Why the great silence?

Humble apologies for the long silence on the blog. It's hard to believe it's been six months since I last wrote something down.

I've been carrying out regularly updated pieces of paper, entitled 'Warburton Blog Entries - To Add' for all that time. Now that the list of blog titles is heading onto page 2 and I have a quiet afternoon, I felt the time had come to bite the bullet again. At last.

Reasons for delay (in order, from May 07):

1. Thought about resigning.


2. Decided against it.


3. Ethical dilemma at work, flurries of activity, misinformation and difficult judgment calls. (Note to self: Next time, call on Ethi-call 1800 672 303)


4. Vincent Fairfax Fellowship (VFF) reading (one packed, double-sided A4 folder)


5. VFF homework, being 'notes to self' and 'various chats with friends' (right up my alley).


6. Went to Sydney for VFF recall


7. Went to Bali for quick holiday


8. Travelled many thousands of kilometres for work, no settled home


9. Organised a week long language course on the Lands (just recently held)


10. Weeks 1-2 Being courted by and courting new 'lub'


11. Week 3 Made successful move on new lub


12. Week 4 Moved office into new lub's house


13. Week 5 Moved house from Kanpa to Wanarn


14. Week 6-12 Got to know new lub


15. Applied for remote Central Australia public service jobs for next year


16. Dad visits Wanarn


17. Panicked about lack of preparation for VFF overseas trip next year


18. Learnt how to use and buy things from eBay


19. Went east for Carrie Balneave's wedding and meet family (mine and Fred's)


20. Attended language course

I thought I was very remiss, but it does rather make sense when you look at it like that!

Here's a picture from Dad's visit:

Four times a year

Yes, to the carefully observant and regular visitor to my long suffering, much neglected blog, you will notice that the title has changed. I am no longer resident in Warburton (as the blog title suggested, correct as at Feb 07 this year) nor in Kanpa (as blog readers would know was really the case). I am now in Wanarn.

Wanarn is about 150k east of Warburton, so now I'm much more centrally located. If you can call 'central' a location that is 1000k from a Coles or Woolworths supermarket. Wanarn is home to Fred, my new 'lub'. He'll absolutely love to have his photo up here on the web, so here it is:

And here is my new address. I plan to keep this address for the foreseeable future, so feel free to update your address books with pen not pencil this time:

PMB 117, Wanarn Community

via Alice Springs NT 0872

08 8955 8000

The curious amongst you, here are a few pictures of Wanarn, taken from the top of the water tank.

Turtle Touring

One of the great frustrations with my job is the lack of housing. I've made comments before on the blog, but it's worth another indulgence if you'll please.

Theoretically, my job is to work up agreements between community members and government, and to help them advocate for and present those agreements at government meetings. That's the theory anyhow.

In order to do that job, you need to actually meet and get to know community members. Without this, you have no job.

If you tried to do that task from Alice Springs, you'd never get back to your computer. It takes nearly a day to reach the first community, let alone talk to anyone.

When you try to do it from the Lands, you still find that some weeks clock up to 3000k on your odometer! The region is, after all, the size of Victoria.

So, after deciding to up stakes and just take a risk, I moved out and trusted to fate.

The end result was living in 4 different houses in one year, with 3 different office spaces.

And, even then, I still felt like a turtle! By that, I mean, I would have to carry around my house on my back, wandering from place to place. My yurltu would be packed with sleeping bag, pillow, swag, food in the fridge, clothes for anything from 2 days to 2 weeks, and myriad safety gear.*

Plans are quick to change out here, and it's not always possible to make the 400k round trip home to pick up your sneakers.

* I use the past tense because the job has changed so markedly there is no longer much point in being on the road constantly, developing agreements with community members. When government can be responsive to the agreement-making process, perhaps the turtle will reappear!