On hold...but more to come

Sorry for the delay, folks. I'm awaiting the return of my portable hard drive (which stores all my pix from up north) and access to a decent net connection. For the die-hard fans, there's another six installments - so just like Baby Jericho above (aka the mini black Michelin man), it's happy times ahead.

Hollywood celebrity meets Aboriginal community

As much as they create even more confusion, one of the more amusing things about the communities I'm working with are the nicknames given to people.
Usually inspired by the person's favourite Hollywood movie, or resemblance (however slight) to a particular movie star, nicknames are used as often as the person's Aboriginal name and English name, creating three layers of confusion for outsiders trying to find someone.
So, for our subject above, we've got his Aboriginal name ('Debilipu'), English name ('Percy') and nickname ('Popeye'), and it's not uncommon to hear him called any or all of them during conversation.
Beyond spinach-eating sailors, we also have Van Damme, Charles Bronson, Crusty the Clown, Scarface and Free Willy, and a host of non-celebrity but equally intriguing names, such as 'Burn the Rubber', 'Wookie', 'Mango' and 'Matchbox'.
Even the whitefella government man gets a nickname, and I guess I should take it as a compliment that people have given me enough thought as to come up with something appropriate. I just wish they'd come up with something more impressive than 'Tennis Ball Head'.

Another (Thurs)day in paradise

I hate Thursdays up here, and if pictures tell a thousand words, you'll know why by the photo above.
Thursdays have traditionally been pension pay day, where everyone got paid, partied and drunk, usually within hours of the money being transferred to their bank account. Although Centrelink (Australia's social security agency) has tried to address the issue by paying people on different days of the week, Thursday still remains the biggest drinking day in the community.
With no permanent police presence, most people openly ignore the Intervention's prohibition laws, and by early afternoon, the community is littered with hundreds of green cans, red cans and wine casks.
The result creates a painfully predictable day to which you can almost set your clock to, from the time the grog gets in (10.30am), the fights begin (above; 2pm) and the police arrive (4pm). There's usually a brief interval from 5pm through about 8pm, with the remaining rounds continuing into the early hours of the next morning.
Just another (Thurs)day in paradise.

Blocked for the bullseye

Okay, okay - so at 27,433 kilometres, I was a little late for the 15,000 km service on my vehicle.
But is that any excuse for the mechanic to leave the evidence sitting in the driver's seat?
For those that don't know, you're looking at the air filter for a car engine that should've been replaced a long, long time ago. Given that the engine works on an explosive mix of fuel and air, it's kind of a big deal, and probably explains why my car has been fairly sluggish over the past month.
Look closely and you'll see that in addition to the dust and dirt, it's completely clogged with grass, dragonflys, and yes, a whole bunch of bird feathers. Bullseye - I thought I'd missed 'em!

Good news is not knowing

There's good news and bad news when it comes to the kids in Aboriginal communities.
The bad news is that of all those who have it hard here, it's the kids who have it the hardest. The good news is they just don't know it.
As sad a comparison it may be, the kids, like the dogs here, wander from house to house at all hours of the day and night, usually in search of something to do, eat or drink. All are rake thin, most are raggedy, snot-nosed and always sick, and many are "grown up" by wider family - aunts, uncles and grandparents - rather than their immediate parents, who are often interstate, in gaol or deceased.
But despite the depressing circumstances, the kids are amazingly resilient, and - usually - relatively happy. It doesn't take long for them to get to know the outsider (me), and once they do, they're incredibly trusting and tactile. As I write this, one kid sits on my knee, one has his arm around me, another leans against me, and two tiny black hands struggle to hold onto my left arm.
Although most kids in the communities I'm working with lack an understanding of 'traditional' bush culture, there's no question they've created their own modern day equivalent, a creole of Australian sport, Top 40 music, Hollywood celebrity and immediate Aboriginality.
It's a strange mix, and I often wonder what these kids - born, bred and still living in abject poverty - think when they watch the music videos filled with flashy cars and luxurious lifestyles, or how they feel when they see the contrast between themselves and the other (usually non-Aboriginal) kids at the regional shopping centre.
Then again, perhaps they don't see it - and the good news remains that they don't know what they don't know.

Up close and personal at arm's length

Perhaps the most considerable challenge working and living in an Indigenous community is the need to remain impartial, independent and, above all, somewhat removed from the day-to-day life of the community itself.
But what happens when the success of that job depends on your ability to become part of the community - and becoming part of the community only happens when you immerse yourself in the day-to-day life of the community?
It's hard not to let yourself become too involved, and with two weeks until my deployment finishes, I find myself increasingly asking how close is too close?
Do I intervene when I see the 15 year-old from next door copping a hiding from his drunk father? Should I really be taking 40 litres of fresh water to a remote outstation at midnight? Does a spectacular tropical sunset over a remote stretch of coastland justify having an icy-cold beer with a bunch of blokes who are known alcoholics?
In saying yes or no to questions like those above, there's a direct bearing on your presence, identity and standing in the community, and through that, your ability to effectively service the community. In many cases, saying yes, taking part or cracking open that icy-cold can of beer is one of the few rewards - however right or wrong - in an otherwise completely restricting environment.
Most of the time, I'm confident I'm doing the right thing, getting up close and personal while staying at arm's length, but it's a fine line, and yet another complexity in the confusing world of Aboriginal service delivery.

