It’s been a very long time since my last blog post. So much has happened that’s kept me away from my keyboard and blogging! Perhaps I’ll start with what is most distracting to me right now… a 9 week old kitten desperately trying to jump on the kitchen table as I type, excited at the thought that my fast typing fingers might be potential play things. She’s ready to pounce.

Rogue: the new little kitten in my partner’s and my life. She’s been a wondrous blessing and gain to our lives, even in her 5 short weeks since joining us. If you’re wondering, no, we did not plan on having a kitten. She was a baby stray found crossing a busy road, who’s mum was likely to have met an unpleasant end. She now has a lovely safe home with her two new mums.

Speaking of her two mums, we went to a political rally last Saturday to support marriage equality. It’s amazing that in this day and age we are still fighting for such basic civil rights as marriage equality (not to mention true recognition of Australia’s first peoples in our Constitution!) At least the result has been that Labor changed it’s platform at the recent party conference – though unfortunately including a “conscience vote” that is usually only implemented when politics decides on life and death issues. Hmmm, funny that conscience votes aren’t allowed when we consider whether we’ll go to war. Pretty sure that’s about life and death. Some chicks marry chicks, some dudes marry dudes. Get over it!

Now, back to other change, with my political rant over.

I’ve had the amazing experience of attending the Garma Festival in Gulkula (East Arnhem Land). I had the privilege of attending with Reconciliation Australia’s women’s group, and met a fantastic group of ladies. It was a truly special experience, both professionally and personally, and I highly recommend anyone who has the change head out!

I’ve also enjoyed two more amazing “ARMtour” trips with NASCA. ARMtour stands for Athletes as Role Models tour, and NASCA is the National Aboriginal Sporting Chance Academy (where I work). Both trips have been fantastic, with this latest trip to Papunya being a beautiful emotional journey of family connection. My uncle worked out there 30 years ago and played an instrumental role is setting up the medical service for the Pintabi people. It was beautiful to meet people who he had worked with in the past, and feel what high regard they still held him in. It was also fantastic and amazing to spend the week working with the kids in school, helping them with literacy and numeracy, and overall excitement to attend class. I highly recommend you check out the website (www.nasca.com.au). And if you’re in the Christmas giving spirit, share a few dollars to a fantastic cause.

On the whole it’s been a massive year of change, an exciting year of opportunity, and a beautiful year for love and family. I can’t say I’ll be sad to see the end of 2011, as it’s also been fairly exhausting, but I can safely say I’m a far better person for having lived fully this year.

Happy Christmas, happy New Year, and best wishes for a happy, successful and loving 2012.

I spent this past week out as an athlete role model on the ARMTours trip to the Northern Territory. It’s a programme run by NASCA (National Aboriginal Sporting Chance Academy) and it involves sending athletes out into Aboriginal communities to serve as role models for the students.

Our job was to support the students in their education during school hours, and engage actively with them through sport afterschool. It was fabulous! I visited Ntaria and was lucky enough to go on a school excursion with a group of students on the first day. We had the opportunity to learn about bush medicine and bush tucker.  Lilly, our teacher for the day, brewed us up some drinking medicine, and it certainly was potent! It was specifically for combating flu, and I reckon I’ll give it a go next time I feel the early signs of a flu (and maybe even a cold?).

I spent a lot of the next few days with the littlies – the pre-school and transition kids. What a great way to spend the day! Play-doh, colouring, singing songs and piecing puzzles together. I simply fell in love with every student in the class, especially when they shared their big smiles whilst playing in the sand pit and kicking a soccer ball around during recess!

The evening of the second night in community the Ntaria ARMTours team headed out to Palm Valley for a gorgeous camp out in the national park. The NT is super green right now after all the rain, with an interesting consequence of a mouse plague! Needless to say I was far happier sleeping in a swag with a mossy net built in. Kept those little critters out of my bedding!

The next day was spent with some of the older students in a cooking class, and then doing a big of design with students during their computers class. That afternoon the Ntaria Roos (as we – the ARMTours team in Ntaria – decided to name ourselves) cooked up a storm and helped the school provide an all community BBQ (interesting job cooking meat for a vego!).  We later gave out awards for the students who had been outstanding in their attention in class, teamwork, attendance, or leadership.

The Ntaria trip was wrapped up with a fantastic session swimming with about 60-70 of the students at the Alice Springs swimming pool, and having an all round brilliant time.

