Desert Mandala: Life In Central Australia

Amanda May 30th, 2008

It’s me again with another trip report.

After a fascinating week spent doing an Introduction to Warlpiri course at IAD, and then an amazing trip across the northernmost part of the West MacDonnell Ranges from west to east, I had one outstanding job to do: a roadworks clearance between Papunya and Mt Liebig. I’d been to Papunya a few times in the past few months, and it was a bit messy. Imagine my surprise when I arrived and it was very clean. I think the reason isn’t the reinstatement of CDEP – rather it’s Papunya’s sports weekend on June 6-9, and sports weekends in Aboriginal communities are HUGE.

I worked with some wonderful people again, including three gorgeous ladies who live in a humpy made of curved corrugated iron. The humpy leans up against a Bloodwood tree and on the tree’s branches they hang their billy cans stuffed with their belongings to keep them away from their dogs. Older people tend to keep dogs (often ‘cheeky dogs’ – snappy or bitey dogs) as protection against other people and as warmth to cuddle up with in the winter time. Anyway, the ladies were absolutely wonderful to work with and liked it even better when they found out I had a skin name and could speak some Arrernte. I wish I could go up and sit down with them and just chat… When I arrived at their camp, they were making spears, coolamons (alkwerte) and digging sticks – all to sell at the art store.

That night, I drove back onto to pastoral land and camped with a view of Haast’s Bluff:

Note the condition of the country. Gary could tell without me telling him exactly what property I was on because the country is so cattle flogged. Here’s a picture of my camp that night:

It breaks my heart to see people abusing the country like this. Surely, it hurts them economically in the long term when their top soil blows away and they have to destock altogether. Far better to stock sensibly and look after the land – like many caring pastoralists do.

I spent the following night out at Mt Liebig. Mt Liebig is a tiny little community, about 150 km from the NT’s border with WA. Mt Liebig is so healthy and clean to visit. People there had a real sense of purpose and welcomed me. I truly enjoyed the work and hope to go back out there sometime.

Here’s my campsite the night I was at Mt Liebig. This is lightly stocked Aboriginal Land Trust. Look at how healthy the country is:

 Finally, here is a stunning picture of Mt Liebig as the sun sets. Again, note the diversity of shrubs and the presence of soft and hard native grasses. And note that the top soil isn’t likely to blow away in the next solid wind:

• Central Australia
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Amanda May 9th, 2008

It must be time for a book review again on the blog, so I thought I’d discuss one that I’ve just finished reading: Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. I’d been vaguely aware of this book for several years, but didn’t decide to read it until I was in Bali in April. What I didn’t realise was that in the United States, there’d been some kind of mass hysteria about this book amongst women of my age (perhaps the book was featured on Oprah), and that it had been an enormous best seller. Why? I have no idea, but I’ll save my reasons for being critical of the book until later. 

The book tells the story of 33 year old Elizabeth Gilbert, an established writer, her marriage break up, descent into depression and recovery through a year’s travel in Italy, India and Indonesia (Bali). It is an exploration of her feelings, her spirituality, along with her guilt and inaction to deal with both her property settlement and end an affair that is clearly co-dependent.  

Reaching for the Paxtine already? In need of counselling? Then don’t read this book. 

Having been to India and Bali (and being aware that the book had been a huge bestseller), I had the expectation that I would enjoy Gilbert’s tale … That in it, I would find something that I could relate to because I’d travelled to both places. Indeed, I was –wrongly- expecting quality travel literature mixed with personal insight, a la The Snow Leopard.  

Be warned. Gilbert is no Matthiessen. Not even close. 

Instead, what I found was Gilbert’s descent into self indulgent, self-obsessed navel gazing. And eating.  The book starts well enough, with Gilbert at her lowest ebb, sobbing to her conscience on the bathroom floor. However, when I began reading the Italy section, I almost put the book down. The first part of the book largely comprises the tale of Gilbert stuffing her face in Italy and endless procrastination about her property settlement and ending her affair with David.  

