately they covered the costs. Our trampoline has been a source of fun this year but has attracted a lot of attention from local children who always want to play on it and visit while we are at work and school. It has suffered in the past from littering, cigarette burns and flooding of the backyard (hey when the temp hits 30degrees by 9am most days you can see the appeal of the hose on the trampoline) and finally succumbed to slashing of the side walls and mat. More broadly in town there are more significant crimes including multiple stolen and sometimes crashed cars including several school and ranger vehicles, the back of the clinic one day had a smashed window and the local shopkeepers post their CCTV footage of attempted break-ins on a regular basis. Despite this we still feel very safe in town. We know a lot of the children who are involved in these criminal events (either through our workplace involvement or simply because they are school-aged children whom we know peripherally at school) and while there are some difficult characters, for the most part these are beautiful kids with big problems.
Our kids had their routine of school with various after school activities. They loved their afternoons with Robbie who took the children once a week for most of the year. He fed them lollies and took them back to his place to run around the backyard with the large, fluffy and fairly ridiculous dog Reg as well as their 2 cats and Shelley's puss too. Then they'd play his wii which he had projected up onto a wall of the living room. More often than not Robbie would feed us a delicious and nutritious dinner which we would sometimes eat there while Emma (his partner and my colleague) and I would debrief and other times we would take our 5 star take-away home. On other afternoons the kids had zoom singing lessons which all three enjoyed, or violin lessons which Zoe enjoyed and Charlotte regretted her commitment to. Not infrequently the kids had to stay at school while Ed finished a meeting or they would ride their bikes the 100m down the road to the clinic and sit in the tea room drinking milo and eating jatz.
Luca completed year 5 this year. He had a great year with his wonderful teacher Robert. He spent his lunchtimes running as far as I can tell, playing tip-tip and cops and robbers, sometimes kicking the footy and occasionally when he was deeply immersed in a book he would sit outside the tuckshop and read. He seems to get along with all the kids at school and Robert gave us some lovely feedback about Luca's capacity for patience and support of some kids in the classroom who struggle. He loves spending time with the Turner family having had youngest Turner Louis in his class last year and second-youngest Henry with him this year. He has a lovely friendship with a boy from Zoe's class, Reade. He also made firm friends with the charming Jamieson. Luca has a fair bit of freedom in town riding his bike between his friends' houses, the pool (kids over 10 can go without a parent) and occasionally the local shop.
Zoe was also happy at school this year. Zoe was lucky to have a group of high achieving students in her class so the teacher could cater to a group of 5 or 6 kids working at a higher level and I think Zoe had some more consistent stimulation thanks to her bright little friends Reade, Bella, Rachel and Timesha as well as come commitment from her teacher Malcom. Her classroom was one of extremes though and she had several children with complex learning and behavioural problems in that class which was especially difficult for Julie who covered for Malcom's long service leave in term 4. Zoe's daily reports in term 4 often began with the classroom drama and her efforts to help Julie. A new balinda family arrived in town later in the year and dad Greg did some volunteer support work in Zoe's class. He quietly told me (and only half-jokingly) one day "Zoe's pretty much an assistant teacher in that class". Despite this she seems to be on an even-keel and has a very firm friendship with a lovely girl Zara as well as the group from her own class.
Charlotte seems to have grown up a lot this year. She is confident at school, is proud of her work and her reading really took off in the second half of the year. She had a mid-year class shuffle but I was delighted when she got the gentle and sensible Sandra. Charlotte is very social and has lots of friends but I think like lots of social butterflies at this age she finds herself sometimes in conflict at school. In the early years in Maningrida there are a limited number of children who speak good English so the social pool of young children is limited to a handful of balinda children and a few gorgeous local children who have excellent school attendance so it is a pretty intense social world for these kids. Largely she seems very happy and the parents of the other children are lovely so I hope after a summer re-set that she settles into the new year feeling good. We finished her school year with her usual un-birthday party at the pool and she was delighted to have lots of kids to celebrate with her.
I'm going to dedicate a whole post to Ed's year of teaching. I've been nagging him to do this for months because he has the most amazing experiences at school. Suffice to say that Ed is enjoying teaching and working very hard. He sits up late at his computer studying more than half the time and has had rolling assignments to work on through this holiday period as well. It is a pretty unrelenting pace but he is not regretting his decision. In the latter part of the year Ed couldn't swim because he had a healing wound thanks to a carbuncle (MRSA) removal in the September school holidays. As the build-up and the wet are so incredibly hot this was a blow to both his exercise regime and his sanity! The wound finally healed in time to facilitate a Christmas Day swim. In his little free time Ed has had a couple of opportunities to fish and we managed to get the boat out once or twice. He has some lovely friends from work and it has been sad to say goodbye to so many teachers leaving the school this year. Ed has spent quite a bit of time at goodbye-events!
I've decided to dedicate a post to my medical year. It is interesting and so significant to my life in Maningrida. It is a job with incredible highs and low lows. A few things kept me going this year: The support of some wonderful people including Rachael, Amy, Mel and Kerry, Emma, Robbie and Shelley in particular. The running club was also sanity saving at several difficult points in the year and wonderfully separate from work.
We finished the year in Maningrida with the usual rounds of Christmas parties. The school was unable to have their usual concert because the crowd would exceed covid restrictions but they made a huge effort to give every class a mini Christmas party with a santa visit. They had a craft day and a day with the giant crocodile slip-and-slide. They had a colour run which I managed to pop over to see. Lots of fun and lots of smiles. The kids were very happy.
We made our way back to Sydney for the first time in a year with our priority to see family, friends and our house! Yes we bought one sight unseen and we were delighted when we saw it in real life!
We managed to have a rather speedy Christmas brunch with the Auzins family before they raced to get to Melbourne to see Oma, Opa, Ilga and Yvette for Christmas. We enjoyed it while it lasted!
We said farewell to 2020 from our happy place, surrounded by family. David and Sophie braved 2 weeks in hotel quarantine with their 2 gorgeous girls so that we could see them for the first time in 21 months. Hazel and Clementine settled right back in with their cousins despite the fact that Clem really didn't remember us at all. Late night board games driven by Davo were a hightlight for my kids. Jessi managed to get across with her kids as well so we were nearly complete. Steve unfortunately had to stay back in Adelaide because he just couldn't take the time to home-quarantine on his way back into South Australia. Jess, Lara and Patch are doing that home quarantine as I write, with Steve living in a hotel. David and Sophie landed back in a frigid Swiss winter yesterday. Talk about commitment to family!
Christmas times:
New Year times:
Sibling times:
Cousin times:
Sunset times:
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