The Ntaria team then met up with the other ARMTours team members who had gone to different communities for a group camp out and BBQ. It was a fabulous opportunity to share stories, learn from the other community experiences, and sleep out under the beautiful NT stars.

I can’t wait for the next opportunity to head out with the ARMTours team!

If you’re curious about the programme, or about NASCA, check out www.nasca.com.au.

There is something truly magical about Aurukun, Qld. The dusty red earth, the magical and ancient bush, the wild river, and the kind hearted people: it certainly holds a special place in my heart.

Aurukun has also had a profound affect on me. The two occasions that I’ve had the opportunity to visit and spend time in community I’ve felt myself connect with my soul’s energy, shake off the noise and distraction of day-to-day life, and feel a beautiful stillness and clarity within myself. It’s a gift I am grateful to receive from Aurukun, and I’m very thankful to have the opportunity to offer gifts in return – inspiring local kids about the Olympics, playing in a swimming hole with them (equally a gift for me – if not more so!), and just being friendly and chatting with people while walking through town.

That’s not to say that Aurukun doesn’t have its issues. There is significant domestic violence, nowhere near enough housing, a severe lack of employment opportunities and self-empowerment, drugs and alcohol are highly problematic even though it’s a “dry community”, and most nights packs of camp dogs can be heard fighting or howling. It’s a strange and saddening dichotomy, which never fails to truly inspire me to the kindness and strength of the human spirit given that genuine acts of kindness occur under such challenging and often desperate circumstances.

It’s this beauty of the human spirit faced with such unnecessarydisempowerment and challenge that has made me passionately want to work within the field of Indigenous rights in Australia, and to use my skills and experience to help to provide opportunities that may otherwise be unavailable.

Next week I’m off to Ntaria in the Northern Territory with the ARMTours programme (Athletes as Role Models). It’s a programme run by NASCA (the National Aboriginal Sporting Chance Academy). I’ll have the opportunity to spend about a week in community working within a team of role models, and engaging with young people in community through education, sport, and other activities. I’m really excited!

But for now, one thing I really want to say is thank you to my lovely friend Gen. It’s through her generosity and hospitality that I’ve had the opportunity to experience the beauty and challenge of Aurukun, and connect with this deep passion within myself. It’s through her strength of character, integrity, and genuine kindness that ensured she was deeply respected in Aurukun, and that as an extension of her I was welcomed kindly by many local members of community.

Thanks Gen xx

I recently had the good fortune of travelling to Sumatra, Indonesia. It’s taken me over a week to consider how I might put that experience into a blog, and more importantly how to actually process my experiences. I’m not quite there yet, and feel there is much I still need to feel out, but I’m beginning to get more comfortable in my intellectual processing.

Sumatra felt such a unique experience for me. I realised, when I awoke for the first time ever to the beautiful call to prayer echoing from several minarets around my hotel, that in all my travels I’ve never been to a predominately Muslim country. I find that realisation quite staggering! I look forward to my next opportunity, not least because I found the experience of praying with countless other souls very peaceful.

The experience gave me the opportunity to open my worldview further, but also made me more aware of my gender than I have ever felt before. I was somewhat of a novelty to the businessMEN (stress men, no women) we engaged with on the work trip, and felt eyes trailing me everywhere I went. True, that could be because I was a foot taller than most, a rather large build, and the only white woman around… It would be rather naïve of me to discount that reality!

However, feeling pressured by requirement to cover myself to enter a Mosque, when my father didn’t have to change out of a collard t-shirt, felt entirely foreign and unbalanced for me. It’s not for me to place judgement given discrimination against women unfortunately transcends nation, religion and culture. I raise this to express that it was intriguing to be accepted differently and to feel men interact with me differently when I was veiled, and to have to cover to show respect made me feel that in some way I, as myself, wasn’t enough.

Another part of my trip was equally powerful, and again is challenging and changing my worldview and processing. I witnessed first hand the logging and destruction of the Sumatran forests. My heart literally hurt when flying over the hectares of newly logged forest, irrigated peat swamps, and burning dried peat. The plantations extend for as far as the eye can see. It was depressing.

And although it hasn’t diminished my commitment to ideals, to positive change, to the cessation of destruction, I feel within me a brewing awareness of realism. Not of embracement of that realism, per se, but of recognition that to reach the goal, steps have to be taken in today’s reality. Those steps may not always feel enough, but they can be important and purposeful victories on the journey towards the ideal. What the ideal is depends on the issue, but the need for a positive and proactive journey is a constant.

