Let There Be Mud

we came back onto the road at left

I traveled to South Australia for work this past week. It was clear and dry when I left Alice Springs, but by the time I arrived in Umuwa on APY lands, it was pouring rain. Several other workers were still on the roads, and two arrived at Umuwa just before dark, having braved the slipperier than snot roads. It poured all night long and into the morning before finally clearing away to bright blue skies in late afternoon. We didn't venture further than Watinuma, which is about 20kms away and the nearest store. Two of us had only planned on one night in Umuwa, so brought just a little food. I was expecting to spent the next 3 nights in Marla where I eat at the roadhouse, or buy things from the small supermarket to eat in my room or on the road. I also brought a few things for road snacks. On the road to Watinuma we went through this terrifyingly large puddle that was up to the doors I'm sure. Soaked the land cruiser I was driving in red mud! Before the week was through, my work vehicle was absolutely filthy with red mud, caked on in layers. 

building our own road

The following day we all decided to head out first thing in the morning. There were several equally large puddles, and bigger still to drive through or around. Sometimes the shoulder wouldn't be too high to drive on to skirt the worst of the puddles rather than having to plow right through them. We are told in 4WD training that just because we have a snorkel on our vehicles, it does not mean we are driving a submarine...there was a road train, however that didn't get the memo. He tried to plow through a particularly long puddle and must have lost momentum or something and bogged, They had to bring in the grader to rebuild the road, and several trucks to try and tow him out of the mud. It blocked the only road for many hours, so I teamed up with an Aboriginal family in a Ford Falcon to build our own road and bypass the bog site.

following the Ford Falcon

bogged in the mud

I started by driving up and down the shoulder bank of the road, packing it down, and making it lower. Then one of the fellas borrowed my shovel and dug out the stumps. I packed it once more, and then the Falcon flew up over the bank and into the bush. Not wanting to look stupid, I powered up over the bank without a hitch, and followed that Ford Falcon into the bush. We skirted the bog site filled with trucks, containers, heavy equipment and several men for about a kilometre, and then bumped back onto the road again. The Falcon suffered a flat tire, but was otherwise unscathed. He poked a hole into the sidewall with a tree branch. My vehicle was built for this stuff and sailed through the bush. I loaned them my jack and shovel so they could change their tire, and we were all on our merry way. 

long puddle goes around the corner

I learned a lot about bush driving this week. Some of the knowledge was similar to driving through snow, but after crossing through/around over 100 huge puddles, I feel much more comfortable on the roads after a rain. It happens so seldom in central Australia, it was the first time I had to drive in such muddy conditions. I had driven through floodways, but they weren't the problem this time around. It was the puddles, some of which could classify as a pond or lake I was told. It was both thrilling and terrifying at times!

muddy vehicle

I saw hundreds of cows, dozens of horses, no camels, one kangaroo and a dingo. I may have missed more as my eyes were focused more on not drowning in the puddles. One of my coworkers expressed concern at finding herself between two gigantic puddles, so my reasoning was - if there are tire tracks both in and out of the puddle, and there are no cars currently floating in the puddle, then you can make it through in a 4WD. She believed me and made it through her first muddy bush trip as well. At first it's a confidence thing, and driving alone makes it even more worrisome, as you could be out there alone for hours waiting for help. We all carry satellite phones and EPIRBs so wouldn't be alone forever, but it could take awhile. No one wanted to rollover or get bogged in the middle of a gigantic puddle of mud in the cold. My father would be proud - I did it! I did find myself mowing down bushes a few times as I avoided big puddles and found the slant of the bank too steep to just put one tire on it. Thankfully the shoulders are usually quite soft and sandy, so simply settle down and the tires climb easily up over them.

rainbow sky

I saw so many starving dogs in the communities. No birth control in force as skinny female dogs run around with dangling nipples from raising puppies constantly. Open wounds, broken limbs, lame limbs, blind eyes, tumors hanging from them, ribs showing drastically thin bodies, and sore paws. They all crawl with fleas/lice and roam in packs. Show no fear is my motto, and skirt them with as wide a berth as possible. I've been chased and bitten in the past, so one learns from such experiences. And when they fight, clear out of the way. What starts as two dogs scrapping can easily turn into a dog riot. It's criminal how pitiful these creatures look.

sunset near Indulkana

I visited the local cemetery at one community. Simple plots with white crosses marking them, very similar to remote community cemeteries in Canada. There are also flowers shrines along the highways where people have been killed on the bush roads, and paved roads. There are also several around Alice Springs, one just down the road from me at the end of a friend's driveway. She no longer lived there at the time. It happened on New Year's Eve, someone was run over by a motorbike...they were laying in the road, passed out.

Anyhow, it was a successful bush trip. I'm heading back again in early June, this time with another worker to follow the court circuit. Hope it doesn't rain, but if it does, I'm ready for it.

