Desert Mandala: Life In Central Australia

Amanda October 25th, 2007

Hey there. It’s us. Writing from the world of chaos and madness.

Yes, we’re about one-third of the way through our house-moving. For those interstate and elsewhere, we’re moving from Madigan St to Priest St, Alice Springs – about 500m (or two streets) away. It’s not far, so we’re doing it ourselves.

That’s right: no removalists.

At this point in time, we’re both exhausted and wondering if we’re entirely sane for not having removalists do it for us. After a whole day, we’ve only moved one and a bit bedrooms, the laundry, part of the lounge room and half of the storeroom. We also had to do a fair bit of cleaning at the new house as Alaskaman hasn’t lived in it for a while and empty houses tend to get a little dusty and full of Daddy Longlegs (and one Redback, living behind the front door, which is now a Deadback). Also, there were a few areas that Alaskaman left in a mess: a couple of kitchen cupboards, the laundry … thus, Gadget & I spent this morning cleaning.

So yes, we’re stuffed and we’ve probably got another day and a half of this … and then there’s the cleaning at Madigan St to do.

ARRGHHH!!! Moving is so stressful!!

Tonight we did have a small repreive, as Kasia came to visit us and made us laugh and we had delicious Indian food. And choccies and vino!

I should also add that I’m writing this now (Thursday night) as the phones are getting changed over tomorrow morning, and I’m not expecting the broadband connection to be up and running until Monday at the very earliest. Yes, even though I’ve booked it in several days early, it is Telstra and I do live in the NT (NT actually stands for ‘next Tuesday’) and that guarantees that nothing ever happens in a hurry.  But at least we will have some photos of the chaos and its aftermath to post when the broadband comes on.

So namaste, and we will be back online next week with photos that prove from chaos, order arises (yay! complexity theory!!), and probably something from quantum physics … like two random molecules acting in the same way although separated in time and space…

zzzz!!!

• Central Australia , domesticity
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Amanda October 23rd, 2007

* CUBE FARM.
An office filled with cubicles.

(piccie from http://www.geardiary.com/ )

I’m trying to stay upbeat about work … but it’s so hard when you’re moving house and feeling like you’re over your job about 12 months ago. So to amuse myself (and anyone else out there who actually reads our blog) here are some new buzzwords for the corporate (or public sector) world of work:

BLAMESTORMING: Sitting round in a group, discussing why a deadline was missed or a project failed and who was responsible.

TESTICULATING: Waving your arms around and talking bollocks.

PRAIRIE DOGGING: When someone yells or drops something loudly in a cube farm, and people’s heads pop up over the walls to see what’s going on. (This also applies to applause for a promotion because there may be cake.)

SEAGULL MANAGER: A manager who flies in, makes a lot of noise, craps on everything and then leaves.

ASSMOSIS: The process by which people seem to absorb success and advancement by sucking up to the boss rather than working hard.

SALMON DAY: The experience of spending an entire day swimming upstream only to get screwed and die.

SITCOMs: Single Income, Two Children, Oppressive Mortgage. What yuppies turn into when they have children and one of them stops working to stay home with the kids or start a “home business”.

404: Someone who’s clueless. From the World Wide Web error message “404 Not Found” meaning that the requested document could not be located.

OH NO SECOND: That minuscule fraction of time in which you realize that you’ve just made a BIG mistake (e.g. you’ve hit ‘reply all’). And my personal favourites:

PERCUSSIVE MAINTENANCE:The fine art of whacking the crap out of an electronic device to get it to work again. ADMINISPHERE: The rarefied organisational layers beginning just above the rank and file. Decisions that fall from the “adminisphere” are often profoundly inappropriate or irrelevant to the problems they were designed to solve. This is often affiliated with the dreaded needless paperwork and processes.  Like other public sector agencies, it should come as no surprise that the Northern Territory Government has an entire department dedicated to this rarified layer of useless paper chases and processes concieved by people fully trained in the art of discussing Australian Idol and the cover of the latest New Weekly magazine (totally and utterly relevant to effective government administration … uhem … er … NOT!).

Well that amused me for about 47 seconds. I hope it amused you, too – perhaps for about 48 seconds.

More on the moving process later in the week…  

• corporate culture , fun
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gadget October 18th, 2007

Watarrka (Kings Canyon) ranger station is home to a large feral-cat-and-fox-proof paddock housing an endangered mammal called a mala. Mala are very small macropods (kangaroos) that are furry, extremely cute and rather docile. Like many other small Australian mammals, they are nocturnal and are endangered due to introduced cats and foxes. Mala is a Luritja (Pitjantjatjara) word for this animal; in Arrernte, mala are called aherre, which is said like you’re trying to clear your throat or you’re Scottish. Think of how Scottish people say ’loch’ and take the ‘ch’ sound and add -urra and that’s a bit like how Arrernte people say this word…

Ok. Maybe just say ‘mala’, which is why many English speakers find Pitjantjatjara much easier to learn than Arrernte.