Not the “privileged whites”, but the “chinks”, “wogs” and “abos”,
Did they bathe in the diamond sun’s light?
Did they feel the freedom bell of life?

Scalpings, slave labour, death in prisons…
Our past a past of bravery yet sadism.
A past where moral decency was usurped
By fear of other.

Have we learnt yet?

Reclaim, Australia, the golden sun.
But not at the expense of history.

Remember, apologise, make recompense, and forgive.

For until we are one, of equal status,
No true freedom bell can ring for any.

As I wandered the streets I kept remembering Jeanette Winterson’s The Passion. Of course there are many other fabulous books written about Venice, but none fire my imagination quite like this one. I loved having the opportunity to experience Venice in both sunshine and flooding rain, and to imagine the exciting life of Villanelle.

Listening to Vivaldi’s Four Seasons in an old church turned concert hall was a definite highlight of the trip; however, the best few minutes of thewhole evening where when a truly inspired cellist played a Paganini solo and wowed the audience with his wit, humour, gestures and tremendous skills.

The food, cathedrals, Guggenheim museum,alleys, canals, music, Palace, and my morning trips to buy breakfast donuts and croissants at the local bakery have created beautiful memories I will carry with me into the future. It was a wonderful experience

shared with family, and I thoroughly look forward to another opportunity to wander the meandering streets of Venice. Though that

next visit had better come fairly soon as rising tides threaten to submerge the truly unique and magical city of Venice.

We then headed off on a drive to Weipa, which meant 2 hours of 4-wheel driving on a red dirt road each way. It was awesome! We saw a brumby on the way back, and had wonderful chats. We were dropping off Scott the beekeeper so he could get back to NSW, and were picking up Aurukunian George’s grandson from the airport. While waiting at the airport Gen and I asked George about totems, as we were both very interested to learn more. We discovered that totems (this is specific to Aurukun, I don’t know if it applies elsewhere also) are passed down through the father, unless paternity is in question. George said one of his totems is fire, and he has two, but his young grandson has only one: the rainbow. He personally didn’t know how totems initially came about, so I’m still on the hunt for more information.

Sunday meant a wonderful day out fishing in the most pristine and picturesque environment possible: white sandy beaches,amazing aqua water, deep blue sky, lush green foliage, and bright red rock cliffs. It was magical! There was SO much sea life present in the Cape of Carpentaria also. We saw dolphins, turtles, sharks, loads of fish, and some giant blue fish that half jumped out of the water in the distance. We only kept what we could eat, and feasted that night on a gift of fresh fish from the days catch.

Monday meant I was leaving Aurukun, and my trip back to Cairns was slightly, ummm, interesting? Ok, maybe that’s an understatement. For starters, check-in went something like this…

Steve the check in man, who I’ve never met or seen before: “Michelle is it?”

Michelle: “Yes”, while thinking “How the hell did you know that?!”

Steve: “Weigh the bag. 12kg. Ok, here’s your ticket.”

Michelle – starting gobsmacked at the handwritten ticket: “Thanks”.

I later found out that Steve also doubles as a councillor, and hence knew who I was because I was the only person he didn’t know! There is no security in Aurukun airport, understandably given the airport is really only a little room and a covered concrete space. Baggage claim is a trolley where everyone just claims their own bag, hopefully. I liked it, back to basics.

However… just as our little plane got to the back of the runway ready to take off things got really interesting. One of the ladies down the back of the plane shouted out that the wing was leaking. And it was! It was leaking hydraulic fluid from a busted tube, which could have meant the landing gear wouldn’t have engaged when we went to land in Cairns. Not good! We were all told to head home and wait, and Steve the check in man would drive around to let up know as things developed. What service! As it turned out we spent the next three hours waiting for a new plane to arrive, which finally got off just in time to fly through lightening and bounce all over the place. Needless to say all aboard were very pleased to land safely in Cairns. Over a hundred locals came to wave us off, giving us the famous Aurukun farewell.

