Well, I have since moved on from the hoo ha of my last post and currently living in a lovely town just twenty minutes from Perth. It is refreshingly normal to live in a town with a bit of hustle and bustle in it and some great weekend markets with plenty of bargains to be found if you like fish, fruit and veg. It has a real cafe culture about it and despite it being winter, the sun still shines and actually gives off a little heat which is a bonus...sadly though, the carefully cultivated tan from my South African days is gently fading back to the pale and pasty look.
I have found a spot of work for a few weeks again working in a backpackers, this time though for financial reasons rather than a lifestyle choice. It couldn't be more different from the place I worked in in South Africa if it tried. For a start, there is more than one shop and more than one other backpackers, not to mention all the restaurants, bars, cafes and entertainment centres. The beach is a ten minute walk away and the area for "bathing" is pathetically small although nice enough give or take the McDonalds right on the beach front. Everything in Australia (I presume more so on the East Coast) is set up for backpackers - it is so easy and so unchallenging and so bloody normal that it's like home with sun and different accents. Almost.
There are backpacker car markets, backpacker car rentals, backpacker bank accounts, backapcker mail holding and forwarding, backpacker guided tours (all extorionately priced in my view), numerous backpacker buses, backpacker houses that aren't actually backpacker hostels and of course, the obligatory backpacker food and booze specials. Everything is sorted for you before you've even arrived...so tell me...where's the fun in that?? I'm sure I have the slightly romanticised view that travelling is all about getting off the beaten track and trying to go where no backpacker has been before, or if they have, then not many of them! It'll be hard if near impossible to find this in Australia, despite being in Western Australia, which plenty of travellers don't get to and planning on a jaunt to the Northern Territories. I shall however, give it jolly good try!
Made the usual mistake of talking racial politics the other night when slightly inebriated, although this time to white Australians about Aborigines rather than Afrikanners regarding tribes. I have to confess to not knowing perhaps as much as I should regarding the history of Australia and its current political climate, but I'm working on it and will still argue equal rights whether male, female, black white, pink or blue. Sadly, it didn't seem to cut the mustard and the over riding comment from that night from a white Australian was: "99% of Aborigines are trash, 1% are okay and 99% of white Australians are okay and 1% are trash". Oh plus the usual, when I sort to discover more on this astonishing view, "...but there are statistics to prove it". How you define human "trash" I'm not quite sure.
However, it was just one fella with his one view and I'm sure I'll come across many other people with different perspectives on life here. It's always interesting to talk and while living in a backpackers you really do meet people from all over the place from all walks of life.
25 July 2004
12 July 2004
Shattered Illusions
A new continent, a new country and a new way of getting involved with local life. Just three weeks into my Australian adventure and I sometimes wish I hadn't bothered.
I am in a South Western town of Western Australia and .... I really don't know how to start this story. I am volunteering at a wildlife centre (which is great) and living in a weekly rental room (cheap and cheerful) in a shared guest house with mostly out of work and out of luck Australians.
Down the road is a backpacker hostel that I stayed at for a couple of nights, made friends with the managers (an Australian couple; Karen and Adam) and generally go there for some social life. Or at least I did.
Friday just gone came around and off we all went to the local bar for two for one beers. Don't know what happened, I ended up on a girly mission to the loo with Karen and she ultimately pointed out the fading black eye and scar over her eyebrow from where her fella beat her adn wanted to know how you get strong enough to get out. Apparently it occurs every couple of weeks. He has already broken one of her ribs. She has a lot of fight in her but isn't yet ready to get the hell out of this destructive relationship. It may be for financial reasons but also because she is scared of being alone and scared of him. Funny that.
Anyway, sworn to secrecy as I was we headed back to the bar and ultimately back to the hostel. A new guest was getting angry about the noise levels and was rather stressed. Adam then got involved and physically chucked him out getting very aggressive with it. (Customer Service / Hospitality was like a bad joke that went right over his head.)One of the other semi permament guests (Gavin) also got involved and told the stressed guest to smack Adam one because he loves beating women.....and so the proverbial shit hit the proverbial fan. The rest of the night seemed to pass in a blur of Gavin packing his stuff up and Adam fronting up to him for a fight. The police were called by one of us but Karen would not or could not make a report to the police about her domestic violence so the police went away again. Then later on, five of us cajoled a relatively drunk Karen to the local police station...it took five of us approximately three hours to get her there to start making a start on her life. The police said "come back at eight in the morning". For us and for Karen it was now or possibly never...what a joke.