Words, pictures, profits

Sales are up in remote Indigenous communities for generic label Black & Gold, and its got a lot to do with the brand's fresh new logo and packaging design (see above, with old at right, and new at left).
Ignore the new, non-1970s layout, or the slightly more upmarket logo - and note the colour photo.
Normally, generic labels avoid photos at all costs - after all, including a photo needs more ink which means higher printing costs - but the brand learnt a hard lesson from leaving them out, with many Aboriginal people having no idea as to what the product actually was. Look closely and you'll see that there's twice the stock of nappies where the packaging doesn't include a photo.
It's a sad reflection on the incredibly high levels of illiteracy up here, and according to my local outback store manager, the same thing happens whenever a major brand changes the design of a specific product (especially when there's a major overhaul of the colours used in the packaging) and sales plummet, until such time as the original design is brought back - or a competitor comes in using the previous brand's colour scheme...and, of course, a photo.

More on the 62 wheel monsters

I'm just about to hit 25,000 kilometres on my work car here, which means a lot of time spent on the Stuart Highway, which means even more of the 60 wheel monsters.
Actually, in the case above, there's 80 wheels stretched across four trailers, and according to its driver, Dave, moving a total of approximately 148 tonnes of ore for GBS Gold, some 290 kilometres south of Darwin.
Despite the delays they can cause (most of the highway remains two-way, and you'd never, ever think of overtaking one on the dirt), the novelty of seeing something so darn big lumbering along the road still hasn't worn off. I still smile when I follow one through traffic lights - seeing the truck on one side of the intersection, and the trailer on the other.
And if the cost of petrol has been getting you down lately, spare a thought for Dave. To fill up his truck above, it takes just over 1,800 litres of diesel (at an average of $1.90 a litre) and, on a good day without too much wind or too many hills, he'll get around half a kilometre to one litre...

A dog's life

It's taken just over three months for me to break my number one cardinal rule of living in an Aboriginal community: don't feed the dogs.
Because, as those who live here will tell you, feed one dog, and you'll end up feeding the lot, and the lot is, well, a lot.
Earlier this evening, I turn around to see my new friend, Bagobones (white, in centre), has now invited all her mates along for some good times at the kind-hearted white fella's camp. At one point, I counted 19 dogs, and, in true 'only-in-a-Aboriginal' community style, the pig from next door, all waiting patiently on the promise of free food.
For a dog person like myself, it's hard not to feel sorry for 'em. Despite being all shapes and sizes, and made up of hundreds of breeds mixed together, they share lots of similarities (like open sores, broken bones and flea infestations) and are eternally hungry.
Like everyone else here, the dogs are another community collective, and continually on the move from one house to another in search of shelter, company and food. Since Thursday, Bagobones has been getting all three from me - and hasn't been shy in letting the lot of four-legged mates know about it, either.

Out to the outstations

Now that the wild weather of the wet is over until October, many families here are heading to their outstations, remote bush camps located anywhere between 50 and 150 kilometres away from the community itself.
Offering a respite from the unpredictable turbulence of the community, outstations provide an opportunity for a more traditional approach to Aboriginal life through fishing, hunting, story telling, and maybe most importantly, an absence of alcohol.
As always up here, the difficulty is in the distance - to get to and from their outstation, the family needs either a working vehicle (and, generally, one with four-wheel drive) or a generous government employee willing to give them a ride.
Fortunately, they've got the latter, with an unspoken emphasis on 'willing'.
Unlike many other requests for rides, I'm always happy to take people to their outstation. It's one of the best parts of the job, and a great chance to see absolutely amazing parts of the country and connect with a culture in their own context.
Better still, with most of my outstations located in coastal areas, the rewards are more than just scenic, with fresh mud crabs, barramundi, red snapper and salmon usually provided in return for a ride.

The function of dysfunction

By all conventional measures, many remote Aboriginal communities are what we'd generally - and perhaps generously - term completely dysfunctional.
High levels of unemployment, substance abuse, violence and abject poverty make them depressing places for outsiders or those like myself who've been brought up with an understanding of western, (sub)urbanised ideals.
Yet, somehow, they manage to work. Food gets bought, kids get fed, battered wives are sheltered and bills are paid.
I suspect much of it has to do with the overwhelming strength of 'family', and the loyalties that go with it. Everyone is some sort of relative up here, which means you'll almost always be taken care of, whether that means a meal, money, a bed or booze. Time, distance and relationship level mean little - it doesn't matter if it's your brother from next door, or your third-cousin-twice-removed from a town 600 kilometres down the track who you haven't seen for 10 years, you'll take care of them when they land on your doorstep. If that means 20 people in a house built for four, so be it. If it means something as complex as raising someone else's kids or as simple as handing over your last smoke without so much as a please or thank you, so be it.
It leads to a culture that makes little recognition of individual ownership or personal possession, instead taking a collective approach to benefit the wider community.
The result? Function from dysfunction...just as long as you don't measure it conventionally.

