Living and Working in the Kimberley Part 2

PART 2

LOOMA  ABORIGINAL COMMUNITY

 Looma is the Aboriginal Community in this area which was set up by Aboriginal elders and the government in the early 1970's. It was around this time that Aboriginal workers were leaving stations as a result of a requirement that pastoralists had to pay them equal wages and they weren't so they needed somewhere to go. Also due to tough times and take overs on Liveringa Station the Aborigines workers quarters were pulled down giving the government no choice but to find them land; 6,000 hectares of Liveringa land was made available for them and Looma was created. 

        Looma means Blue Tongue Lizard and where it says Home of  The Looma Eagles it is talking about the local football team who got beaten in the semi finals this year. Looma is actually broken into two housing areas which are off the same road just about 1km apart;  the main hub is Looma and the other is called New Looma and it only has houses in it .One story I heard about this was that when a new tribe came to town they wanted to live in the area but they didn't really get along with those already in Looma, so New Looma was started. I don't know what to believe but I do know that people from both areas work in and around the community. Of course there are some families which are held in higher esteem and sit on the council shire but as to how deep the "differences" go I have no idea nor do I really care to find out.

As you can see it is a dry community like most other Aboriginal Communities. There was a community meeting a few weeks back because too much grog was making its way into the community and if it wasn't the grog it was too many drunk people coming in!! I doubt they really resolved it but at least they are trying. A very popular spot for them to drink was just down past our house on Snake Creek  but that has dried up now, so they have to go down further. Another place is down at Myroodah Crossing ( which is the Fitzroy River). I asked the question; "Where do they keep their grog?" The answer; "In the bush, so be wary if you see them coming out of the bush especially if they are driving. "  That is my biggest worry here, drunk uninsured drivers!!

This is the road after the signs leading you into the community. That is the Grant Range in the background it is a huge range and  a very sacred place to the people here. You will notice as you look through the photos that the range is in the background of most. The communities  run along the  base of the range.

When you enter the community the first buildings you come to are the Shire Office on the left and the Police Station on the right.The Police Station is only new and many people were very surprised as to why they have come here for as far as communities go this one is very well behaved. I agree with that, I have found the people very friendly and we hear nothing but good things about this community from people who have worked in many other communities. The only white people to live in Looma are the two police officers with their families and the child care protection worker, their houses are next to the police station on the outskirts.
They have been cleaning up and keeping the town tidy because they have entered into the Rural Tidy Towns Awards for this year, they won it in 2007. So it is a good time to be here with everyone caring about their town, it will all fall apart once the awards have finished, so I have been told.


Looma Community Rural School

The Looma Community Rural School,  where Tom and Charlie go.

This is looking from the road and  front fence. The school has a kindergarten, preps up to grade 6 then a section for high school kids. The primary part of the school is to the right( actually out of site in this photo) the office and high school section to the left of the large roof, ( more photos below).                                                                                                                                                    There is a library, art room, fully decked out cooking room, play ground, veggie patch, canteen and under that big roof is the basketball/ netball court which also becomes the assembly area.

This is looking to the left of the basketball court. The office is the red building and the library is the white building with the blue door then it goes to the back to the high school area, art room and cooking room.



Looking towards the primary area, those blue buildings in the background in the middle are the boys classrooms the kinder and prep section is on the right.



Charlie and Tom looking the part with their school T-shirts on. No, you do not have to wear them, you can wear what you like, most kids don't even wear shoes. Tom and Charlie's feet are not tough enough to do that. There are very large and sharp double "G's",( big spiky bindies) around here that hurt like blazers when you stand on them, you have to "pull" them out of your feet! Football and basketball are the two main sports played here and yes all in bare feet.  They had their sports carnival where kids compete in many races and events and those that placed 1st, 2nd, or 3rd go on to compete in the Fitzroy Crossing Carnival and then again they can go on to other carnivals around the area. 

 

Every morning starts the same under this roof. The bell goes at 8am, all kids sit in their class rows and any announcements are made. Then all kids have to participate in a game of heads and tails; a teacher throws two coins into the air and you have to be standing with your hands on your head, tail or both, if you are wrong you sit done, if correct you get to go again till one person is standing, this person wins a small prize. This is an incentive to get the kids to school. Then all kids have to go and play a small physical sporting game of some kind for 10 minutes. It is then back to the basketball court where the tissues are handed out  for BBC ( blow, blow, cough). This is to help keep the children's  nose and throats clean which is a major problem with the Aboriginal kids. Then they go to their classrooms grab their toothbrush put on the tooth paste and go and clean their teeth. Back to the classroom and for Tom and Charlie's class they do a small word game for 10 minutes then they begin the days lessons! All kids clean their teeth again before they enter the classroom after the lunch break.

