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.
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