A lighter shade of dust

Midnight Oil sung about it, and I'd be warned about it - the dreaded red dust of the north.
It gets over, under, in, out and through absolutely everything, including the double-sealed doors of my, ahem, 'desert rated' 4WD.
Obviously the novelty of being up north hasn't worn off, because I must be the only person who likes it. I'm happy sitting by the side of the road waiting for the dust to settle and visibility to return after a road-train passes in the opposite direction (current record: 13 minutes, 22 seconds) and there's a certain childish charm about seeing your once-bright-white vehicle turn a flat shade of rusty brown.
Sitting in the carpark of the Tennant Creek Hotel, I get the sense of an unspoken rivalry as to whose car carries the most dust; tangible proof of who's travelled the furthest, roughest or most remote.
Despite over 600kms of dirt tracks, and dust from one end to the other, my car doesn't even come close.

Challenging, confronting, confusing

As I pass the halfway mark of my deployment up here, I'm increasingly asked about what it's like to live in a remote Aboriginal community for an extended period of time.
For me, it's best described by the three C's: challenging, confronting, confusing.
The challenge comes from the isolation (geographic, social and cultural), the climate, and the sheer complexity of the many issues facing Aboriginal communities.
The confrontation comes from the alcohol, the violence and the abject state of poverty most people live in. My colleague Virginia, a senior manager who's worked in some of the world's toughest third-world countries, says she's never seen anything like what she has here.
The confusion comes from a community that recognises its own problems and the causes of them, but does little, if anything, to begin addressing them. The confusion is compounded by the opportunities and promise the community can see for itself, despite the challenges and confrontations above.
I suspect that much of the frustration I feel is not a result of what I see and hear, but of simply not knowing where to begin. Which issue to fix first, and what to do when fixing one issue creates another two, three or four?
Having seen the reality of Aboriginal communities in the past, I didn't come up here expecting to save the world, or even come close to it, but it's the first time in my professional career that I've felt well and truly lost, miles away from any possible answer - and that's a very, very difficult thing for an armchair expert like myself.

24/7 in service delivery

With yet another change to my deployment - making for an even 440km commute each day - I'm well behind schedule on status reports, weekly summaries, project updates, financial reconciliations and blog entries.
Unfortunately, the situation isn't made much better by the almost constant expectations placed on you by the community - whether it be for the Australian Government Conflict Resolution Service, the Australian Government Vehicle Recovery Service, the Australian Government Bush Lawyer Legal Aid Service or the Australian Government Electric Kettle Service.
So, in the meantime, no blog for today, but a happy pic of a happy kid during a recent excursion to Diamond Creek - organised, of course, by the Australian Government Childcare Service.

Slow times on the Stuart Highway

Only in the Territory would someone think to transport a demountable - blocking both lanes of the main road out of town - at three PM on a Friday afternoon. So slow was the traffic and so painful the process, I had time to take a picture, download it, write up some words and shoot it off to the NT News - all in the space of about 16 kilometres.

At least they're not doing things by halves
It may not be the longest load the Stuart Highway has seen – but it might well be the widest!
With a police escort and surrounded by a swarm of six support vehicles, this demountable house brought southbound traffic on the Stuart Highway to a crawl yesterday afternoon.
Starting the slow journey in Nightcliff, and destined for delivery in Katherine, the house took up both lanes of the highway, and came precariously close to hitting trees, traffic lights, road signs and street lights as it left the suburbs of Darwin.
The unusual sight saw drivers pulling over for a better look at how something so wide would make it across some of the not-so-wide sections ahead.
Virginia Perkins, who was on her way to Mandorah, said she couldn’t believe her eyes when she came around a corner to find a full-sized house slowing the traffic ahead.
“The highway gets pretty narrow in some places, so I hope they’ve got their measurements right,” she said.
However, the house was being transported on a special hydraulic trailer, allowing it to be raised up and over any obstacles which had been identified along the route, a spokesperson for the NT Government said.
The house was expected to arrive in Katherine yesterday evening.

Northern Territory News, Saturday 10 May 2008

When less is more in four by four

If you thought you needed the latest Landcruiser with all the whistles and bells to head bush, think again.
Despite the hundreds of kilometres of rough-as-guts bush tracks surrounding the community I'm living in here, there's only one person with a four-wheel drive, and as you can see, it's no late model Landcruiser.
Instead, it's a 41 year-old Nissan Patrol and, while indeed a four-wheel drive (or '4x4'), I often think the 4x4 refers to four completely different tyres, or four different panel colours, or four places that haven't rusted over.
Yet, despite the shabby, scrapyard-like appearance, I'll often find the Patrol, and its owner, Les, in places I'd never dream of taking my (bells and whistles equipped) 4x4. Whether a fast flowing river, or a road turned black with bog, Les manages to get the Patrol across - and, perhaps more importantly, back across - without a worry in the world.
More often than not, he'll do it with a full load, which in most Aboriginal communities, means at least 10 people (and fishing gear and crab pots and eskies and dogs and everything else) squeezing into a car built for five - although that's working on the principle of passengers sitting in the car, and not on it.