 The hours for school are; Monday 8am- 12:15pm, Tuesday- Thursday 8am- 2:30pm,

Friday 8am-1:45pm. These are the hours I work as well. They only have a 20 minute recess and 30 minute lunch break. Tom and Charlie are in a grade 4 & 5 class together because of their ages and as one could probably guess their work level is way above what they are learning but it is the social skills which are going to be a great asset to them; it is not every day you experience being in the minority group. Currently there are two other white kids in the school, both in earlier grades but that is about to change in Term 4 for there will be four other white kids joining and they are Tom and Charlies age and up.

They do reading, science, maths, gardening, cooking, PE, writing and LOTE. The lessons are more practical based for this seems to be a better way of learning for the kids. In LOTE Tom and Charlie are learning the Aboriginal language Mangala which is one of the three languages spoken in this community. They can pronounce some of the words very well, I have trouble copying them.  Here are a couple of words; Janikarran?- How are you?, Ngaliyarra - me and you,  wanju - one, kujarra -two, murrkurn - three, wulala - allot. With animals if it is a male animal it starts with a J if female it starts with an N so Kangarooo is Jakarra ( male ) Nakarra ( female). So there you go, a tiny bit of Mangla, ( I wish I could hear you all trying to pronounce these, ha). 

The school has about 120 (at a guess) kids on their books. The attendance rate for the primary school is at 80% which is great for this kind of school the upper grades only have about 40% which is about normal. 

Tom has won a Merit award for writing his Super Hero story and Charlie is constantly keeping the specialist maths teacher busy increasing his numbers and he has already won the heads and tails game at assembly, he got a wrist band watch. Tom and Charlies class is called Emu Class and their grade did a production at the special assemblies they have every second Friday. All the community is invited to come to these and each class takes it in turn to run it. Emu Class called their production Emu Class Has Talent and this is when I got these school photos with lots of people from the community around.

They divided the class into four groups;  cat walk, singing , dance and clowns. This is the start of the cat walk group.

This is the singing group with Tom in front singing "Fireworks" a song suggested by him. Check out Isiah who is the boy over on the right he is singing to the sky!

A closer one of Tom really getting in to it!

                                                    Then there were the dancers.

Then came Charlie with the clowns.

                                                                Charlie in action.
It was a really good effort by all and they had a good turn out from the community.

Another thing the school did was International Food Day and every class got involved by either making a food dish, flags, decorated cup cakes etc.. Emu class did the country of China so they made fried rice and Chinese hats. At lunch all the community and kids came together and you could go around the tables and have a tasting of the different countries. There was China - Fried Rice, Spain - Em pandas, Italy- Pasta and Mexico - Nachos.

Sorry the photo is a bit blurry but this was the boys Chinese hats they made.

This is one of their friends David who they call Lil D for short. He is a lovely kid with the most amazing green eyes. His mother is a half blood meaning one of her parents was white. His mother Lucile works at the school and is very nice to talk to. I have found out that she is related to the Rose Family( who are white)they are very well known to this area and had a allot to do with running Liveringa back in its early days. All a part of history to the area. 

The dentist and eye specialist have been to the school doing routine checks to all all the kids which was great for us. I was wondering how the boys teeth were going, all good, that is because they have been cleaning them three times a day. Tom lost two teeth within a week of each other about 6 weeks ago, poor tooth fairy had to visit twice in the heat of the night!! They even have a dietitian who comes a couple of times a term and runs a special cooking class with each grade and goes through topics about healthy eating and drinking. I had to laugh because on his last visit he showed the kids the  iconic"coke" experiment we have all been shown and how much sugar goes into one can. He also talked about the drinks like Red Bull and Mother and what they do to your heart rate. The boys came home telling me all about it. Ha!   

