Letter: The Boat Cometh

Letter 15 / 8 / 83

There's a boat due this week but its the smallest one, the "TSI" (Torres Strait Islander) - so I guess our rainwater tank won't be coming this time.

Duck hut

Our ducks are due to arrive on Kuch's next flight from Cairns. There's a rusty old rainwater tank out the back of our place, and we managed to turn it into something like a nissan hut - not as easily as we expected. When we cut it in half - against the direction of the corrugations - the silly thing unraveled and whipped around like a snake. Anyway, its 'dug in' now and reasonably under control. There are a lot of dogs around these days (although periodically the health department thinks of a reason to come and kill a few) so we'll have to completely enclose the ducks with wire. We are using birdcage mesh to try to limit the rats a bit too.

We've more or less decided not to go south in December or January, we'll stay here until next June or July. We are feeling comfortable and settled, its not worth $800 for a few hassling weeks in Cairns.

Lnguage helpers

Now we have a paid language helper - just an hour a week for starters ($5 an hour, but the government subsidy pays $4 of that) - lets hope he turns up for his first session tomorrow. His name is George Sallee, and he's not a church-goer, bit of a wayward sort in fact, but we see him as having heaps of potential.

I wasn't intending to get a language helper too until Alison is quite a bit older. I had my eye on Bal Gee - young friendly girl with a big smile. She's done some courses at the School of Australian Linguistics so has a basic understanding of grammar and phonemics. She's offered to come and show me some of the verb charts she's worked out.

Water supply

The water situation is still desperate, but we have had the most surprising help. Barnie Day has been living at TI hospital caring for his sick wife, but he came out here for a week's holiday. He knocked on our door and said he couldn't sleep at night for thinking about our baby having to drink well-water. (Although she's a sturdy 4 month old, her exceptionally white skin does make her look very delicate). He has a full, hardly used, rainwater tank, so would we please fill our 44 gal drum from his tank. Peter has made himself a little 'dolly' trolley from some old pram wheels off the dump, so he trundled back and forth carrying water to fill our drum.

Yesterday we spent most of the day at a feast. We really enjoy feasts these days, find we can really just sit and relax with the people. James can hold his own with the other kids so we are not 'on edge' watching him all the time either. And we love the food - never thought I'd enjoy some of that stuff!

. . .

Well, Peter's fishing, the kids are both on a sleeping bag at my feet. They've both got wet nappies on from last night, and I haven't finished preparing James' kindy lunch. Its village work day and the men are supposed to be coming up to work on our outside guest room / study, so I need to put some jugs of water in the fridge for them ...

...oh and Peter's just got home with a good-sized trevally for today's meals!