# 1, Friday 05.09.2014

Darwin to Broom. That’s a 1971km drive. 26 hours one way.

Darwin to Broom with “Skinny Dogs”

I’m getting off in Kununurra which is roughly half way. I am going to volunteer at Mirima Dawang Woorlab-gerring (MDWg), a language and culture centre that was established in the late 80’s by the Mirima Council. Reading from the home page of the language centre, their aim is to document the language and culture in order to preserve this knowledge for future generations. I am going to learn and perhaps also discover what skills and knowledge I have to share. I am one part nerves and three parts ecstatic…

Lining up for the bus I meet an older gentleman. Salt and pepper hair, velvet skin worn by the Northern Australian sun and a soft smile. Red moleskin shirt and snake hips in blue Wranglers. He’s on crutches. I reckon he has probably been in Darwin for surgery and is headed back home to Timber Creek. I tell him I am a long way from home – Sydney. He nods and asks me what I am doing in Kununurra. I ask him if he has heard of Mirima Language Centre and he nods in recognition.

“Yeh I speak Miriwoong. But Ngarinman is my language…”

“I am going to learn Miriwoong…”

He chuckles and then begins to reel of the names of Mirima mob that he knows. His eyes are misted with over-exposure to sun and wind, and yet alive and friendly. He gazes off somewhere beyond my left shoulder as he is talking.

It’s the first conversation about Mirima that I have had which requires no backgrounding…He knows exactly what I’m talking about. Language centre, Miriwoong, language work. Conversations in the lead up to this trip have been punctuated with a question mark. Most people are genuinely curious – What’s a language centre?   My stock standard response is – a language centre functions as a facilitator of language documentation, development of language resources and any other project the community wishes to pursue. For example, recording oral histories with elders. I hope that after my time at MDWg I will be able to answer these questions with a little more authority.

The second question might be why are you going there?  To which I have been answering, and will continue to emphasise that I am going to learn. It is a unique opportunity that I have been given to go and learn about the Miriwoong way of life, and begin to understand. As far as I am concerned, reconciliation between Aboriginal Australians and white Australians will be achieved through a mutual respect which can only be established via the channel of genuine understanding. All that I come to understand I hope to be able to validate by sharing with you.

As for other questions – What are you going to do there? Who will you be working with? What is the value of revitalising and maintaining languages? Throughout my time at MDWg I will be unearthing the answers to these questions so watch this space!

As we pull out of Darwin, the bus driver reads us the riot act on toilet rules. No race track action – skid marks and blow outs. Thanks for the heads up. He keeps up a little bit of a yarn out past Palmerston and shares a few fun facts. One really captures my imagination. Did you know that there are fewer people per square kilometre in the Kimberley than there are in the Sahara Desert?! I was after an adventure, and by the sounds of it and adventure is what I am going to get.

Few people – many delights.

And they are already leaping at me thick and fast through the bus window. A sulphur crested cockatoo with his crest fanned out. Acid yellow flowers that leap out at you from the earthy-red, dry-green landscape. (I later discover that these are kapok bushes, which the Aboriginal people of the area use to track the passing of seasons). Skeleton trees dressed up in tinnie jewelry by some drunk with a sense of humour. Ant hills wearing I love NY t-shirts…And on the bus the ladies in front of me chatting away in Kriol*. If you have ever heard Kriol spoken you might agree with me that there is alot of now-you-understand-it-now-you-don’t. I am trying not to eavesdrop but I can’t help but listen in to see how much I can understand…very little. And then there are the ringers that join us in K-town (Katherine) on their way to Derby. The woman sitting across the aisle from me is returning home to Kununurra after a couple of weeks visiting family in Katherine. Her excitement is infectious!

Bus blur, Judbarra/Gregory National Park, Northern Territory

 

* Kriol is a language made up of multiple regional varieties spoken by Aboriginal people across a large section of Northern Australia. It features some English words, which are pronounced differently to English and has a grammatical structure reflecting the structures of the local Australian Aboriginal languages.