It’s Thursday, day four of activities, and the kids have stopped passing me the ball in Basketball. As I have learnt all their names they have come to realise my disappointing lack of coordination. It’s alright because Jim is head of sports activities. I just have to cover reading and writing and music activities which due to my disappointing lack of musical talent involves singing along to Kev Carmody and Paul Kelly’s ‘From Little Things Big Things Grow’ on youtube. The kids remind me that the ‘tall man from last year’ played guitar and could keep a tune. Clearly I should have packed a recorder.
This is my second time in Minyerri but my first time as an Activity Leader for Teachabout and as soon as we gathered the kids up for activities I remembered why I wanted to come back. The kids are the smiliest, loudest, mischievous, honest and friendliest bunch I’ve ever met. They will wreak absolute havoc and tell you ‘this is boring’ amongst other less kind phrases and five minutes later be absolutely absorbed in the activity and growling at other kids to ‘shut up’ or even better ‘shut up and read!’ A highlight for me so far was being told to go away by one of the eldest boys and that he would help younger boys with their maths.
It’s hard for most people to believe but stepping into Minyerri from a life in Victoria is like stepping into a different country. Yet of course the kids' thirst for knowledge, hopes and dreams are still just as large as anywhere in Australia. I’ve seen this over the past few days mostly through the frustration the kids have at not being able to do something, which most grade 5/6’s could, or not being able to understand instructions because English is their second language. But the kids keep coming back and are loving the activities as well as making our voices hoarse.
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