Firing up for the dry season

At long last, the dry arrives. The towering clouds of approaching thunderstorms are gone, and in their place, the black, acrid smoke of grass fires drifts slowly across an otherwise bare sky.
Deliberately lit, the fires play an important part in managing the environment here, getting rid of the 12 foot high spear grass that covers much of the Territory, and preventing a huge fuel load from building up year after year.
Yet despite their significance, there seems to be little structure or science as to where the fires will be lit, when and by who. On several trips out bush over the past week, I'm asked to pull over, not, as I first think, for passengers to take a pee break, but instead for someone to jump out, cigarette lighter in hand, and set fire to the grass.
Of course, it doesn't matter that we might actually be driving back on the same road or that the wind is blowing towards our destination...just as long as the grass is alight and the black smoke is rising, the job is done and we're on our way.

White fella dreaming in a black fella world

A recent email from a very good and much respected mate down south got me thinking about a term you hear pretty frequently up here, 'white fella dreaming'.
Basically, the term refers to the the commonly held conception by many white fellas that all Aboriginal people, and especially those in remote and isolated communities, are defined by some sort of amazing, intriguing and somewhat mystical makeup; that their days are filled with ceremonial and cultural practice, in between living off the land through bush tucker and spiritual beliefs.
The dreaming bit comes into play when those same white fellas see a community up close and personal, and discover that cultural practice is replaced by abject poverty, bush tucker is little more than chips and Coke, and spiritual beliefs come a distant second to the spirits more often found in a 750ml bottle.
There's no question that Aboriginal Australians still have a tremendous cultural connection with their land, and the myths, stories, and belief systems that go with it, but sadly, this is disappearing, particularly among the younger generation.
Take, for example, the 'Westside' crew of my community, all of whom waste no time in telling me just how expert bushmen they are, and how I, as a shoe-wearing, pink-skinned, city-slicker, wouldn't stand a chance out bush. I agree, jumping at the chance to see how it's really, truly done by expert bushmen such as these, and the challenge is set.
I tell the crew to meet me at 7am Sunday morning - we'll walk from the community to the coast and back, a 36km round trip. Each is free to choose their own route, and bring along whatever supplies they can fit in a small backpack.
So, come Sunday morning, I leave Darwin at 0500; with me, walking shoes, gaiters, 2L of water, a Powerbar, some instant noodles, matches and a knife.
When I arrive at 0700, the entire crew is asleep, and when woken, most are hungover. They insist on taking my 4WD rather than going by foot; stopping by the supermarket for a cask of water instead of sourcing from the many springs; and a 12-gauge shotgun replaces the Nula-Nula [a heavy wooden club].
Granted, the crew wins on the bush tucker front - shooting, skinning and cooking a wallaby - but fails on pretty much everything else, including remembering the matches for the fire. Lucky that pink-skinned city-slicker brought some along.
It's no big issue, and I suspect the icy-cold can of beer at the end of the day was equally deserved by everyone, but the episode is the first eye-opener to my own world of white fella dreaming in the new-day black fella world.

Flying for a piece of cake

As many will know, I'm not one for flying, but faced with a four-hour drive or a half-hour flight, I know which one I'll choose, especially after a 5am start and a full day of meetings.
So when the opportunity to catch a charter flight back to Darwin came up, I grabbed it, not realising there was one small problem - how to pay?
The pilot couldn't take my credit card, and beyond the six dollars in my laptop bag, the closest ATM was 120kms up the track.
It was looking a lost cause and a long drive home until the pilot, who'd been sitting patiently outside the meeting room for most of the day, suggested an alternative - one homemade ginger cake for a one-way ticket to Darwin.
Turns out that Captain Barter had forgotten his lunch, and the only thing he'd had all day was some cake (baked by my partner, Julia, and brought up to the NT on Friday) I'd shared at morning smoko. Knowing what a greedy bugger I am, Julia had brought two cakes up north - and amazingly, I hadn't eaten both within minutes of her arrival.
There's no doubt air fares have fallen over the past few years, but do let me know if you see anything cheaper than a charter flight to Darwin for a few slices of cake.

Closing up the containers

It's hard to blog when you're homeless, but that's where I've been for the last fortnight.
Since the shipping container accommodation used for government officers was found to be full of formaldehyde (I knew they smelt bad, but not that bad) and closed up quicksmart, I've been living out of a suitcase in all sorts of hotels around Darwin. 12 of them in 15 days, to be precise.
They've ranged from the super-nice to the not-so-nice, including one which smelt worse than the containers themselves.
At this stage, there's no formal indication on when we'll be back in the containers (they're being tested by a bunch of very formal, very serious, scientists from Sydney as we speak) but given the complexity of the situation, and the speed at which things happen up here, there's every chance that I'll be homeless until I'm sent home in July!

No worries about being water-proof

A slow week for all the wrong reasons, but I'm pleased to report that testing of the water-proof, shock-proof and kid-proof camera is still on schedule.
Since handing it across to the Under-12 Wrecking, sorry, Testing Team last Tuesday, the camera has spent at least 2-3 hours under fresh/salt/tap water each day, and works fine. Image quality is great - the camera has an auto white-balance setting that seems to know when it's underwater (automatically compensating for the blue or yellow casts), and the flash lights everything up without a problem, as the Chief Wrecker, sorry, Chief Tester shows above.
Stand by for shock-proof, dust-proof and kid-proof tests in the days to come.
BTW, despite the expression on the tester above, he's actually not having a sad, bad or otherwise unhappy time. It's just that most Aboriginal people - old and young - don't smile for the camera.

