Whoops!

So I just realised that in between the Kununurra athletics trip and holidays, I forgot to report about the Jump Rope for Heart wrap up!!! This will throw out the chronologicality of le blog but I'm sure most of you will forgive me :)

Basically throughout the term while I took classes for skipping, I wrote down 3 people's names and gave them 1, 2 or 3 points and then at the end of the term, whoever had the most points won prizes!
Pressure was on when I was handed over all responsibility organising the schedule, prizes and MCing duties.

We started with each class showing off some of their new skills they'd learnt with a 'So Fresh' CD pumping in the background. I think the kids knew the songs better than us...

Ah, the ol' spinning around the arm trick aye? (No seriously, thats one of the tricks..)

Anyway, we then held a series of mini competitions to give out some minor prizes. There was a lot of improvising going on (cheers Miss Tidemann! J) because although I'd roughly picked who was going to be in each game, it was late in the term so there was not many kids there so while I was talking I was trying to spot someone who wasn't having a go. First we had a students vs. Rick skip off which all the kids loved watching and Rick was very satisfied with his efforts!

Look at that elevation!

We then had a competition to see which class as a whole could skip the longest in a big rope which was great to see the kindy kids not embarrassed by their excellent efforts! But we all witnessed something extremely rare and that was the secondary class actually working together and they gave it a real go and just won!

Ready To Rope!

Excellent Teamwork From PRMB

DAMN IT ROBYN!!!

The last event was a teachers vs. students long rope challenge. It was an extremely tight result with it coming down to Freena and Sister Nola but Freena took out the win for the students!

Nola - The Athlete!

Finally we gave out the prizes. Again like picking for the games, there were a lot on on the spot decisions but luckily for the 8 prizes given, I made a list of about 22 so if someone wasn't there the next person won it. In the end, the 20th person on the list got a basketball prize and the top 3 weren't even there on the day so 3 lucky kids went home on a brand new Razor Scooter!

Robyn With Her New Scooter

Have You Ever Seen Someone More Proud?!? GO DELWYN!!!

I swear I've already written about all of this... oh well. I have to say, I was extremely chuffed with the compliments I got from the staff about my running of the day and especially from Mr Kim Dallard who works with the CEO but has seen a lot of teachers and really knows his stuff so I was pretty happy about it. Plus I got a free T-shirt! Score! J

"Hey, let's catch up some time!" "How's right now for you?" "Perfect!" "Cool."

Hey Hey!

So a quick rap up of the last few weeks.

Father John was out for a while, taking a quiet holiday with his mother to North Korea. I know, good choice huh! Not exactly everyone's first choice for holiday destinations but he loved it. No mobile phones allowed to be brought in. No videos may be taken. Photos may be taken but only with permission and supervision. Also he said that there a beautiful coast line with a road right against it, unfortunately there is a massive barb wire fence along the entirety of it so it cannot be accessed by anyone. Now I only today realised that this blog has been read in Malaysia, Denmark, UK, USA, Austria, South Africa and a few more countries around the world so to anyone from North Korea who happens to be listening in, hello and I have heard great things about your country! I'm sure it’s a very nice fence you made.

Anywho, Mamakgu (John) did not return alone. From Bililuna, he adopted a lovely young dingo pup which he named Jaru because it was from Jaru country. He's a lovely dog with a lot of energy and he likes to show affection by biting. He's usually very gentle but can get a little over excited but don't we all. It was hilarious at a mass we went to for 'All Saints Day' the whole time we could hear Jaru howling from the parish house. A bit of a side track but I decided to start off Movember with a bang and shape myself an outrageous Frenchman’s moustache but the combination of the howling dingo and my lovely curls, John told me after mass that he was really struggling not to laugh when I went to get Eucharist.

Don't you just love it!

Much of the same issue occurred at the mass at the graveyard for 'All Souls Day'. There was a bit of silliness during the mass with the ladies joking around with Mamakgu so even though I purposely uncurled my new friend, the idea of it still made him laugh. Also at that mass, about half way through, a local man went up to Ale, whispered something to him and then they both walked over to a tree which was attracting a lot of attention, I eventually worked out that they were killing something, probably just a precaution but it was pretty funny watching all the locals throwing rocks from a distance while Ale just walked up and dropped a big rock on it and then stepped on the rock. When he came back I asked what it was and he said, "I just killed a Black Adder!" I said to him, "You know they are freakishly fast!?" and his response... "I'm faster."

Now this could be seen as gallant bravery but I think the plain obliviousness had a little something to do with it considering the locals who knew how dangerous it was stayed at least 2 meters away at all times.