Tom, Charlie and I catch the bus to school and home everyday. The bus picks us up from out front our house around 7:20am. Then it goes into New Looma and picks up the kids then to school. One of the husbands of a school teacher drives the bus Monday, Wednesday and Friday, the other days are Derby day. A driver will come in from Derby picking us up first then go into New Looma then school. Then they return to Derby taking any people who want/ need to go for $20 each. That same driver then has to return and pick us all up from school only to drive back to Derby again! It does provide a good service for the people of Looma and it is also used to bring extra supplies to Looma. A very long day for the bus driver and it is any wonder they are struggling to get a regular driver to do it.  

So as you can well imagine the boys really enjoy school and they have even said they like it better then their old one!! They are in for a shock when they get back home!

 

The Looma Community

   This is looking back at the community with the school behind me. You can see the playground and  

that colourful building at the back is where I work in the Looma general store.





The decorated wall of the store,

 







This is inside the store. We are open from 8:30am - 12:30pm  and 2:00pm- 4:30pm. This was taken in our break time the entry/ exit is the white doors on the left in the top photo. The shop sells everything  a supermarket sells just down sized and our bread and meats are kept frozen. We do have fresh fruit and veggies, hot take away food, white goods, gardening, camping , bedding, furniture, footballs, shoes, clothes, car items like batteries and oils, fishing equipment, mobile phones, TVs, IPODS, camera's, basically everything and if we don't have it ask and they will get it for you!!  I still choose to drive the 120km's to Derby to do my shop at the local Woollies for the prices and choice is better for us. You can see the ATM,  that is the heart of the place and gets a work out daily! In the photo just above you can see there are 2 pie warmers side by in the middle of the yellow wall. Behind them is the small kitchen I work in where I am constantly filling those pie warmers. Mrs Macs pies and some of her other products are a huge seller here. I would heat over 100 products daily to keep that pie warmer stocked. It is shocking to see how much "junk food" goes through the shop. Along with the 100 hot food products would be 100 cans of soft drink mostly coke, lemon squash or power aids. The other thing I do apart from make 24 salad rolls a day which sell quickly, is to get kids lunches ready. Yes the school has a canteen but they can also get lunches from the shop. A parent or family member will come into the shop each day and either order a Mrs Macs product ( mostly a pie) and a drink or they can get a lunch pack; an egg sandwich, small fruit box and three other items like an LCM bar, pack of sultanas and cheese stick , (the three items change daily). I average 60 lunch orders a day with an average of them being 45 Mrs Macs things. Quite sad really. When I have  lunches prepared  and in between keeping the pie warmers stacked I help stock shelves or clean! It is not a job I could do for a long time but for now it is a job which gives me a great insight to the way of life here and I get to meet some of the locals. This shop is like the heart beat of the town, it has a notice board which is the diary for every community member and the bush telegraph for all. It is also the place where pensioners come to get their pension cheque. I have learnt that the Aboriginals really struggle to hold onto their money. If they have cash in their hands they must spend it, for what reason I do not know it is just what they seem to do. They will come into the shop three times a day because they  buy for now not for later. You also have to share your money if you have it. If I was related to you in ANY way  and asked you for money you would have to give it to me, I have seen this in the shop, they ask each other for $5 or whatever if they don't have enough on them. But in saying that I have also seen some refuse to do this and with speaking to Kerry, my boss, she has told me she is seeing it more often now as well, I think this will be the next issue, which I do not see as a bad thing. If you work you should be able to save your money and keep it for your immediate family and not have others bludge off you which is what they do. 

   

That is Levina one of the girls who works in the shop on the till. On the counter is how we set up for the kids lunches. The white bags are pies etc... When a parent comes in to order/ buy a lunch they place the kids name on the bag and write the kids name on a sticker and stick this on the kids drink which goes into a fridge, so around 12:05pm we put all the drinks and pies out and wait for the kids to come running over when the bell goes at 12:15pm.

 The kids collecting their lunches.



This is the Youth Centre for the community, I have taken this photo looking  from the back of the general store.  There is a white couple that comes into town every now and then and open it otherwise I don't know who uses it.