A sole for every surface

Computers, cameras and mobile phones ain't the only things 'ruggedised' in remote Indigenous communities - in fact, all the magnesium, titanium and triple-seals in the world are no match for the feet of Aboriginal kids across the Territory.
In the two months I've been up here, I'm yet to see one kid wearing a pair of shoes in any of the three communities I'm working with. That's not to say that things are so bad there's no shoes for the children; rather, that like singlets, shirts and most other clothes, shoes are just another burden getting in the way of going outside.
It doesn't matter what sort of track, trail or surface - it's bare feet all the way. Bitumen road at midday in the middle of summer? No worries! Broken shale that will slash the sidewall of a reinforced truck tyre? Bring it on! 10-foot tall spear grass with who-knows-how-many brown snakes slithering through it? No problem!
Is it any wonder these kids give me a funny look when I tell them I'll be ready to come outside in five minutes, or as soon as I've laced-up my Vibram-soled, double-stitched, Gore-Tex-lined hiking boots with reinforced heavy-duty tread?

Testing times for the toughest camera

After many weeks of tiny sand-covered hands vying desperately for my DSLR, I only just remembered that I'd been issued with a water-proof, shock-proof - and hopefully kid-proof - Olympus digicam in my grab bag of gadgetry.
Road test, literally, this afternoon (as it's dropped onto bitumen - a result of three hands going for one camera) and so far, so good on the shock-proof factor. Tomorrow, the guys have promised me they'll test the water-proofing down at the dam, and with a week of school holidays about to begin, there's not likely to be any shortcomings on the kid-proof bit, either.

Semi-trailers times four

I don't know if it's just me, all blokes, or anyone from down south, but the fascination with road trains continues, despite seeing hundreds of them each week.
(For those who don't know what a road train is, think of a semi-trailer, double it, and then double it again - one truck, four trailers.)
The tankers are the biggest and baddest of all the trains - 150,000 litres of unleaded, charging along a two-lane highway at 130 kilometres an hour - although the mining trucks, with their raw, reinforced trailers covered in red dust and carrying who-knows-what riches, come a close second.
Along with the gleaming, clean and colour co-ordinated road trains of the big corporate players, like the Shell train above, you also see plenty of owner-operated 'mongrels'; ancient Kenworths or Macks, pulling along four mis-matching trailers with completely different cargo on each one.
New or old, matching or not, they're all still huge (try 50 metres and 62 wheels) - so much so that even my wide-angle lens can't fit the whole thing in.

Going troppo in a season out of schedule

No one's quite sure why, but this year, the wet season is weird - really weird. It's way over schedule, and the dry is nowhere to be seen. Instead, the days are long, hot and humid, with intense electrical storms and torrential showers arriving almost on cue at 6pm; an unseasonal repeat to the Territory's infamous build-up to the monsoon, and the reason behind the term 'going troppo'.
And nowhere is it more apparent than where I am right now.
Since Monday, every night has been another chapter in the real-life 'Dummies Guide to Going Troppo', complete with true surround sound, including men shouting, women screaming, kids crying and dogs barking.
Without exaggeration, it's a war zone from the comfort of your air-conditioning; listen closely and you'll hear the words turn into fists, then fists into faces, all the while punctuated by breaking bottles and the shrill ring of steel piping being hurled through the night.
It's a challenging, confronting and confusing environment for insiders and outsiders alike, including the police, who are sitting at the entrance to the community when I get home this evening. This is the fourth time in five days they've been called out this week, but tonight, even they're scared by what they see.
Fuelled by green cans, red cans and cheap casks, around 25 blokes swing fists, feet, sticks and whatever else they can find at each other. One fella gets hit again, again and again; each time he gets up, his anger grows even stronger. It's terrifying stuff, and makes even the most ferocious small-town Saturday night punch-up seem like nothing at all.
In the background, lightning arcs across the sky, reflecting the rage and intensity below as the police discuss how best to handle the situation. One officer suggests firing several rounds into the air; another says they should turn around and go home.
If only I had the option. Instead, I wish them good luck, roll up the window and hope the wet season gets back on schedule.

All in a day's drive

It's a pity you can't redeem the miles you clock up on the road for those in the air - with 7,500 kilometres covered in just over a month, I'd be a Super Double Diamond Platinum Frequent Flyer in no time, with enough points to go around the world several times over.
Just as well the car had its 1,000km service at 4,800km.
Still, at least I'm getting some benefit from this gig, and that's knowing what I don't want to do when I grow up - add long-distance driver to the list (along with policeman, teacher, childcare assistant, Aboriginal health worker, etc.).

Everything is said and not a word is spoken

If it's hard enough getting most grown-ups to get their annual medical check-up for fear of getting a needle, try the process with 40-odd kids all under 16.
So, on a hot, humid Sunday morning in a community shed 240 kilometres south of Darwin, I find myself helping set up a four-metre high jumping castle, complete with water slides, tunnels, bridges and an all-weather sound system that puts most home stereos to shame.
The jumping castle is the latest strategy in getting families along to the Government's Children's Health Checks, and provide some reward (along with, literally, a free lunch) for kids who'll spend an hour getting poked, prodded and jabbed by a team of six medical staff.
Of course, you can't actually show the kids the jumping castle before they get checked - unless you want a community health report that shows everyone under 16 having a resting heart rate of 180 - so it's left to me to explain to each and every kid about what's waiting in store.
As you can see from the image above, my sales skills obviously need some work. While the little girl laps up my spiel with visible excitement, her older and very protective brother is somewhat more reserved, telling me without saying a word that I'd better not be bullsh-tting.

