Day 7: Kids photography and musical instrument making

A photo taken by the one of the kids during our photography activity this afternoon.

Self-portrait in the same activity.  

Action shot.

Musical instrument making. Followed by a performance. Note the colourful decoration on the orange t-shirts.

Instrument made from plastic plates, rice and drumsticks.

Day 6: Video Blog

Meet Jim and Caitlin the other half of our Activity Leaders as they chat about the days events.

Day 6: Bellaglen/Yambirlin

Bellaglen waterhole.

Conga line.

And the flips continue...

Rita's Rave

“Jim, is that water leaking out of the bus?”

No… its diesel.

Day five Minyerri: the day we broke the school bus.

Who knew that driving over a star-picket would rupture a fuel tank…! The Teachabout mob is sincerely thankful to the bush mechanic who managed to repair the gouge with putty, rubber from an old tyre and tie-down straps. Fingers crossed that it holds until Katherine.

Apart from this slight hiccup we had a great day. We celebrated Caitlin’s 22^nd birthday with a sterling rendition of ‘Happy Birthday’ from the kids. Followed by a morning of cultural activities with Hilda, one of the traditional land-owners in Minyerri, down by the billabong. We made damper, collected fresh-water mussels from the billabong’s muddy floor, and listened to stories about Hilda’s extensive family (kids, grandkids, great grandkids and I suspect even some great great grandkids).  

I watched countless backflips into the billabong by the boys who were eager to show off their skills to the video camera. This evening these same boys sheepishly asked to see the videos. During the viewing, their hysterical laughter and amusement never waivered even after we had watched each clip 6 times over. It was an endearing end to a busy, crazy, funny week.

Day 5: Damper, Mussels and Car Trouble

Cultural activities with traditional land owner Hilda. Damper and fresh water mussels. 

Big mob of kids swimming in the Billabong.

Fresh water mussels collected by the kids. 

Boston the one-eyed dog. 

The star-picket that burst the fuel tank. 

Georgi's Journal

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. 

Day 4: 29 Kids

Watch the progress of our Grass Head People. 

The first stage of the new football oval in Minyerri.