Trapped in Maningrida

The last few months have been...interesting. There will be horror stories from around the globe from 2020 and our Australian Covid-19 story so far looks pretty damn good (not to detract from the grief of 104 families so far) so it would not be gracious of me to complain about the last few months but I can't tell you it has been a good year so far. The biosecurity zone trapped us in Arnhem Land so while the virus couldn't get in, we couldn't get out. While we were...settled...in this small community in the bush the atmosphere was that of a pressure cooker. The local people coped remarkably well but for most of the "ballindas" this place is not home and there was no relief. All the major town services rely on staff that fly in and fly out and these were reduced to almost zero for the nearly three months while the biosecurity zone was in place. Unfortunately I can't comment about how this affected the clinic because since my last post my employer produced a lovely media policy which includes blogs so from here on out I can only tell you about my private life. I have to be very clear that my views do not represent my employer in any way. They don't.

To set the mood here are Bella, Rachel, Charlotte and Zoe playing "Coronavirus".

So what did we get up to in the last 3-4 months? Well the Wet slowly evaporated and the atmosphere shifted. Dragonflies are the sign that local people use to indicate the arrival of the Dry and the abundance of dragonflies was quite remarkable. They were in vivid reds and blues and were accompanied by the colours of magnificent flowering gums and wattles and some lovely moths and butterflies.

We had a couple of opportunities to work on our fishing. Ed is studying way too hard to take the boat out often but it certainly is fun and we are eating lots of fresh seafood. Luca has had the most luck with his fishing and has really enjoyed it. Sometimes people donate one or four of the many huge mudcrabs in their crab pots to us so we have done some feasting!

Ed has been able (sometimes with Luca) to go with some much more serious fishermen who have taken him on some fishing adventures. Suffice to say that we feel Ed is not hard core. His body does not respond well to harsh conditions! He has been having some really amazing experiences running the Learning on Country programme though. He has some excellent stories and photos and I have been urging him to put together a blog post just about this because he has some wonderful things to share.

School essentially continued as normal for term 2. Attendance was even more appalling than usual so the classes were very small and in fact Charlotte's class is collapsing and will be distributed amongst other classes for next term. There has been time to consolidate some local friendships which has been positive for young and old(er!) alike.

I tried to get Ed to adopt this magnificent little pup. She isn't a camp dog really and had a good (though unplanned) start in life so she was healthy and soft and totally delicious but Ed was adamant that his dog days are over. We have yet to arrange for Leila to join us and Ed has no more dog love left to give. Luckily a lovely young couple were able to give Moet a good home.

In the last month restrictions in the NT have eased so were were able to socialise completely normally with parties and the public swimming pool and everything that much of Australia is still missing.

I re-started my monthly beach clean ups on the Maningrida Foreshore. We have had remarkably little interest so far but I am determined to persevere. Online interest is high with our first clean up report reaching 1600 people and our most recent still reached over 800 but in reality only a couple of people turn up to actually help collect litter on the day. I am running this Maningrida Eco Warriors Facebook page to try to raise interest in environmental issues. I have found engagement on this really limited since I have been in the NT. Issues that strike a chord here are litter and ocean plastic and fracking and groundwater contamination. These are important issues with more immediate risks but the concept of Climate Change is poorly understood here and few people are invested in this bigger issue at all. I figure you have to meet people where they are at so the beach clean up is a way to get some engagement and then I hope to lure people into some other issues on the page! It is also a really tangible environmental issue for the children to engage in and one hour picking up litter on the beach at sunset turns out to be a really lovely thing to do!

I kept myself going with the local running club which I had joined reluctantly thinking I'd be a bit of a drag for them but actually there is a range of ability in the group and my own fitness has improved quite a bit. I am not a natural early morning person but the sunrises have something to be said for them.

In early June we took the first opportunity after the biosecurity zone lifted to get to Darwin for some Big(ish) City Life over the Queens Birthday long weekend! I did a Pilates class and found as much smashed avo and coffee as possible, the kids went nuts at Flip Out and Ed enjoyed a hair cut and a bourbon and coke!

Maningrida's beach remains a magnificent place to hang out though we try to time our visits with the low tide so we can do some rock pool hunting far from the croc infested waters!

The last month the atmosphere in town is much more settled. Zoe and I have enjoyed a couple of weaving classes at the Arts Centre. Services are back in so all the workplaces are getting what they need. People have been able to escape for breaks. The weather is lovely and as the NT braces to open our borders there is the feeling that we should enjoy the release on that pressure valve while we can. We really don't know what is coming next.