Winning while still coming last

My warm welcome back to the Territory continued on Friday, with news that the town I'm living in has taken a Top 5 finish in the list of Australia's most disadvantaged communities.
I have to admit that I was a little surprised at first - like most remote Aboriginal communities, there's very obvious poverty and other social problems, but it doesn't seem that bad - although when I think about it, being called a 'f--king c--t' and told to 'f--k off' by a three year old probably points to some much deeper signs of disadvantage.
It's the same when I take a closer look at some of the images I've taken over the last month. In one picture, our friend above sits atop a broken stroller in the middle of a street surrounded by stray dogs and rusted car bodies, both hands clenched into fists, and a gaze that appears full of anger. I wonder if it's just a play for the camera, or whether someone so young can have seen, felt or heard so much hate?
For most kids here, swearing, spitting and hitting (family, friends, dogs, anything) are common, normal behaviours, and when I ask them to stop, they look at me in confusion, laugh or ask why.
Sigh. Maybe that Top 5 finish really was well-deserved, and at the very least, we'll have something new to replace the 'Winner, Tidy Town 1984' sign as you drive in.

Full steam at dead slow

Talk about a warm welcome back to the Territory.
I have the cops out here Tuesday and Wednesday nights, the neighbour collapses from heat exhaustion Thursday, and an unexpected storm (above) sees the main road home flooded and closed until Friday.
The end result is less sleep, more miles and another meeting missed, but no one seems to mind except me. Apparently, I've still got a way to go in understanding 'Territory Time', or the casual, flexible and laidback approach to schedules, engagements and other commitments people up here.
It's largely based on accepting the two most challenging elements of living in the Northern Territory - distance and climate - and the realisation that going slow is actually pretty fast.
As the copper from Monday explained (after taking two and a half hours to get here), "get used to what 'NT' really stands for - not today, not tomorrow, not ta next day".
Slowly, and taking the long back road home, I'm coming around to his way of thinking. I just hope my bosses are on Territory Time, too.

Bright white but still unseen

When you're as white as I am, and one of four white people in a small community of 160 very black people, you'd think that you'd stand out just a little.
You'd be surprised.
Beyond the initial fascination of someone and something new, there's little, if any ongoing interest in who I am, or what I do. It's not a case of reservation or rudeness so much as general disinterest and daily life - leave me to my business, and I'll leave you to yours.
I suspect that I'm the latest in a long line of white fellas to this community, each who've arrived with their own particular (and, to the locals, probably somewhat peculiar) agenda.
There is one exception, of course, and that's the kids. Like any community, whether white, black, green, blue or brindle, it's the kids who appear from nowhere, a mini media scrum of questions about the who, what and why of white person number four.

Water, water and not a drop to drink

Obviously, tree frogs and brown snakes ain't the only ones reading this blog, with Huey noting my comments about the absence of any "real" wet season storms, and sending in a beauty on Sunday evening.
Lasting for well over two hours, and dumping more than 60mm in total, the storm knocks out power, telephone and satellite services, and in true Top End irony, the community's water supply.
As of Tuesday afternoon, power is restored, but we're still waiting for telephone, satellite and, despite the many knee-deep puddles around the community, water.

Dancing in the streets

After a day of constant thunder, lightening and torrential rain - including 100mm in less than an hour alone - you'd be dancing in the street when it all finished, too.

When printers turn deadly

If you've been reading my posts so far, you'll recall my small green mate from Wednesday night, and perhaps remember my half-hearted attempt at humour when I noted I'd rather a visit from a tree frog than a brown snake.
Well, for a colleague down south in Ti Tree (about 200kms up the track from Alice Springs), the situation wasn't so funny.
On Friday morning, after noticing that her laser printer was only printing the top half of the page, she thought it might be time to replace the toner cartridge. Turns out there was plenty of toner, but the real problem was a metre-long western brown snake who'd decided that the printer would make a nice warm, dry and cosy home.
As you can see, the critter is none-to-happy about being interrupted - and, given these bad boys are among the Top 10 deadliest snakes in the world, I'm not so sure I'd be stopping to take happy snaps.

Hangin' tough on the tidal plain

After a week of waving, smiling, saying g'day and spending most of this morning clearing two huge vacant blocks by myself (in 32C heat), I'm finally acknowledged by the locals.
First one, then some, and almost all, and by lunchtime, I've been invited to come out fishing on the tidal flats.
It's a terrific afternoon, and in between billy-tea and the best damper I've ever tasted (cooked in sand and hot coals), the fellas land three baramundi, two salmon and a sea snake.
Meanwhile, the kids have discovered my digital camera, and are amazed when they can see themselves as soon as the shutter is pressed. Technology comes quick in the Territory, but only when you've got the bucks to buy it.
I can't but help cave in to their fascination, and put on a brave face as I hand over several thousand dollars worth of digital SLR to a stack of tiny sand-covered hands. It's a photographer's worst nightmare, and made even worse by the fact that most of the kids struggle to even lift the thing to eye level.
In the end, they take over 200 shots - albeit it with most showing the ground and their feet - and return the camera without a single grain of sand on it.