 

Looking to the right of the youth centre is the Day Care Centre then the HACC ( Home and Community Care) then the last building is the Clinic. The Day Care centre has just opened up, meaning they found someone to run it. The notice is up in the shop and it reads; Day care is now open ONLY to working parents, you can not leave your child here if you DO NOT WORK!!  Think they get a bit sick of free baby sitting!! The HACC building is operated by Crystal, a white lady age 36, who has been in this community for 13 years and done many jobs but now has found her spot. She has been doing this for 2 years and is kept very busy with many elderly who need help, along with a few younger ones with mental health issues. In the last month she has finally found 4 local people which she has been able to employ and get assistance, but for how long they last is any ones guess. That is part of the problem here, even with the two local girls we have in the shop, you never know from day to day if they are going to turn up to work and there really isn't anything you can do about. Part of managing a business in any community is you must employ community members, finding good ones is the hard part. The clinic has two full time white nurses and every Wednesday a doctor comes. We can use it if we need, at no cost, because we work in the area. You just need to be prepared to wait your turn because they are busy everyday and we have heard they serve the "locals" first. So far we haven't needed to use it! The nurses put a list  up weekly in the shop with the names of the people they want to see and when they are required to come to the clinic; between 10am - 11am etc....

 

This is an example of a typical house and the amount of broken cars around them, actually this is very neat. you can not make it out but the windows of both cars are smashed and most panels are dented. It is not very clear because it was taken from my IPOD through the bus window as we drove through New Looma.

Another example again from New Looma. As you can see they are not really into having gardens, a few of them have grass and some garden but mostly not. You can see the Grant Range behind again. I couldn't get a good photo to explain how they hang out their washing. Some have clothes lines, no pegs most of it ends up on the ground, others use the fence and others stuff the clothing through the security mesh on their windows, great for sox and jocks! You have to smile how things are done. One thing you do notice is that there isn't a huge amount of rubbish around. There are plenty of  broken bikes and toy prams laying all over the place along with the many car parts rusting away but we have seen worse. The other thing you will see lots of and that is dogs. There has just been a huge puppy epidemic so there are dogs everywhere. They just stroll about  many injured and limping looking for a feed or picking fights with each other. Some follow their faith full owner about but that is a minority. There are a few cats and kittens around but dogs out weigh them, I think they become dog food! One person told me that the older women eat them but how true that is I don't know nor want too. One of the reasons there are so many dogs is that the Aborigines get paid to have a dog! They also get paid to go to funerals! Work that out!! Yes it is true.  I am going to leave the topic of what this all costs the Australian Government paid from our Taxes alone, you can have that battle amongst yourselves????

 

Here is a house from Looma with a nice green lawn and looking neat and tidy. There are about 11 houses within the two communities which are being refurbished at the moment. That means the occupants have to move out, usually they move into a donga, and the house gets totally stripped inside and repaired. The outside is clad in corrigated iron and lasts very well. The kitchens are basic stainless steel benches in blocks, they don't get as damaged and can be easily removed when doing maintenance.  Repairs usually means; patching up holes in walls, replacing doors and mesh over windows, fixing bathrooms and repainting the whole house inside. This can take a few weeks. Kerry has told me that most of them will buy new white goods to go back into the house and new mattresses for beds. Most beds are on the floor, you can fit more in a room that way! One house can have a whole "mob"; mum, dad, kids, kids kids, grandparents, brothers, sisters and in laws, so never complain about how much room you have in your house!!! They are currently building new houses in both communities for families to move into to decrease the amount in each house which is a great thing.

This fire was between the two communities and actually ended up making its way into Looma. No houses were burnt but one shed was lost that belonged to Craig who does general maintenance on the homes. I took these with my IPOD again as we were driving home on the bus, the fire wasn't there in the morning when we came through.

This is the next morning and you can make out the black on the hill behind the houses, would have looked great since it came into Looma around midnight.

 Fires are a very common thing up here. Some are started by kids " having fun" others are started by the Aboriginies trying to get food. They light a fire and catch the lizards as they are running out of it, then they just let it burn itself out. Unfortunaletly they can take a fair bit of station land and feed with it when lit on station property, which they are allowed to hunt on. Coming into the wet season many can be started by lightning. We haven't seen any lightning yet, a bit early still.

It will be very interesting to see where the Looma Community is in an another 10 to 20 years. It has huge potential to move forward and provide opportunity for it's own people .Unfortunalety the Aboriginies do not take much pride in their own possesions so the desire to look after and care for their own things is not there. Why would it be when they haven't had to actually work for it and earn it!  The Aborigines do not like to move away from their home and family so work has to be found in or near the community but they also need to want to work, they need a reason to work. Many have worked in other places or states but they return missing their family. I believe that will change with each generation for like our young kids technology is bringing the world to them and showing them what is out there. Slowly they will start to spread their wings and explore, I have no doubt.