Dated Diary: Separation Trauma

Back into the diary. We arrive at the bombastic ending to my life in the desert.

I suppose I should set the scene a little more clearly for those of you who haven't been following along. This was my fourth and final year in Jigalong, a small Aboriginal community in remote Western Australia. I was the longest serving teacher there and by that fact alone was afforded a reasonable amount of respect by the local community, to the extent that they would often refer issues to me (through Larry, the school chairman) rather than the school principal. It was just the community way.

Well, a few months before my contract was up, there was one hell of an issue...



8 September
Shit, shit, shit... Just when I thought I may get a nice smooth end of to the year this kind of shit happens. Where can I start? We had a carnival in Marble Bar (yes again) and it was fantastic. The kids had a ball, the whole thing went off without a hitch, Brianol even won the runner up to champion senior boy. Then on the way back Ainsley lost control of the car and rolled it onto its roof. Unfortunately there were five kids in the car with her, fortunately nobody was injured. The community were, rightly, upset with the situation but were pretty much of the opinion that the teachers were not at fault and they were all cool with the teachers, excepting of course a talk with the Martu workers.

Anyway, life is going on as per usual when we get a message from the co ordinator that some of the teachers have been threatened with spearings and the like...

10 September
Sorry, I fell asleep (not for two days mind you).

...all of the teachers end up in Kevin’s house talking through the situation. This information all, apparently, came from Larry and in consultation with Jo was checked out with Lizzy and Katigan (the first signs that all was not well in the Larry relations camp). So it fell to us to pack up and lock up our houses within twenty minutes to effect an miniture exodus to the promised land, Newman.

Throughout this little episode I had been none too happy and had even been thinking of staying in Jigalong but I end up going along for the ride and getting really morbid on the drive in, thinking about the whole situation that had been thrown up right at the end of my time here. Newman was cool in a way, I didn’t have to work, or when I did work it was pretty cruisy, just hanging out with Kane and Kim and their kids from Kalannie who were up in Newman on school camp, the food was delicious and the weather was great. On the down side I had to listen to all of the other teachers from Jigalong falling apart around me, realising hour by hour, or rather dinner by dinner, that they were all far too caught up in their “white” lives to feel anything but affronted by the unwaranted barbarism of the reaction of the Martu. So my reaction was to call things as I thought they stood, you can imagine how well that went down. Needless to say I was chastised by Jo after my comments had left Marita in tears.

So we wait, and on Monday the cavalry arrives from Karratha in the form of Bernie Rider, Albert Pianta and an Elder from Roeburn who grew up with Larry who it now appeared was the main trouble maker in the whole situation, it was assumed that Larry had made the threats of punishment independent of the community feelings on the matter. So these guys were travelling out to Jigalong to assess the damage and whether it was safe for us to return home. Another day wandering around Newman doing fuck all but by this time Karen and Ainsley couldn’t even look at me and were hard pressed to answer a good morning, Jo was walking around with an expression which could not be described as anything but brick wallish, Marita was either avoiding me or being brusque, Reg was frequently breaking into outburst covering topics as diverse as how the teachers could never be expected to return to teach the Martu to how he would take a shotgun to anyone who tried to stick a spear in him and Tuesdee was pretty much furious for the same reasons that I was disallusioned.

And then the rescue team returned with a solution which they felt was incredibly satisfactory to all involved. Basically, after talking with a group of community members whose kids were involved in the accident and some of the elders, the guys found that the community was not upset, rather they were bewildered that the teachers had left and they assured them that there was no way that Martu law would ever be effected on a white person. On top of this the community made a point of saying they were going to hunt out who had made these accusations and deal with the problem themselves.

Keeping in mind that all of these guys were law men themselves and must deal with the Jigalong mob every year when law business is being carried out. They had to be extremely sensitive in how they dealt with the situation because if they overstepped the invisible boundries in representing the teachers and dealing with Larry they could be seriously threatened physically when they took up their law roles later this year. That said consider Karen’s reaction to their tidings...

Classic comments include (with added vehemence and liberal tears):

On initial reactions to the solution...
“How can we go back to the school and work with that bastard?”

On Larry in general...
“I don’t understand how one man can be such a bastard and cause us so
much pain and just get away with it”

On why the community doesn’t know who made the accusations...
“Do you mean to say that that prick is such a gutless wonder that he
wouldn’t even own up?”