Strangers in the night

I must admit that I've been surprised by the lack of wildlife I've seen since getting up here, although considering the amount of time I'm spending on the road, that's probably a good thing.
Still, it was neat to come back from a cuppa to find Kermit having a close look at the Toughbook (see post below) late last night.
He must have approved as he certainly wasn't in any hurry to get back outside, and was quite comfortable sitting on the screen as I snapped away - to the point that I got bored with the novelty of 'frog on laptop' pics and went back to typing away. Eventually, he hopped off back into the night, but not before leaving a nice trail of sticky gloop all over the screen.
Still, better a tree frog than a brown snake, I 'spose.

Getting down in the donga...

For those who've asked, here's a picture of a typical top-end (cyclone-rated) donga for CEBs and Government Business Managers involved in the NT Emergency Response.
It's nothing extravagant, but what do you expect when you build something out of nothing more than a few shipping containers (five, in this case) and some simple steel framing?
In the example above, you're looking directly at the front entrance which opens to the common area, kitchen (front right - with window) and two of the four bedrooms, each with own bathroom, workstation, etc.
As far as accommodation goes, I'd call it four-star. In addition to high-speed wireless broadband, the satellite dish pumps in 92 TV channels and industrial-strength air-con keeps everything as cool or warm as you want.
In any case, compared to almost all the surrounding houses - if you can even call 'em that - it's pure luxury and to be quite honest, almost feels explicitly extravagant.

White Lines, Road Trains and Rain

In two days, I've driven over 1500 kilometres, with three seemingly unending constants - road markings, road trains and rain.
For each of them, you could replace the 'unending' with 'unnerving', and that's coming from someone who's driven a stack of miles over the years (it happens when you don't like flying) and considers themselves pretty darn confident behind the wheel.
But when the highway is undivided single-lane, the semis are four times their normal size, and the windscreen wipers don't make a difference even at maximum, it's a whole new experience.
See above, and keep in mind that I've overexposed it by half a stop so you can actually see what's going on. It's taken around 3pm and in real life the light was much lower, although thankfully, the road train to the right was much further away than it looks.
And if you think all that's bad...don't even ask about how much it costs to fill the tank!

Within striking distance

One of the big drawcards Darwin holds for me are the awesome electrical storms that come during the wet season - they put what we've got down south to shame.
Last night was a beauty, and the first real sound and lighting spectacular I'd seen since arriving. Of course, as soon the lightning starts up, I realise that I hadn't charged the camera, and combined with no tripod and only a teeny-tiny lunch, this was the best I could manage before giving up and heading out for dinner.

A snatching success

There's a reason you stand well back when using a snatch strap to recover a bogged vehicle, and this is it.What you're seeing above the tow-point (black metal looking thing) from a Toyota Troop Carrier lodged firmly in the side of a Goodyear Desert Wrangler tyre. What you don't see is the 100mm D-shackle that's attached to the tow-point (now inside the tyre), or the internal sidewall armouring of the tyre (now completely shredded by said tow-point).
Of course, this happens when I'm halfway through my final assessment for vehicle recovery (the two guys in blue shirts above are the instructors, Darren and Noel).
At first, I think it's an easy task - a Toyota stuck fast in thick, up-to-the-axle mud - until Noel tells me that in setting up the exercise, he's really, truly got the vehicle bogged.
So, after assessing the situation, I rig up a snatch from the front left tow-point of the Toyota to the back of the recovery vehicle, and making sure the usual set-up process is checked and double-checked. With that done, I tell the recovery driver to start off, and give it a little extra grunt...he does so, and a second or two later, there's a terrific whoosh and an almighty bang as the tow-point snaps, and hurtles into the spare tyre. Given the strength of those tyres, and the pressure they were at, the tow-point (solid steel) and D-shackle (cast iron) must have been moving at well over several hundred kilometres an hour.
(For those that don't know, a snatch strap is like a big rubber band tied between two vehicles - as the recovery vehicle moves off, the strap stretches all the way to its limit - and then, as it springs back to its original state, the stored kinetic energy pulls out the stuck vehicle. They're highly effective, but also violent, unpredictable and highly dangerous.)
In the end, I get the Toyota free, pass the assessment (blamed on the Toyota being a rental and in a fairly sorry state to begin with) and the only damage is the write-off of a brand-new tyre, but I'm damn happy I told everyone around to stand even further back than usual before the recovery process began.

