Suffering Through Winter in Central Australia

It's been rough here this winter in central Australia...real rough to take. With temperatures like this at 4:45pm in the afternoon, I can definitely handle the winters here compared to winters in Canada. We're two and a half months into winter here in Alice Springs and I've yet to shovel any snow. Now the nights do get somewhat chilly and I've had to close my inside door to keep the cold out, and actually put a sweater on. I even have a comforter on the bed this time of year, compared to the sheet for most of the year. I even had to buy a heater for the chillier nights when the temperatures have dropped below zero. Again, nothing compared to the -45C nights in Yellownife, but -3C is still cold enough to warrant some intervention, particularly when the houses here are not insulated, the windows are single paned, and they are drafty as an old barn on the prairies. I have even worn socks at night on occasion as the tiled floors can be like ice. Of course the socks never make it into bed, as my feet turn into furnace feed by the time I crawl in.

a collection of empty wine casks aka goon bags from the riverbed

another collection of bags, bottles, and boxes

more campers in the riverbed

a child camping in the riverbed

one of the many drinking sites at the riverbed

Who really suffers here though are the many Aboriginal people who are homeless in Alice Springs. Most of them may have a house someplace else either in a remote community in the NT or they are from out of state. However, when they come to Alice Springs and the homes of their relatives are either full, or they are not welcome because they want to drink, they are often found sleeping in the riverbed. We see campfires every night during the winter, and people curled up next to them. This weekend we have taken two children to safe houses, one each night, both 9 years old because their parents came to town to drink, and so they were sleeping in the riverbed. The first girl watched her parents dragged off to jail but no one thought to ask her parents if they had any children with them, so she wandered the riverbed, alone and afraid for hours until one of the NGO's who patrol the streets and riverbed came across her. And now tonight, a young boy has become separated from his parents who are drinking somewhere or possibly in jail as well, and has been sleeping alone for the past couple of nights, anywhere he can find. I cannot imagine sleeping in the riverbed with just the clothes on my back, and probably not near any warming fire. I feel for these children, and am thankful we are able to find them a warm bed in a safe house for the night, with blankets to curl up under without worrying about the next drunken person who might come along and bother them.