Just before writing this, I thought I'd look it up so I didn't look like an idiot if they were actually really slow. Wikipedia informed me that they can lash out "With the quickest strike of any snake in the world. A death adder can go from a strike position, to strike and envenoming their prey, and back to strike position again, in as little as 0.13 of a second, about the duration of a blink of the eye."

I read this to Ale. His response... "I'm faster."

The Man Single Handedly Trying To Wipe Out The Australian Wildlife

Last Friday while I was doing lunch mangarri, one of the kids stole my keys which open basically every door in the school. Needless to say, this was an issue. Because the keys didn't turn up when school ended, I decided to pack an overnight bag and made camp in the foxtel room. I could give you a description and time of every entry into the school grounds by a student but I feel that may bore you. Basically, Friday and Saturday there were a lot of late night visitors hanging around the mangarri room which I kept chasing off, only able to identify 2 or 3 of them at a time. So here's the break down; got to the room at 3:30pm Friday, went to sleep at 4am, woke up at 6am, slept from 11am-12pm, slept from 4am-7am, went to sleep Sunday night at 2am because it was relatively quiet and woke up at 5:30 to find oranges and juice containers all over the ground outside the mangarri room. As you can imagine, I wasn't pleased so I went home and went to sleep. Ale then called me later in the morning and told me that the keys were back in the mangarri room. Turns out, one boy stole the keys, another boy then took them from him "to give back to me", that boy then "saw the older boys breaking into the mangarri room so when they broke the door open, he went in, put the keys there and then ran out." So I had a great weekend!

Anyway, we've been ping-ponging here and there on the table Ale made from an old blackboard but Rick and Ant recently went to Broome and while there picked up a new real table "for an absolute steal!” Last night we went in to set it up and for the first time, someone realises on the side 'Box 1 of 2'. We only had one box. Luckily we had the one box with 3 quarters of the table so we were able to at least have a real surface to play on but it was mildly humorous.

We recently had Anthony's mother and Sister Lia come and visit for a few weeks which was really nice. It was good to meet them and they were nice faces to see around the school and afterwards as well.

Pool Status: Fully functional and dearly needed! It’s getting really hot here some days so it’s great that the children and certain lifeguards have the opportunity to have a refreshing dip in the afternoons.

On Thursday morning I woke to the lovely sounds of 'Build Me Up Buttercup' (Rick's ringtone) which is actually lucky because I forgot to set my alarm but he said that there was a road train waiting for us at the turn off and Ale would be by soon to pick me up so we could go get it the delivery. So it was just a casual 25 odd minute drive out to the turn off to pick up what turned out to be a bunch of projectors, smart boards and uniforms. So we filled the car, tied the boards onto the roof and took off back to Balgo. About 15 minutes in, there was a goanna on the road which I thought actually ran between the wheels so we stopped, looked at eachother and basically at the same time said, "Let’s go back." So we got out and went to have a look. It was still there but not moving so we slowly approached it. Again, being the Australian wildlife expert that I am, told him to be careful because they can be very fast. Again, this was news to him and he then brought the car closer because he realised that the car was probably about 50m away. Again, before writing this to not look like an idiot, I looked up my quoted fact and found on an Australian Wildlife website, "Goannas can run very fast over short distances, sometimes using their hind legs only. They are very good tree climbers, and that is what they will often run for." This would have been interesting if it decided to run because we were the only tall and thin things around for probably over 100km. Luckily, well for us at least, when Ale drove up next to it, he saw its heart, possibly liver and some other internal organ lying next to it. It definitely still had some life in it which I learnt when I picked it up by the tail.

Long story short, Alejandro - 2: Australian Wildlife - 0

Ale's Faster

Crikey!

For Br. Marty's birthday, instead of a boring old cake, I decided to make the staff pancakes!!! Turns out that just putting maple syrup in the mixture doesn't have the same effect as putting it on top. Still a big success but!

This morning I woke up pretty early so decided to go for a walk around the community. It was very nice actually, a few friendly faces around and one hungry camel enjoying the return of green grass. It was funny to see that at almost exactly 9am, the community appeared from their homes for the opening of the store for the day.

That green grass bit reminds me, it’s raining almost daily again! Usually not for long but it's heavy and there is guaranteed lightning basically every night, even if it’s dry lightning.

Oh final thought to leave you with. Many would describe Balgo as being in the very south Kimberly. Some believe it is North Pilbara. You look at any Kimberly map, Balgo will not be seen. Try with the Pilbara; you'll probably have similar luck. So all in all, I am in the middle of nowhere in a place that does not exist. Cool.