I'm Surrounded By Idiots

     Sigh...I really hate calling call centres. I may have mentioned that in a previous post. I have been dealing with two rather extensively lately and I'm OVER it. Telstra is the first culprit. I have might have mentioned before the whole T-Box saga. Brief recap is I chose the non-contract option to try out the T-Box (it is cable television combined with free to air digital channels). I had it for about 6 weeks and returned it because it was a piece of shit. I hated the design, the concept, the delivery, and the presentation, not to mention the service - absolute shit. I returned it in January, but have had to deal with Telstra several times since then. They can't seem to locate my T-Box so wanted to charge me for the cost of it, even through I hand delivered it to a Telstra employee and stood next to him while he documented this on my account and gave me the reference number. They can't seem to grasp the concept that I did not sign a 2 year contract, rather chose the non-contract option for which I have the paperwork for to prove this. After raising it numerous times beyond the poor call centre employee to their supervisor and then to that person's supervisor, they tell me they have sorted it out, and apologized for their mistakes.
     All through this they kept calling me to beg me to subscribe to the T-Box again. I finally lost a gasket and told them very bluntly that it was a piece of shit and to stop calling me. They promised to stop calling me. They didn't. And then I got my latest phone bill from them and see that I have been billed for the goddamn T-Box contract cancellation. Sigh...so I call again, get yet another idiot call centre employee and go through the entire saga again.  She dared to comment "I'll take this charge off your account because you didn't realize you were signing a 2 year contract". I came unglued...I explained to her that I am not some dumb blonde who glossed over the paperwork when I signed up - I knew exactly what I signed up for because I did it online first, and then called them and confirmed several times that I did not want the contract option, and have paperwork to prove I did not sign a contract. A few gulps later she put me on hold, saying she had to speak to her supervisor. When she came back she simply told me the charge has been removed from my account and she was sorry for any inconvenience they may have caused. I politely told her if I have to continue to deal with this crap from Telstra, I'll be dropping them like third period French. Total bluff, because there are no other mobile phone or internet providers in Alice Springs, but SHE doesn't know that. I was simply pissed.
     Enter the second unpleasant call centre mess. In Australia they have something called Salary Packaging. This is where a salary packaging company organizes to take a portion of your salary to pay for things such as car payments, loan payments, monthly bills, whatever, depending on the limits set by your employer. They take this portion prior to your income being taxed, so you are only taxed on the remaining amount. My previous salary sacrifice company rep was a fucking idiot that I was so tired of dealing with by the time it was all organized. She kept sending me documents for other people, which contained all of their very personal information like bank accounts, employers, salary, home address, signature, etc. Despite my advising her of this the first time she did it, she did the same thing 3 more times. I thought she was as dumb as a bag of hammers...then I spoke to the gal with my current salary packaging company. I had to change companies when I changed employers.
     Oh boy...so they sent me what I am to believe is my annual report of my salary sacrificing package. I only salary sacrifice my car package, which includes my car payment, insurance, registration, tire allowance, fuel allowance, and a small repair budget. The term of my car lease is fixed, based on what I signed when I first picked up the car from Toyota. I know exactly when I got it, and how long the terms were for. I picked it up in May 2011, and we signed for a 46 month term because my work visa at the time was for 48 months, but I was 2 months in, so we ended up with 46 months. Given it is currently May 2013, that would tell me there are 22 months left. You would think it is not a difficult calculation. I was wrong. I have received 4 copies of my annual report, all of which were incorrect at 47 months, 43 months, 40 months, and 7 months. I offered to accept the 7 months, but somehow I think Toyota may figure it out. They tend to want ALL of the money owed them, not just some of them. I have painfully tried to explain this to my salary sacrifice account manager, but for some reason, she continues to make mistakes in the paperwork. When she asked me if I wanted her to continue to send me the reports, I told her not to bother sending me anything unless it was accurate. She failed to listen and sent me yet one more inaccurate report. Sigh...I'm surrounded by idiots...

Bush Camping

I'm very grateful to have a job that lets me go camping and be paid for it! Granted, the last bush camp I did for work was in March with about 80 Aboriginal women and 40-50 staff in 45C weather. The weather was much more palatable this time around, with temps in low 30s during the day and in the mid teens at night. The real pest this time was the flies. You know those flies you see on children's faces in Unicef Ads - yeah, they are also here in central Australia, enough to choke you sometimes. You get used to the Aussie wave, batting flies from in front of your face. They head for any source of water - your eyes, nose, ears, mouth. Hardly a day without swallowing a few flies. Beyond that, it was a very successful and enjoyable trip. We picked up 12 teenage girls from a remote community and took them to a nearby homeland called Amuroona, just outside of Indulkana in South Australia (for those looking for it on the map you won't find Amuroona). Homelands are where the owners of the cattle station lived, along with their staff who lived in the outbuildings. Over the years as the cattle stations were abandoned, the houses became occupied by the local Aboriginal population that grew up on those homelands, and worked the station. Some are now the traditional owners of those lands. It's a bit complicated to understand sometimes and I'm not sure I completely understand it all! Either way, the lands are gorgeous and the bush camp area at Amuroona was stunning. Surrounded nearly 360 degrees by red rocky hills, with a nearly circular flat clearing dotted with a few shade trees, bigger than a football field. The bonus was there is a pit toilet there (or as they call it here, a drop toilet). You could chuck your tent or swag anywhere without needing to clear any ground.

