The People

We are the Yolngu people of Ramingining, in the northern part of Central Arnhem Land in Australia's Northern Territory.

Ramingining is a town of about 800 of our people. More of our people live on outstations different distances from town. Also about 50 Balanda live here.

The nearest other town is Maningrida, more than two hours drive away except in the rainy season, when we can only fly there.

In Ramingining we have a store, a clinic, a school, a new police station, an arts centre, a resource centre, houses and not much else.

But we have history and culture here, that our ancestors have been growing for more than forty thousand years.

They passed that culture on from generation to generation. Now it's our turn to pass it on, not just to the next generation, but to people everywhere, all over the world.

That's because our way of life is changing fast now, and what you can see on this website is for every generation to remember and keep our culture alive.



Taken from http://www.12canoes.com.au/

Monday, April 4, 2011

day sixty - stranded

4th April 2011 - 11:40pm


We're stuck. No kidding.

This wet season (summer) has been the wettest on record. Well, at least for a long time anyway. Since I've been here it's rained probably every second day. But the last fortnight has been shocking - rain every afternoon. And when it rains here, it BUCKETS down. I've never seen anything like it. I'll never complain again about the rain in Tassie. Although admittedly, it's still 30oC every day. The plus side of the rain is that everything here is amazingly green. The bush over our back fence is the most beautiful bright green I've ever seen. But the negative side is that the roads can't handle it.

The roads here are made of some kind of bright orange stuff. None of this cement and concrete stuff like at home. The grader is meant to make the road into a convex type shape, with 'drains' along the side that then have offshoots into the bush to drain the water off. But when the rain buckets down, the whole thing turns to mud, and the grading really makes no difference at all. The result is the road to the airport being closed, and the road to the barge landing is also closed. So no way out.

But also no way in. The barge is our method of getting groceries into the local shop, and the only way to feed the community. The shop is pretty small, so within a few weeks, the shop could run out of food. It's also the only way in for fuel. The fuel is obviously used for cars, although the community is pretty small, so you could probably walk everywhere you needed to. The major issue is that we're running low on fuel for the grader and digger, which are our only ways of improving the road. And we only have enough fuel to provide electricity for the community for another week. So, it's kinda drastic. And given Ben's job, the poor darling has to deal with the whole lot, including everyone in the community whinging to him about it...

But things should be ok. Ben's got 40 tonnes of rocks coming in on Tuesday, so hopefully that will be enough to improve the road for a few kilometres so the fuel and food can get in. And hopefully there'll be some assistance after that as well. Stay tuned, and in the mean time, check out the YouTube video and photos...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMtqgD6WZqI









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2 comments:

  1. Camilla MitchellApril 5, 2011 at 5:44 PM

    Heather, this is crazy, and rather disastrous! I hope it gets fixed soon enough so that you guys can get some food and fuel!

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  2. HeatherApril 6, 2011 at 1:48 PM

    It sure is! We'll be fine. If you'd ever seen my pantry in Tassie, you would realise that I always have enough food to last at least three years :-)

    They got some rocks in yesterday to mend the road enough for the truck to get in with the fuel and food, but hopefully they'll do something a bit more permanent soon.

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