Well, this is it, I've finally made it to blogworld - and back to Papunya! Here is a picture of my trusty steed parked at my new house. We fired up some rivergum branches inside on New Year's Day to smoke out the bad dreams of the previous tenant (my erstwhile boss) who is now gone, gone, gone to wherever his bad dreams took him. I have slept well here so far anyway, apart from the incessant heat which has driven me to totally re-evaluate the place of aircon in my life.
There is men's business happening, it goes on for four months and results in lots of blokes around painted up with red ochre and designs and lots of women all camping out together. Yesterday was the day for the lawmen to arrive from Ernabella and places south of Uluru who were bringing back a newly-arrived man who was recently a boy - in absolutely stifling heat, which kept me inside all day. There was a lot of excitement and build-up in the waiting, as we women are not allowed to see them before the ceremony. I was hoping to see it but in the end felt too hot and too unsure to venture out - heavy punishment for women who are in the wrong place and I didn't want to offend anyone...there will hopefully be more, men's business goes on for months and most of the women are camped out for their part in it all. Anyway the heavens heard our collective cry for rain after the ceremony and it is a lot cooler today with a few clouds to soften the glare.
I may not be emailing as much now I can blog instead, which is probably good as long as I don't use the time to dawdle on ebay and get out and about on my beautiful red bike instead - riding a bike is heaps cooler and faster than walking - I have portable self-generated aircon and I love it. My latest obsession with ebay has been around aquiring the most excellent hydration backpack for cycling and bushwalking and I think I have finally exhausted the possibilities, which is great. Anyone who comes to visit will probably be able to borrow my spare one, or two as well!
Anyone who comes to visit will also be forced to go to the Desert Park with me also - and see little critters like these as well as some incredible live displays - it's an absolutely amazing place.
As a Territory resident I've got a yearly pass - we went there for Sunny's birthday and it is so good I'll go as often as I can get there. There I also met a fella giving a culture talk who is married to Lyn Oldfield's sister - so there ya go, connections all across the land. He told us more about the seven sisters dreaming and how it goes all the way to Nimbin and all over the country. Seven sisters and two little boys came down from the sky - the Pleides - and were chased by a lustful magic man - Orion - their tracks across Australia made the stories which link the landmarks - like the Nimbin Rocks - together. The Kungka Tjuta senior women from Coober Pedy showed us some dances from that cycle when we were camped at Kurnell with Uncle Kevin Buzzacott after the Peace Walk to the Olympic Games - one of those women also told us her very moving story of survival as a teenager while all her family died in the desert, leaving her absolutely alone after the Maralinga bomb tests in the 50's.
Today, Sunday is the end of my first week back here and everything is settling, I've cleaned out the house and done the washing. People are still glad to see me, lots of hugs and hallos - just what I love. The first few days I was pretty exhausted and headachy, partly due to staying up on New Years' Eve to party with the mob at the church and then sleeping on the verandah here for a few hours before the sun woke me.
We sang hymns to bring on the new year, kids up first on the mic, Lance the Council President pumping out the tunes on the electric piano/organ, old ladies like me all getting up together at the end. All in language, all in the hot hot summer night sitting on the warm red sand. The kids use the church floor as a gigantic sandpit, playing inventive games with emptied plastic bottles from soft drink distributed by the pastor Paul Traeger and his Taiwanese wife Mei-Li. The dogs scrap and whine and rest there and the adults also use it as a spittoon. Apart from the dogs and the spitting it is a lot like a Tuntable Hall gig.
On Friday I drove with some of the women who have been using the painting gear I got for them down to Ikuntji Art Centre where we all had a social time and I learnt a lot about
marketing the paintings they have done. Stay tuned for news of the Papunya Art renaissance...and pray for no more flat tyres for me - we got one as I was driving Martha home to her outstation, there was no wheelbrace so we walked a k in the blistering heat, then I rested while the kids went looking for a wheelbrace in the endless supermarket that looks like piles of rubbish. One of the lads went off with an entourage of kids and dogs to fix it and came back to cheers - but the spare was flat too! (No-one, but no-one, will be borrowing the vehicle now I'm back!) So I walked 6k back to town, it was very hot but the sun was a little lower in the sky and I shaded my head with a bunch of leaves and kept my mind on all the little wildlife tracks on the sand. Till I came upon great dinner-plate tracks that reminded me to look out for wild camels!
Well dear family, I'll leave it here for this week's post - tune in next weekend for an update, and love to you all - Meg
late-breaking news!!!!!!!!!!! I'm alive!!!!!!!!!!! I have just survived a massive dust-storm!!!!!!!!!! I foolishly rode out on my bike to check out an approaching storm and make sure the old people who were camping out were OK and left it a bit late (I was working on this bloggy blog) - got caught out and had to shelter behind a fence while rubbish big and small of all kinds hurtled down the street and the world gradually turned red and opaque with dust - it was worthy of a movie. I was fortunately in a very safe place where I had an incredibly good view of what was happening without even getting much dust in my eyes (although my ears were full of it when I had a shower later). I rode home when the rain started - that was what I had been wanting to do, get really wet. I do really miss the rain when it gets so hot here and it is great to smell it and feel it and catch it in buckets. And to know that it will be cooler tomorrow -it's still raining and it feels beautiful.
This is me on Sunny's birthday ...that's all folks, take care!
