Galiwinku Diary

An auspicious day for black Australians and there’s a march planned by the youth program which is facilitated in various Arnhem Land communities by some energetic and switched on young white women we’ve met at head office. This program we hear is in fact proudly owned by the community as they set the agenda. However dense tropical downpours pretty much put paid to that plan and our anticipated and auspicious Invasion Day outing- so it’s another quiet day at home & our usual 5.30 pm walk on the beach. A stream of fresh water is pouring into the sea at one end after the recent rains. The odd upturned salt rusted vehicle or trailer chassis protrudes from the sand. With these objects, rather than unfortunate mishap, there’s more a sense of something coming to the end of it’s natural life and just taking a bit longer than your average natural object to decompose. Refreshing in the face of our over insured whitefella material possession preciousness backed up by the technology to rescue us from any mishap… it feels to me like a statement that material possessions are not king.

The Working Week – Thumbs up for Storyboarding & Word Bingo!

The first two weeks I’m shadowing Louise who is orienting me to my job as a workplace trainer. She is moving from my job to a complementary role focussed more on helping people into higher levels of learning and literacy including potentially university.