macdibble (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} macdibble) wrote,@ 2007-08-17 16:45:00 |
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CBC Awards - Maningrida NT
First the winners of the Children's Book Council of Australia Children's Book of the Year Awards >>Click here<<
Congratulations Margo and all the other wonderful creators, well-deserved wins all around.
A friend of mine has just gone off to teach a primary class in Maningrida (about 510km east of Darwin on the coast) for three weeks.
She showed me on a map where it was. Great, I said, you'll be able to go to the beach. Now, I've visited Sumbawa, Komodo, Sumba, and other out of the way places (which are strangely close to Maningrida despite being in another country) so the isolation and lack of unnecessary comforts were no problem to an adventurous backpacker like me.
Then she showed me the literature she'd been given - jellyfish, crocodiles, sandflies, mosquitos, snakes, roaming wild dogs, and advice that states: "if you want to enjoy the water, go boating". Possibly sound advice. Altho my advice, "Don't go outside!" might be even safer.
I read further through her literature. She has to have a permit to have a glass of wine. All alcohol has to be ordered and will be delivered to the Police station and only handed out once every two weeks. Right there, I know I wouldn't survive in Maningrida. If a police station in Melbourne tried to deprive a group of local 40-something women from having their after work wine every night there would be a monumental riot. Now, quite possibly the police station is authorised to supply the average 40 year old Maningrida woman with enough wine so she can have one glass per night but if I lived in Maningrida, in that heat, with the lack of jobs, crocodiles, roaming dogs, sandflies, snakes and mosquitoes, I'd bloody well feel like I DESERVED to drink to excess at least once a week. I feel like that now and my life is cushy by comparison. How do women there cope? It's not like there's counselling or friends groups or ladies golf day or anything laid on for them in Meningrida, is there? It makes me glad that my aboriginal ancestors married into an evil Scottish family and left the country. At least my right to drink whenever I choose has been preserved.
That was a bit ranty and I suppose a lot of drunks do evil things but mostly those are men and younger. I think any 40+ woman has reached a time in her life when she deserves a drink or two without some government department counting like a possessive husband. You know, at this age, we don't stand for possessive husbands.
Anyway back to the Maningrida school. I donated to them a reading pack of 5 Beast of Moogills:
and a copy of each of my other Giggler books. Then I wondered how relevant aliens and science fiction are to kids up there.
I suppose it was relevant to me living on NZ sheep stations but then we had the cold war and mad sf on TV. SF was the bees knees back then. :)
Does anyone know? Unfortunately, I seem to know more about the Indonesian islands north of there than I do about the northern territories or far north Queensland. Which is a bit pathetic when I've just said I had an aborignal ancestor... but you have to remember, I don't have Australian citizenship either. I'm a Kiwi. If you ask me about far north NZ, or Maori traditions, I'll know.
First the winners of the Children's Book Council of Australia Children's Book of the Year Awards >>Click here<<
Congratulations Margo and all the other wonderful creators, well-deserved wins all around.
A friend of mine has just gone off to teach a primary class in Maningrida (about 510km east of Darwin on the coast) for three weeks.
She showed me on a map where it was. Great, I said, you'll be able to go to the beach. Now, I've visited Sumbawa, Komodo, Sumba, and other out of the way places (which are strangely close to Maningrida despite being in another country) so the isolation and lack of unnecessary comforts were no problem to an adventurous backpacker like me.
Then she showed me the literature she'd been given - jellyfish, crocodiles, sandflies, mosquitos, snakes, roaming wild dogs, and advice that states: "if you want to enjoy the water, go boating". Possibly sound advice. Altho my advice, "Don't go outside!" might be even safer.
I read further through her literature. She has to have a permit to have a glass of wine. All alcohol has to be ordered and will be delivered to the Police station and only handed out once every two weeks. Right there, I know I wouldn't survive in Maningrida. If a police station in Melbourne tried to deprive a group of local 40-something women from having their after work wine every night there would be a monumental riot. Now, quite possibly the police station is authorised to supply the average 40 year old Maningrida woman with enough wine so she can have one glass per night but if I lived in Maningrida, in that heat, with the lack of jobs, crocodiles, roaming dogs, sandflies, snakes and mosquitoes, I'd bloody well feel like I DESERVED to drink to excess at least once a week. I feel like that now and my life is cushy by comparison. How do women there cope? It's not like there's counselling or friends groups or ladies golf day or anything laid on for them in Meningrida, is there? It makes me glad that my aboriginal ancestors married into an evil Scottish family and left the country. At least my right to drink whenever I choose has been preserved.
That was a bit ranty and I suppose a lot of drunks do evil things but mostly those are men and younger. I think any 40+ woman has reached a time in her life when she deserves a drink or two without some government department counting like a possessive husband. You know, at this age, we don't stand for possessive husbands.
Anyway back to the Maningrida school. I donated to them a reading pack of 5 Beast of Moogills:
and a copy of each of my other Giggler books. Then I wondered how relevant aliens and science fiction are to kids up there.
I suppose it was relevant to me living on NZ sheep stations but then we had the cold war and mad sf on TV. SF was the bees knees back then. :)
Does anyone know? Unfortunately, I seem to know more about the Indonesian islands north of there than I do about the northern territories or far north Queensland. Which is a bit pathetic when I've just said I had an aborignal ancestor... but you have to remember, I don't have Australian citizenship either. I'm a Kiwi. If you ask me about far north NZ, or Maori traditions, I'll know.
Hotel MacDibble Inmates: 4
Projects of the Week: tree pruning, Rhonda Collin's website
Critiqued this week: 1 (new mentee)
Reading this week: Mortimer Gray's History of Death - Brian Stableford (very very awesome)
Writing this week: A Long Way from Home (YA space opera)
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