In our company we also had another guest who works in a different state as a sexual harrassment officer, and although she worked wonders with Karen she also gave up at the first obstacle shouting at me that do I think Karen is the only one who gets beaten and that this is real life. I disagree and I told her. It doesn't have to be real life....for all the good it did me.
The next day was like nothing ever happened...Adam doesn't know I was around at all that evening and the other guests involved treated it as a usual night on the piss with only a slight undertone of something more serious....
The one thing that strikes me with real irony is that Australian radio and television shows are keen on their commercial breaks. A lot of them are either for men who use violence against women and how they can be helped or for women on the receiving end of violence and how they can also be helped. So as with most ads, despite this being sponsored by the government, it is also surface selling and the reality is the police don't want to know unless it suits them.
Needless to say I am moving away from this both physically and emotionally. I'm not in a position to help, nor do I have any experience of what to do. All I know about is how to be a friend, and I shall be that for Karen. If the sexual harrassment officer is anything to go by I've got it all wrong anyway. As Gavin said about Karen and reporting to the police at one point on that crazy Friday night; "you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make her drink".
Names have been changed.
I am in a South Western town of Western Australia and .... I really don't know how to start this story. I am volunteering at a wildlife centre (which is great) and living in a weekly rental room (cheap and cheerful) in a shared guest house with mostly out of work and out of luck Australians.
Down the road is a backpacker hostel that I stayed at for a couple of nights, made friends with the managers (an Australian couple; Karen and Adam) and generally go there for some social life. Or at least I did.
Friday just gone came around and off we all went to the local bar for two for one beers. Don't know what happened, I ended up on a girly mission to the loo with Karen and she ultimately pointed out the fading black eye and scar over her eyebrow from where her fella beat her adn wanted to know how you get strong enough to get out. Apparently it occurs every couple of weeks. He has already broken one of her ribs. She has a lot of fight in her but isn't yet ready to get the hell out of this destructive relationship. It may be for financial reasons but also because she is scared of being alone and scared of him. Funny that.
Anyway, sworn to secrecy as I was we headed back to the bar and ultimately back to the hostel. A new guest was getting angry about the noise levels and was rather stressed. Adam then got involved and physically chucked him out getting very aggressive with it. (Customer Service / Hospitality was like a bad joke that went right over his head.)One of the other semi permament guests (Gavin) also got involved and told the stressed guest to smack Adam one because he loves beating women.....and so the proverbial shit hit the proverbial fan. The rest of the night seemed to pass in a blur of Gavin packing his stuff up and Adam fronting up to him for a fight. The police were called by one of us but Karen would not or could not make a report to the police about her domestic violence so the police went away again. Then later on, five of us cajoled a relatively drunk Karen to the local police station...it took five of us approximately three hours to get her there to start making a start on her life. The police said "come back at eight in the morning". For us and for Karen it was now or possibly never...what a joke.
In our company we also had another guest who works in a different state as a sexual harrassment officer, and although she worked wonders with Karen she also gave up at the first obstacle shouting at me that do I think Karen is the only one who gets beaten and that this is real life. I disagree and I told her. It doesn't have to be real life....for all the good it did me.
The next day was like nothing ever happened...Adam doesn't know I was around at all that evening and the other guests involved treated it as a usual night on the piss with only a slight undertone of something more serious....
The one thing that strikes me with real irony is that Australian radio and television shows are keen on their commercial breaks. A lot of them are either for men who use violence against women and how they can be helped or for women on the receiving end of violence and how they can also be helped. So as with most ads, despite this being sponsored by the government, it is also surface selling and the reality is the police don't want to know unless it suits them.
Needless to say I am moving away from this both physically and emotionally. I'm not in a position to help, nor do I have any experience of what to do. All I know about is how to be a friend, and I shall be that for Karen. If the sexual harrassment officer is anything to go by I've got it all wrong anyway. As Gavin said about Karen and reporting to the police at one point on that crazy Friday night; "you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make her drink".
Names have been changed.
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