burning off the fur from the tails

     We had 12 girls, two senior Aboriginal ladies and the youth worker and I. The first mission was to get all of the swags and tents set up, which the girls did well on their own and they looked after the senior ladies, which was nice to see. Once that was done, we started working on preparing lunch. Each of the girls had a kangaroo tail of their own, plus the senior ladies. We could have each had one, but it does not appeal to me in the very least. First the girls had to get a good fire going with lots of flame so they could burn off the fur and scrape it with a knife or sharp stick. Then they wrapped them up in tinfoil and buried them in the hot coals for about an hour, before taking them out and letting them cool a bit before eating. In my opinion they smell horrendous, but the girls just love them, as do most people from the lands. I'd prefer a kangaroo steak anyday. 

     After lunch we settled into some program materials, such as the gunga card game, my sexual assault information session, and my domestic violence session. We need to work with these young girls as early as possible as the rate of domestic violence in central Australia is absolutely shocking. Some of the key bit I've found important to cover as there is a clear lack of information in the remote communities - no, you cannot get pregnant with twins if you have sex while you're pregnant; just because a young man has been through men's business, you do not have to submit to him for sex, you can indeed still say WIYA! (no) and you must be 17 years old to be legally able to consent to sex with a partner 17 or older. We cannot discuss such issues with any boys or men around, which is why we only took girls. It isn't culturally appropriate to talk about these things in mixed gender groups. It's also much easier to get teenage girls to talk when there are no boys around. 

     Once the programming was finished, the girls were free to hang out, hike up around the rocks, gather firewood for cooking and what came to be their dancing fire. Campfires in central Australia are a breeze. Any fool can make one because everything is tinder dry, and there is an absolute abundance of dry wood, grasses, branches, twigs, leaves, bark, etc. What is popular here and very practical is that only one fire needs to be lit with matches or a lighter. Then to get any other fire going, you just take a burning branch out of the current fire and carry it along. With drought years intermittent, many trees lose limbs, or the entire tree dies. Trees here are pretty smart, if they want to survive the droughts, they will kill off some of their limbs to ensure the main trunk of the tree survives. When the wet weather comes, they grow new limbs. So we had several little fires near swags where the girls put their billy cans (think stainless steel paint can with a pot lid) to boil water for tea. Then they built a big bonfire with large branches that gave off more light and the music started. Someone from the homeland brought a boom box that looked like a commercial speaker and ran on a battery - the sound was amazing. And the girls danced it out in front of the fire. Their favorite tunes were reggae and hip hop. Some of the music was a bit inappropriate, but we used that music during the breaks to make our points about safe sex, violence, drugs, alcohol, etc. It flowed well, which was important. While these girls from remote communities tend to be quite subdued in conversation with whitefellas, you can tell they are still engaged and listening, perhaps running through a situation that may have recently happened in their family. 

     For the last part of the evening, we set the girls up on their swags in front of a laptop set upon my small table and showed them community videos about various topics. They all featured people form the APY lands, so they girls often knew people in them videos. One was on going away to boarding school (very popular here), the Kungka Career Conference (kungka means girl/woman), one on safe sex, one on the community of Mutijulu (the Aboriginal community right next to Uluru aka Ayer's Rock). I enjoyed them as well and they were quite well done, with one of them filmed right here in Alice Springs. Once the videos finished, the girls were sent to bed to start settling in for the night. Like most teenage girls there was a lot of chatter first (always in language so we two whitefellas could not understand), some giggling, rustling of swags being dragged across the campsite to another spot, but before long, everyone was quiet, and it wasn't even 10pm. The moon was up full and bright, and there was only the slightest breeze of wind. I didn't sleep much that night, despite my sleep mask to shut out the brightness of the moon, I just couldn't settle enough to drift off. By 6am. the moon was about to set, and the sun was coming up again. I haven't been up for many sunsets since moving here, so it was gorgeous to sit in the great outdoors and enjoy the ball of fire as it rose. 

     Before long, the girls were all up and eating their wheatbix and drinking cups of tea until we ran out of sugar. Then they packed it all up and we brought them back to community. The youth worker was staying for another night as she planned to do more programming in the community the following day. It was a really good experience, and I'd be happy to do it again soon.