Over reaction? I say so, but then I don’t really know the other shit that has gone on between the three of them (Karen, Jo and Larry). But I thought she really outdid herself when she asked what we could do to have him removed from the community so that she could feel safe. For fuck’s sake, removed from the community, it is his fucking country, his birthplace and she thinks that her feelings are more important than his, I mean really. That is like someone going down to Perth and asking her father to move to the Central Desert because they didn’t like the way he didn’t like working with them.

The guys from Karratha were a little bewildered to say the least, and then Reg started up again. I basically had a splitting headache and didn’t say anything because I was realising more than ever that I was almost totally alone in having a differing opinion (the only other teacher that shared my view was Tuesdee and she knows all of this because she has lived this life since she was born). Thank god I was able to speak to Bernie Rider after all of this shit went down. FUCK he gives the most amazing massages. I have never had one before, well not the shirt off lay down on the bed kind from someone who has studied the art, phwooor!!! He ended up cracking the stress our of my spine (wierd sensation) and letting me know that I have still got a long way to grow, physically in my upper body (thank god).

Anyway after the massage Tuesdee and myself had a chat to Bernie and he basically told me everything that I already knew. That most of the women were being childish and not caring about the community. That many of them were threatened by the fact that I have been around the community longer and that many of them were thinking of not returning. Of course it was a huge ego boost as well because he basically said that there are very few white people like myself, accepting and understanding enough to be an ally to the Aboriginal community (I really needed to hear that at the time when I was realising that many of the people I believed to be like me were far from it).

So Brian Samson comes out to Newman and invites us back to the community and all of the teachers sit and say, thankyou sir and everything is back to normal...NOT!!! (pardon the gross Americanism, it just slipped out). Remember that everyone is still pissed off (either with Larry or with Me or with everyone else) not least Ainsley and Karen who still cannot bear to look at me, and that pissed me off. I was ready to say something to them both, something petty and narky and sarcastic but I decided not to be my usual self and to try the kind caring thing instead. Actually I thought before I totally fuck up relations I should set Ainsley straight because I felt that she was pissed off with me for what she had heard me say through other since I hadn’t spoken to her at all, not a word apart from, “Are you alright?” when it first happened. Well just setting up the talk was a chore apparently, Beth went in on my behalf and let Ainsley know I wanted to talk to which Ainsley responded by putting her hands over her ears and made it clear she wanted nothing to do with me. But eventually she got over the shock and actually agreed, which I must admit was pretty brave.

So I walk in and she says, “I just can’t stand you at the moment!” and she totally meant it. It took about twenty minutes to break through that by explaining why I was upset that she was taking this attitude without having heard me herself. Her main upsets were that she didn’t understand how I could deliberately set out to hurt people with my words, that I use words as weapons to which others have no defence and that I thought that all of the teachers should have just shut up and taken the punishment. All I could say was that I never set out to deliberately hurt people though I did feel upset at their views and so what I said was mainly tumbled out of my mouth through utter amazement and shock not through malice, that I do use words as weapons but I wasn’t acting on that particular facility over those few days in town and I didn’t say that the teachers should have accepted the punishment but that they should accept the threat of punishment as a normal Martu reaction to the situation, a situation in which their children were nearly killed.

It was then that the unexpected happened... Ainsley asked if she could come and sit next to me (no this situation does NOT end with Ainsley asking if it is wrong for her to lust after my body, you can rest assured of that) and she put her head to my chest and said sorry and we talked about the accident and how she worried about me (I shall have to delve into that with her later), how she was shocked at how much she craved male comfort on the morning after we were evacuated (to which I replied that I did too!- Ziggy’s did not count). Then we went on to talk about past traumas and how we have been affected by them. At one stage she said to me of my relationship with my father, “God, it sounds like Cat On a Hot Tin Roof!” (I borrowed the movie from her) and I just said, “Yes very much like it”. I actually felt like telling her that I was gay, it was just that saying it so bluntly seemed to lack panache. It was a bizarre gambit of emotion in little over two hours.

So we are almost up to date, excepting of course mentioning that Jo and Karen have both fled the community on stress leave possibly never to return, both with the same VERY hostile attitude towards me. I would really love to talk about how my world has been shaken by all of this but after talking with Ainsley yesterday and talking to my mother just then I will have to leave it for a little while.

Previous diary entries:
I Wanna Play
Confessions of an Amateur Melodramatist
Before I Sleep a.k.a. Diary Drowsiness
Goodbye 1996!!!
Back To The Bush
How Time Flies
End Of An Era
Kissy Kissy
Diary Tonic
Diary: Losing My Religion Virginity
Diary: May Burst
Travel Fallout
Return Of The Killer Diary
Diary Musings From The Top End