A Day in the Life
Amanda November 13th, 2008
Applied anthropology is anthropology at the coal face, with all that’s good and bad. For those of you who might have no idea what a typical day in the field is like for an applied anthropologist, or who even might be considering a career in applied anthropology, the following post is a snapshot of life in a typical day’s fieldwork.
The Mission:
Ms Beach Party
gadget November 2nd, 2008
It’s been a while since we last updated the blog.
We’ve both been very busy at work. I was acting as Regional Manager for 3 weeks, and Gary’s been down at Watarrka a lot. My Yoga intensive is fast approaching, and another chapter of the thesis is out of the way, with another hot on its heels.
Gary also went in the Masters Games (basketball) and his team won a silver medal. Of course, there were only two teams in their age grade, so you can read between the lines there, if you like!
Yesterday, Rhiannon went in the Lassaster’s Casino ‘Best Beach Body’ competition. She did this partly as a bit of fun, but mostly because of the $500 prize money. She’s saving every penny at the moment, getting ready for her move to Perth and trip OS next month.
Well, she went in and… WON!!!
We took these photos of her getting ready for the beach party.
So glamourous!
Alice Springs Storm
Amanda September 24th, 2008
You might have heard – Alice Springs had a category 2 storm on Monday, 24 September. This occurred at about 1.15pm, and in 20 minutes the town was thrashed, lashed and smashed. The winds reached speeds of 120km/h, and were accompanied by horizontal (!) rain.
We’ve had two very dry years, so as soon as the storm hit, many trees which were brittle and stressed after such a long, dry spell lost limbs or were uprooted completely.
This is the corner of Woods Tce & Priest Street.
Driving down Woods Terrace as the storm subsided was like encountering the after-effects of a cyclone. I was getting my car registered at the time, and I had to sit in the car in the middle of a carpark -well away from any flying tree branches, watching the horizontal rain. As i drove back along the North Stuart Highway, I saw the damage to Northside Shops – a massive River Red Gum had come down and taken out all the powerlines and two poles – and I decided to head straight home.
Twenty minutes later, two-thirds of the town were without power, many houses had lost roofs, powerlines were down everywhere and a few cars were crushed by falling trees. KMart lost most of their shade shelters, and one of the huge metal shades in Coles was completely torn off.
This is the huge metal shade that was torn off in Coles carpark. It squashed two cars (this is unconfirmed).
A number of significant buildings and old sacred trees were damaged:
This is the Old Gaol in Parsons Street. Remarkably, the roof only had a very small hole in it when the tree was removed.
Here is what was left of my back fence:
We were lucky. Our neighbours had a tree come through their front verandah and destroy it. Another neighbour lost their roof – they have a three month old baby.
We had a short respite from the weather, and then by 3.15pm, another storm was brewing – preceded by a dust storm:
Thankfully, this wasn’t as bad as we thought it might have been.
Two days later, we are still cleaning up and will be for quite some time. There are places that still don’t have the power back on (ours came back on early Tuesday morning); one of my workmates is still without it.
Here is a the scene in Todd Mall about 8pm on Monday night:
Well. We needed rain…
…But maybe not like that!
King of the Mountain 2008, Alice Springs
gadget September 14th, 2008
Each year in Alice Springs the YMCA (the Y) organises an eight kilometre walking and running race from the Y to the top of West Gap, on the west side of Heavitree Gap. For all those of you that are locals then you’ll know it as the place where the three towers that provide telecommunications to Alice Springs can be seen wide and far.
This year Amanda, myself and Ben volunteered to assist in setting up the finish point high above Alice. After a fitful sleep due to some noisy neighbours we arose at 5.40am to travel to the Y to get the gear that we needed to setup at the finish line. So loaded with a trestle table, food and eskies full of Gatorade and mineral water we set off for the top.
At the base of the hill is a locked gate that is always locked except for occasions like this or for maintenance on the towers high above. We engaged 4wd because it said to and started up the long single width bitumen road to the top. It is quite a steep incline, winding as you near the top and no doubt just a bit of a challenge to the walkers and runners that attempt it. After getting to the top and just enjoying the view for a moment, we began the task of setting up the table, the eskies and laying out the food to await the athletes upon their finish. 
The view over Alice Springs
The walkers start first some time ahead of the more serious runners and after a quite flat walk/run up to the base of the hill begin the arduous final stage of the King of the Mountain. While we were waiting we took a few more photos and even had a black-footed rock wallaby keep us company for awhile.
Black-footed Rock Wallaby
In well under an hour the first walkers and very close behind them, the runners came into view making their way to the line. Before long a flood of people came across the line, some absolutely buggered and some seemingly ready for more. People talked, trophies were handed out and people made their way back to their Sunday off. And then there was those who were only just warmed up and what did they do? Well, of course they ran back to the Y to get their cars so they could drive home, didn’t they?
- Central Australia , small furry animals
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Cold
Amanda August 24th, 2008
It’s been extremely cold here in Alice Springs for the past two weeks. When I say cold, I mean we’ve had days where the maximum temperature has been 14 degrees celsius. This is cold. (Alright. If you’re reading this and you live in Iceland, Halifax or even Chicago, I take your point. 14 C (57F) isn’t cold for you … but it is for us!).
So we haven’t done much except watch the Olympics. And we’re not going to talk about the Olympics here, are we? We’re not going to mention that we are a tad annoyed that the Pommies (the English) have more gold medals than we do (until the Commonwealth Games in India in 2010, that is, when we’ll woop their lily-white backsides), nor that we really sucked at cycling and rowing this time, when usually we’re really good. Let’s face it …
- coffee & raisin toast , domesticity
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Things That Vanish
Amanda August 16th, 2008
Do you have items in your house that simply vanish? You know, things that seem to mysteriously disappear from one day to the next, or alternatively, items so rarely encountered in your house, that they probably should be classified as critically endangered species or even as extinct?
Walking in the Waterhouse Ranges
Amanda August 4th, 2008
This weekend (the last NT long weekend until Christmas) we did some off-track walking in the south-east Waterhouse Ranges. The Waterhouse Ranges are only 50km from Alice Springs, located on Owen Springs Reserve. We climbed a pinnacle and ate camel stew made from one of Watarrka’s former feral residents.
Owen Springs holds a special place in our hearts. It was Gadget’s first official posting as a Senior Park Ranger and is also the place where our relationship began. If you’re a regular reader, you’ll know we camp and bushwalk on Owen Springs fairly regularly. It’s a large Reserve (158,000ha), so there’s lots of it to explore.
Book Review: Under the Banner of Heaven
gadget July 31st, 2008
What if God told you to kill someone? And your whole world, your epistemology, was founded on revelations from God, speaking softly in your head…
For the Morman Church, this is reality. It is part of their history, whether they like it or not.
Explaining -or more rightly- unravelling how this came to be is the task that Jon Krakauer sets himself in Under the Banner of Heaven.
Suplejack Sojourn
Amanda July 30th, 2008
Suplejack Station: a large pastoral property surrounded by Aboriginal Land Trusts on the north western extreme of the Tanami Desert. Last week, I was there. What was I doing there? Uranium. To be exact, uranium exploration. Which of course, requires sacred site clearances. And, since it’s Warlpiri country, this means that you need a male and a female anthropologist. So I went up with a male colleague and a second troop carrier.
We were out bush for a week. What follows is a snapshot of fieldwork in the world of applied anthropology.
