25th May 2011 - 11:20pm
Well, it really has been too long since I've written, but I've been a busy, busy girl!
I started up at the school on teaching placement during April, and within my first few weeks I got to take part in the 'Coloured sports day'. Although it sounds really racist, at first I thought that it meant Indigenous sports. How rude did I feel when I realised it was just what we'd call a normal sports carnival in Tassie, where the kids are divided into four colours - red, yellow, blue and green. Whoops. But it was an honest mistake.
I knew I wouldn't be much help organising the students, because I had not gained their trust yet, and relationships are so important up here. But to get involved, I offered to take photos during the day. So I have some incredible photos, but for cultural reasons I'm not allowed to put them up, so you'll just have to imagine what they look like until I can show you in person.
The first hour of the day was spent face painting. What an awesome morning! The captains and vice captains were in charge of getting everyone painted. What surprised me was that they were using plain old painting style paint! In Tassie, I'm sure that wouldn't be heard of - you'd have to use face paint or makeup! They painted all of the teachers too, and most of their clothes as well.
Then we all headed to the community oval for the day. It was completely different to how I remember our school sports carnivals. I guess to begin with, I DESPISED sport, and whenever I could I either got Mum to call in sick (I can't remember if I pretended to be sick, or was so upset Mum was doing the pretending), or didn't put in any effort. I must have been hoping that people would think that I might have been good if I'd actually tried... But it was so completely different here. The kids were all, honestly, cheering each other on. Every single one of them. The slow ones, the fast ones, the fat ones, the skinny ones. And just for giving it a crack. Yeah the kids got ribbons if they won, but I didn't see any sign of bullying or teasing because someone didn't do well. That's one of the things I love most about the people up here - they are so accepting of everyone, no matter what. It really is a beautiful thing to see.
Even the transition (prep in Tassie) class did their tiny little relay. The teachers had a relay race against the students. And the cutest thing was to see the young disabled boy, Geoff, having a race against one of the teachers (another Geoff, who is about 6'6"), and the little Geoff winning and getting a ribbon. The crowd were all cheering, and it was really honest, heartfelt cheering. And, I almost forgot to say, they were ALL barefoot. Even the year 10 student Ricky who's about 7' tall and ran like the wind.
Morning tea was icypoles and massive drums of water, and was all provided to the kids. They were all under a makeshift stage covered in tarps for shelter. The oval wasn't all mowed because it would've taken too long with the hand mower, so only the 400m line was mowed. Lunch was a BBQ back at school, again, all provided to the kids and staff.
The afternoon was spent with the little kids doing egg and spoon and sack races on the basketball courts, while I was down with the older ones on the the oval doing javelin, shotput and discus. There were a few issues between teachers about the positioning of the events for safety, but it's nothing like the setting up that you would see in a mainstream school.
The kids who did well, and continue to attend school, will be part of the Arnhem Sports carnival (all of the schools in Arnhem Land) in a few weeks time, so I'll look forward to helping out then too.
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