Ok, I’m a fitness freak. To me, food is fuel not something you use for comfort (apart from the occasional piece of chocolate). I could cope well enough with her need to travel for a year in order to get over her personal issues- which many other readers have a problem with, viewing it as self-indulgent and shamelessly vaunting her privileged position as an American writer with an advance on a book contract. But the stuff-your-face eating festival made me want to vomit … all over the book.  

And then to India. Gilbert was going to spend some time in her Guru’s Ashram, meditating, serving, and praying. She was also going to tour around India a little (I wish she had). What she does instead is whinge about how hard it is to meditate and how hard it is to memorize a chant – this, incidentally, after four months learning how to conjugate Italian verbs! Apparently, she was meditating before she went to India. If so, why is it so surprising to her that mediation is hard work? One suspects that Gilbert was like a lot of Western yoga/meditation/Buddhist practitioners – they like the baubles and beads, but don’t want to sit, get out the mat, spend time doing the work. It’s confronting and confusing. She should have gone travelling in India and spared us all. Travelling in India forces you to confront yourself very quickly. 

In Bali, we finally get a glimpse of something less than superficial, but it’s again hijacked by Gilbert’s obsession with a medicine man and helping a Balinese healer get a home. There is a small section of the book where Gilbert starts to give some insight into her understanding of how Balinese people understand the metaphysics of the world, but it’s over quickly and the reader is swept back to the sweet, sugar-coated New-Age pap that’s come to symbolise our time poor, image-driven culture. 

Aside from the over-eating and self-obsession, the One BIG Thing that annoyed me the about this book from the start is its contrived division into 108 chapters. Yes, that’s right. One hundred and eight chapters: the same number of beads possessed by a mala (prayer) string. This device was unnecessary and superficial. Like the rest of the book. 

My recommendation: clear out your email inbox rather than waste your time reading this book. The only other book I have been this disappointed with recently was The Da Vinci Code (oh, and Richard Flanagan’s The Sound of One Hand Clapping, but that was because the characters drove me nuts – not because it was superficial, contrived or poorly written). 

But then, perhaps if you’re a Desperate Housewives-Reality TV junkie with a superficial life, Eat, Live, Pray might do it for you…

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Amanda May 2nd, 2008

In the course of my work, I go to some very remote places. Like Nyirripi, a tiny community about 160km from the West Australian border.  The community itself was a little … umm…. messy. I suspect this is the result of the Howard government’s axing of CDEP and thus the municipal services (such as garbage collection) provided by this program. Otherwise, the people in the community were very nice to work with (they were Warlpiri people) and the landscape around the area absolutely spectacular.

On the way to Nyirripi, I drove through Papunya and then north past Central Mount Wedge:

In fact, Central Mount Wedge was so impressive, I took a whole series of photos of it (inspired by Monet’s 100 Views of Eido… not). Gary is still ribbing me about my Mount Wedge obsession.

The other thing that was really interesting along the way was the number of old cars. Not just the usual burnt out late model Fords and Commodores you see around so many Aboriginal communities, but really old, classic Australian cars like this EK Holden:

I also took photos of Valiants and this amazing old ambulance:

I stopped overnight at Newhaven Station, a private conservation area jointly run by Birds Australia and the Australian Nature Conservancy. Newhaven has an incredible bird list and very good camping facilities. Prior to becoming a conservation area, it was run by the Coppick family and very lightly stocked. Thus, the land is not cattle flogged and is in almost pristine condition. I had been so looking forward to going up here to look around, and I wasn’t disappointed.  Gary and I will have to come back and explore some more.

 Here is a view of the landscape on Newhaven going towards Nyirripi:

After leaving Newhaven, I drove west through grasslands thick with natives grass (in contrast to Buffel!) and dotted with Bloodwoods, Corkwoods and Ghost Gums. Nyirripi itself sits near some flat topped-mesas:

And finally, on the way out of the community once my consultations were finished, an old holden turned into a work of art:

• Central Australia , Newhaven Station
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