Tough toys for the Territory

Given the climate of the Territory, it came as little surprise to hear that over a third of the (brand new) laptops provided to the first lot of CEBs in late 2007 have since died.
With the humidity up north, the heat down south, and dust everywhere between, the Northern Territory is an IT Manager's worst nightmare.
Until now - enter the Panasonic CF-30, or as it's commonly known as, the Toughbook.
This is the Hummer of the laptop world. Originally designed for the US Army, the Toughbook is big, bulky and the perfect choice when you want to tell any AirBook carrying tree-huggers to eat your shorts.
Deep down, the Toughbook is just like any other laptop - screen, keyboard, touchpad, hard disk - but that's where the differences end. Outside, the Toughbook is wrapped up in a magnesium casing and a quarter-inch plexiglass screen, has huge rubber gaskets and seals all over, and there's a two-stage locking mechanism before you can access pretty much any of the Toughbook's ports.
If it looks heavy, that's because it is!
Panasonic's marketing men call the Toughbook 'ruggedised' (yeah, I didn't think such a word existed, either) and in fact, the Toughbook is so damn tough that it doesn't even need a fancy-schmancy carry case - it comes with its own built-in handle!
Of course, being ex-Military, the Toughbook is all about security. The hard drive can be removed in seconds (so long as you know how to use those two-stage locking mechanisms), data can be permanently deleted in three clicks and login is via a standard Windows password and an external PIN token.
Dust, heat and humidity mean nothing to a Toughbook - but that's probably because the thing is so heavy, it never gets taken anywhere near any of 'em!

Rain, more rain and humidity

So much for sunny Darwin - since I arrived a week ago, its been raining all week. And by rain, I'm talking rain, with a total of 690mm for February, including 182mm in a single day. Compare that with Canberra's totals (66mm and 16.4mm respectively) and you quickly realise why the wet season is called exactly that.
It makes a challenging environment for people and cameras alike, although I did manage to get down to Stokes Hill Wharf earlier this evening - just in time to see the next storm rolling in.

A Community Employment what?

Its suddenly dawned on me - at Day Six in Darwin, and the fourth post here, no less - that I haven't even defined what a Community Employment Broker is and does.
Using the formal and very, very public service definition, a Community Employment Broker "co-ordinates the delivery of employment-related DEEWR services within a designated community so that all job seekers with a participation requirement are engaged in an activity."
Got all that? It's probably won't make much sense if you're from outside the public service, and even less so if you're outside the social security/employment services portfolios.
In simple terms, a Community Employment Broker works with a remote Indigenous Community to help people find training, work experience and, hopefully, long-term employment and social participation.
The role was created as part of the Australian Government's Northern Territory Emergency Response in late 2007, and aims to provide local support for local people. The big difference between a Community Employment Broker and traditional (Government) roles is that the Broker lives in the community in which they're working.
By actively living in a remote community, a Community Employment Broker helps overcome the 'fly in, fly out' syndrome, allowing for a longer-term approach to be taken, and providing a accurate, current and 'on the ground' perspective.
Obviously, as every Indigenous community is different, there's no typical day for a Community Employment Broker, but most days are spent meeting with community members and representative groups, employment and training providers, other Government agencies and anyone else involved in employment-related business.
In between that, there's a stack of reporting and a lot of travel - in my case, 490 kilometres to the nearest town.

Tools of the trade

Day three, and the tools of the trade arrive. See above, and don't forget that the brown patterned thing underneath all that stuff is a queen-sized bed.
For the detail and techno geeks out there, the standard (and yes, there are variants depending on your specific deployment) issue consists of (clockwise from centre):
- 3 plastic sleeves of stationery
- Panasonic Toughbook
- Telstra 3G modem (works great)
- Olympus waterproof digicam
- diary and first stack of paperwork
- Telstra 3G phone
- cables and chargers for everything
- second stack of paperwork
- reference folders (x3 - contain lego, policy, guidelines, etc.)
- Brother laser printer
- spare cartridge for said laser printer
- ream of A4 paper (x2)
- Iridium sat phone ($10.50 per minute - and you thought your phone was pricey)
- Apple 80gb iPod (backup to Toughbook and podcast updates)

Worse still is that what you're seeing is only a relatively small part of the overall kit. On top of all that, there's more paperwork, a huuuge first-aid kit and a 4WD to put it all in. And don't even ask about that because it has a spare for everything - including the spare.

Legal Mumbo Jumbo...

Just a quick note to remind y'all that this blog doesn't reflect the views of the NTER, DEEWR, the Australian Government or anyone else beyond myself. I haven't sought clearance from the Departmental legal-eagles to run it as it's purely personal. Please help me keep it that way. It's not listed in the Blogger directory, and I've disabled search engine crawling, so it shouldn't show up in Google or any other major directories. In fact, if you're reading this, it's because I've sent you the URL directly - I'm happy for you to forward it on if you think relevant, but do use discretion, and keep in mind the comments above.

T minus twenty-four hours...

Given that I'm flying out at 6am on Sunday morning - and it's now just gone 11pm Friday - I thought I'd better start thinking about what I'm taking up north...
For those who haven't heard, I'll be spending the next six months or so working as a Community Employment Broker for remote Indigenous communities in the Northern Territory (as part of the Australian Government's Emergency Intervention Taskforce).
It's an opportunity I've been considering since the Taskforce was created last year, and now, thanks to my ever-accommodating partner Julia, a generous boss and a six-month deployment timeframe, I get to experience it first hand (although I won't know where exactly I'm being deployed until early March).
In the meantime, I've got less than 24 hours to work out what I'll take with me. See above for what I've got so far.
It may look like a lot, but it ain't much when you consider that I'll need gear for everyday wear, important-day wear and labouring wear... all during the wet season, too, when the humidity pushes 100% on the cool days.
Of course, beyond that, I'm also planning to sneak up my bike, although I'm not quite sure how I'll manage to hide that from the Head Honchos.