I can’t wait for my next opportunity to go to Aurukun. I’ve told everyone that I’ll be back once they get the pool sorted and filled, and will happily teach the kids swimming lessons. Gen asked one of the boys if he thought he could beat me in a race. Fairly he said no, but he was keen for a race if he got a head start! Bring it! I can’t wait J

My experience in Aurukun has been completely different. I’ve been welcomed by such lovely people from the local community. Everyone has been so incredibly warm and open, and I’ve felt really – well, welcome. I had the opportunity to chat with Beady, Dorothy, Carmen and Jessie, all of whom were so kind and treated me as a friend. My friend Genevieve is based out here, and that’s how this opportunity for me to spend time here has come to be. She’s working with the government in sport and recreation, and has introduced me to her workmates, all of whom are absolutely lovely. Aurukun is meant to be one of the most dangerous places in Australia, and I’ve been told that within community there are a lot of issues, but I haven’t felt anything but warmth and kindness.

The other night Gen and I went to a practice house-warming event.

House warmings happen after a member of community passes and everyone moves out of the house. Once enough time has passed there is a house warming, where (I haven’t had it fully explained as yet) but I believe the spirits are engaged, and the house becomes a home again. I felt so privileged to be invited, even if it was just the practice session before the real event (which didn’t end up happening but I still had fun playing with the kids, and experiencing some traditional song and dance)!

Today was quite relaxed, but I got out on the mountain bike and cycled around town a bit. It was awesome to cycle down to the landing, and through the bush. The bush here has such a strong presence, it’s tangible. It’s amazing. Tonight we’re heading snake and croc spotting… how cool! The lovely guy who’s taking Gen and me out used to work with Steve Irwin. Exciting stuff!

Although eBay charges a fair whack through final purchase fees, it offers an opportunity to selle the slightly more expensive items safely and confidently. Since I’m in the middle of moving from Cambridge to London, my partner and I have been doing a clear out of all the things we like but can’t or shouldn’t keep because we’re having to downsize in accommodation (way less space for our ££ in London!!).

So far we’ve sold a mini-fridge, shoes, clothes, and exercise equipment. It’s been a mostly fabulous experience (aside from two suspicious bidder alerts and cancelled transactions by eBay – but I’m happy they were there as a watch dog!) and has certainly helped provide a small cushion for the moving costs.

eBay works great for those slightly more expensive items, but what about the knick-knacks that have a minimal cost attached to them, if any cost at all? Car boot sales all the way. I went to my first ever car boot sale this past Sunday outside of Cambridge. For a small fee of £7 we were able to set up a 4m stall with two small tables and rugs laid out with items on top. It was an early start, but over the course of the morning we made over £140. Again, a lovely cushion to assist with the move.

It was an all round fun and pleasant experience. There were all sorts of buyers ranging from the serious car booters who recycle quality goods at their stalls, to those out looking for items to use in a raffle. It was great fun! Average item cost? Maybe £1. We had a couple ‘big’ sellers costing over £10, but the majority were around the 50p mark.

Although I will happily continue to donate lots of loved items to charity shops to assist in their fundraising programmes, I will also now mentally mark items that are no longer needed as car boot or eBay friendly. It takes a bit more effort, but reaps the sometimes necessary financial reward, and re-homes a much loved item.

In a report written by the Australian Environmental Grantmakers Network (AEGN) two quotes jumped off the page at me. The first was regarding an unprecedented investigation into collapsing bird life in Victoria, Australia. Deakin University ecologist Andrew Bennett said “In this case it’s birds. What is concerning is that we don’t know what’s happening to other groups – to reptiles, to mammals, to invertebrates.” Even though we have developed rather amazing industries and tremendous ways to manipulate genes and grow life in petri dishes, the fact remains that we depend on ecosystems and the environment. If we think about the fauna and flora surrounding us as the canary in the coal mine, well…. it’s not looking quite so healthy anymore and we are at risk of snuffing it out completely.

The other quote that jumped out at me was also by Bennett. He quite aptly states “when we have a financial crisis we put vast resources into it. But we have a biodiversity crisis, and nothing is happening”. This crisis Bennett is referring to is not isolated to Australia. We are presently facing history’s 6^th great species extinction; only this one is man made and to a large extent still preventable.

To help those more vulnerable, and to save species from a great extinction, it’s us who have to change. We need to pressure our governments to invest in sustainable energy, and we need to reduce, reuse and recycle on a grand scale. We desperately need to stop logging our precious old growth forests, as continues to happen around the world, and insist that our friends, families, offices and governments buy 100% recycled paper and use FSC wood.

Civil society is certainly getting stronger and louder about these issues, and that supports the notion that we will eventually see positive change – but will that change come too late?