More on Maningrida

I thought I'd share with you a little more about Maningrida as a place so I went for a walk around town with my camera at the ready today (Sunday) while Luca and Charlotte rode around me. Zoe was more interested in her lego this morning and Ed was hard at work on an assignment for his Masters which is proceeding with some bloody hard work. I guess at this point we're settling into the real Maningrida. So here it is:

The town is disheveled at best. The main streets are curbless but sealed. It is the end of the dry season so fine red dust and sand covers everything. The houses are all reasonably uniform in structure being entirely government housing built slightly differently at different times and there are some demountable homes as well. Some are neatly tended and I know from speaking to some people at the clinic that some people are very house proud, but many are not. Litter and broken down cars decorate the lawns of many houses and this isn't always a sign that the family are entirely dysfunctional. I have seen workers from the clinic settled happily outside such places and they are high functioning members of this community. It is just not important. I think there are broad principles here which I can admire but the Greenie in me finds the endless litter (particularly the plastic) difficult to ignore. Ed finds the dead cars difficult to ignore!

And the dogs! The bloody dogs! Of course we have become fond of a few that live near us and I have tick-and-wormed them for patting but so many are mangy, starving and viscious. They call them "cheeky dogs" if they have a reputation for violence. Cheeky indeed! They are everywhere and they are hungry. We had a half built chook coop and someone gave us 10 half grown chicks in a cage. Ed reinforced the base with wire and we kept it in the backyard until we could complete the main yard. One day we came home to find the cage ripped apart and chook corpses littered around the yard. Bloody dogs!

The social problems in the town are huge, as they are in many remote communities. Domestic Violence, Sexual Assault and Sexual Abuse are rife. Petrol and glue sniffing (EDIT - thought at this stage to actually be aviation fuel as has occurred in other parts of Arnhem Land previously) remains a problem and very young children (9, 10) are implicated. This despite the fact that normal unleaded petrol is not available here, rather a special non-volatile concoction called "opal". The town has combatted alcohol problems largely by developing a very strict set of laws around its consumption. We waited a month to get our alcohol permit and we are limited in the number and type of alcohol we can order. There is a short time frame for grog pick-up every second Saturday and last week it was cancelled due to the proximity of "sorry business".

Speaking of "sorry business" it is one of my favourite things about being here (hopefully that doesn't sound too morbid). Death is extensively marked and one can often hear clap sticks and didgeridoos in the distance around town. Where someone has died or during the formal sorry time whole streets are blocked to prevent disturbance of the mourners and today we came upon just such a street on our walk. In the distance we caught glimpses of the unfolding corroboree between the tents surrounding the house of the significant elder. Tents full of relatives from far and wide come to celebrate his life. Last week there were two parts of the town blocked off for sorry business quite close to the clinic so the only way to access the clinic was via a dirt road behind the school for several days.

The cultural intersection here is palpable in ways that I find fascinating. There are elders in this community who tell me their parents witnessed the first arrival of white people on this land. I think we forget in the big cities, quite how recently our predecessors stole the land on which we live. Of course here the land still belongs to the traditional owners and we are privileged to live on it. Perhaps the concept with the biggest difference is the concept of ownership. Aboriginal people have a profoundly different way of dividing their worldly goods. It is complex and I have much to learn about kinships and obligations but essentially no individual can own anything. This has a raft of consequences when their culture is transplanted onto our system of money and purchased goods. This impacts us in small ways really. Children wander into our yard, ask for food then wander straight back out again with their fruit or museli bars without a thought that this might be rude. And they reciprocate when they can. Sometimes turning up with a bag of hot chips from the shop to share. Sometimes giving our kids money at school to buy the treats I won't allow. In fact we had to give Charlotte a stern talk about her "humbugging" (nagging for stuff) at school when it came to light that she had acquired spending money for sweets every day last week! It wouldn't occur to the other children NOT to share what they have when asked.

This somewhat ramshackle town though is situated in a tropical paradise. People bring us the freshest crabs and barramundi because they have too much. The streets a brightened by vivid flowers. The skies alive with all sorts of beautiful birds. And most importantly we have found the people here to be kind, polite, considerate, welcoming.

Another family our for a stroll today

Spot the eagle? It was right above us this morning.

The beach at low tide this morning.