Anyway, back to the mala. About ten years ago, the numbers of mala in Central Australia were at critical levels, so Parks and Wildlife began a breeding program. The program was really simple: build a feral-proof fence, get some mala and let nature take its course. So they brought some mala down from the Tanami Desert, put them in paddock and the little guys all got on really well. There were over a hundred in there. So many, that Uluru built a similar fence and took some mala to breed up as well.

As the mala have bred really well, Parks staff have to do a population census a couple of times each year. So last week, this is what Gary, some of the scientists and the other Watarrka rangers did: caught and counted mala.

Most of the time, the mala are easy to catch (in fact, some of them are very tame) , however you have to be very careful when handling females as they can expel their little tiny hairless babies out of sheer distress and shock.

Here are Chris (left) and Kim (right) weighing a mala.

Once the mala are caught, you weigh them, measure them and tag them so you know whether you’ve caught this particular little guy before, and so you can see how the little guys are doing:

Then, the mala is released back into the paddock to join his or her friends. The mala census usually takes about a week to finish, under the direction of the Park scientists. At Watarrka, the mala census is a bit of a community event, with many of the Traditional Owners from the communities on the park coming in to help with the census or bring along children to see the mala. And of course, there are the usual ranger BBQs and socialising. Gary did admit to getting bitten by one of them, but that’s another story…

• Central Australia , Kings Canyon , small furry animals
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Amanda October 17th, 2007

I’m back from Katherine. I spent a few days working up there with Traditional Owners (Jawoyn people) and rangers, talking about interpretations for the Jatbula Trail, a 66km long walking trail that goes from Nitmiluk carpark to Leilyn (Edith Falls), and also about the basics of recording rock art sites and how to collect cultural information for interpretive signage. Basically, helping rangers and Jawoyn mob to be their own anthropologists (which is good, cos there’s only one anthropologist in Parks & Wildlife and the NT is a big place).

Anyway, I had an awesome time. I was a bit anxious about working with Top End mob -I’ve worked mainly with Arrernte, Pertame, Luritja and Warumunga people, but the Jawoyn were so welcoming and made me feel right at home. Although I didn’t get to work with them as much as we’d first planned -there were several deaths in the community, so several funerals to attend- I’m looking forward to going back and doing some work next year.

I stayed with Andy and Sharon, and had lots of fun listening to their twin boys, Zac and Tyson, tell me all about Spiderman, Piston cups (it sounds like ‘pissed in cups’, but it’s from that animated movie, Cars) and all kinds of other amazing things that 5 year old boys like to tell you. Tyson came in and sat with me this morning when I was having breakfast and went through all his Spiderman DVDs and told me all about what happens on each of them. We also had to cound the DVDs inside the cases several times. Andy is a bit like Gary -not only is he a ranger, but he’s into gadgets and toys. He’s bought a huge plasma tv, has Skype, but my favourite toy was the spa with the light in it that changes colour. The light goes right through the colour spectrum – I love the flourescent green colour. It looks like X-Files type alien bubbling soup.  I also got to go for a spin up the first Gorge in the boat (and a swim – it’s so good to see a river with water in it!). But the highlights of the trip were visiting several incredible art sites (Nitmiluk National Park has about 3000 art sites) and playing with Dozer, Sharon and Andy’s gorgeous little Jack Russell, and having some really good girly chats with Sharon (no boys, you can’t ask – it’s Secret Women’s Business).

Back at home, things are starting to move along with the house. We settle on 23rd October and will start moving on the 25th. I’m a bit nervous about the whole thing. So next week will be full of packing and shifting and cleaning and all those not-so-wonderful things you do when you move house. Anyway, here are some more photos:

The world’s most boring facade….

But with a fab pool and entertaining area…

That’s right, BLACK granite benchtops and stainless steel appliances…

…And at last, we get an ensuite.

So, that’s all from me at the moment. It’s getting late and the internet is very slow tonight. I’ll post some more ravings tomorrow night.

Namaste

• Central Australia , domesticity
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Amanda October 11th, 2007

Hi there. We have been a bit slack with the blog for a couple of weeks. There are lots of things going on at the moment for us.  

We have bought another house…

Yes, that’s right. Gadget and I have bought a house.

Together.

It’s got 4 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms (yay!!) and a pool (the kids are saying yay!!).

From the outside, it is the world’s most boring house:

I have no idea what the previous owner was thinking when he put all those rocks in the front garden … but we have found a home for them (thanks, Sarah & Laurie). And the palm tree will have to go. If you know of anyone who wants it, get in touch. In fact, the whole front garden will be full of arid zone, water efficient plants (acacias, grevilleas, eremophilas etc).  We will have to grow these fast because there is a street light right across the road and all the bedrooms are on the front side of the house. Rhiannon and I hate the fact that every power pole in Alice Springs has to have a #$&#$& streetlight on it. We like darkness to sleep in. The kind of darkness you find out bush on a moonless night. In the meantime, we are going for 100% blockout curtains and blinds.

I will put some more photos up when Gadget down loads them from the camera.

Also, Gadget is down at Watarrka (Kings Canyon) for a month pretending to be Chief District Ranger and next week, I’m off to Katherine to do some real anthropology (for a change).

More to follow,

Namaste

• Central Australia , domesticity
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