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Published: November 17th 2007
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The milingimbi experience has been one of the best things i could have done to realize how complicated and special the aboriginal culture is...
(to see the map above, put the zoom down!!)
Milingimbi is one of the biggest islands (40 square km) of the Crocodile Group of Islands. These islands are about 250 km east from Darwin. how do u get there?? in a very very small plane in which u cannot even stand!!! what an experience!! everything has to be weight before u get into the plane, to avoid overweight...even the passangers!! haha and if u have to much baggage, they send it the following days by boat. Good that we were only 6 persons on the flight, so we didnt have any of those problems..
Amy, an Australian girl i met last year in Paris, is working there as an English teacher in the school. she told me to come over, and being this a unique experience i didnt doubt it!!
Milingimbi is a dry community of Aboriginal people. Dry means no alcohol in the whole
The plane to get to Milingimbi
i asked the girl in the check-in if i could have a seat on the window..."every seat is next to the window" she said. Then i realised that i was going to a very very remote place...by the way, it gets very very hot in these airplanes!!! island, because aboriginal people's reaction to it isnt really the best...around 1300 Aboriginal people live on this island and around 30 Balandas. "balanda" is the way Aboriginal people call white people in their language. The origin of this is the following. Macassan people from indonesia used to come down to this part of Australia once a year (during the wet season - using the winds of the monssoon) with their boats. A custom of trade took place btw these Indonesian people and the Aboriginal people. When the Dutch colonised the Indonesian islands Aboriginal people were infromed about that. Aboriginal people therefore nknew about our existence even before we got to Australia. The thing is that Balanda was the way they pronounced "hollander" and this is the way they still call white people.
Milingimbi has been a great experience because i got to see how Aboriginal people really live nowadays. to tell u the truth it looked like the third world. I could not believe that we still were in Australia. The island has nothing more than an airport, a school, a (very expensive- 12 bugs for a box of kellogs) shop, a youth centre (with some pool tables, a
typicall house
and the typicall rubbish... church (with nothing inside of it), a cementary and a local art gallery. The streets have pavement, but no sidewalks. Rubbish everywhere. even if there are containers and rubbish bins, they dont use them.
The houses are prefab-houses given by the government and each family can have one. But even if they do, they prefere to live all together (20pax per house or so) in one. Anyways, they do not have much life inside the house. they manly spend the whole day (and the night) sitting in circles on the ground infront of the houses, gamling and playing cards and telling their ancient stories. There seems not to be much interest in working, in learning English, in achieveing something in life... absolute apathy. I highlight, this that this is just a first impression.
So how do they get money to eat? well, they get a welfare from the government (as a compensation for what they have suffered etc) which is supposed to be pretty high. And apart of that they gain lots of money gamling (apostando). And this is how they can buy TVs, camaras, etc.
I've had a pretty ambigual image of the people on the island.
need a car?
this is one of the things i saw hen going for a walk... On one hand side i saw how they really dont do anything the whole day. they dont work. they dont hunt. they dont do nothing but playing cards and pool. The kind have to go to school. well, this is theory, bc not all of them do. Specially boys tend to stop going after being able to go to their first male ceremony. Kids dont have interest in learning, not even in speaking English. But on the other side, they dress like rappers listen to 50cents and The Pussy Cat dolls and drink coke. I really think they are kind of lost between two cultures. and they dont know which one to follow. They still receive a lot of traditional knowledge and blieve that that's paradise and thatthey do not need anything more than that. But our western-views and cultures cannot be banned here. They have Internet access in the school, computers, tvs, mobile phones (even though no reception...). I talked to an elder woman who spoke pretty good English who told me that she was worried because kids now started to use English words while they spoke their language...
I had a good time going to school with
the kids, some were very interested in where Spain is, how many languages i speak etc. We also played football one afternoon (even if it was very very hot and the sand flies were attacking me all over...i've stopped counting how many bites i've got..my whole body itches all the time) with the kids. Everybody (the locals) goes barfeet here, so it was kind of hard not to step on their feet...
I even got adopted by one of the clans and got an aboriginal name!! this is a kind of protection they give u inbetween their community. My name is "Bonba" which means butterfly and my skin nam would be "Galikali". and here is one of the most complex things about the Aboriginal culture. There are different categories which guarantee a clear relationship to everyone and everything. Well, i did not really understand 100% what it ment. As far as i know, it is a system to avoid any genetic problems. There are 8 different skin names for men and 8 for women. These categories provide a pattern for family relationship terms and acceptable marriage. so if u are wamut u can just marry gutjan or Bananditjan clan
gambling or telling stories?
this is their day and night activity...nothing more tahn sitting on the ground in circles... people. Marriages are of course planed u can not chose ur husband. and a 14 year old girl can be married with a 55 year old man. This makes sexual abuses very common within these communities (even between kids and very joung people...). And even domestic violence is very normal...
And u dont have cousins. All your cousins are ur brothers and sisters, and u can have 3 mothers and 7 fathers, which from our point of view would be oncles and aunts. and the mother can not talk directly with her daughter's husband. they have to 'pass the messege' through another persons. oh, the Aboriginal culture is really very very complex...
I was also surprised when i realised that nobody really seemed to care about my arrival. Tourists are not usual in Milingimbi and i thought that people would inmediately notice that i was new. but nobody really seemed to care. I was also surprised to see that there is no social contact between aboriginal people and balanda people. Not at all. they dont have interest in talking with white people. of course there are exceptions and some did talk to me and all those things. I
my sexy feet after going for a walk!!!
sorry for this, but i had to show u!!!! specially had great conversations with a young boy, who was very nice and who told me lots of things about the culture. But even he told me that he hated white people. I was pretty shocked!! he said that he didnt hate me or the teacher but he hated the rest of the balandas because we took their lands. they still want to get their country back (which i can perfectly understand) and i've been told that those who study english do it bc they want to go to court and fight for their land...
I've had a really great experience on milingimbi. I've seen the authentic aboriginal life of these days, which not everybody can do. And i've realized what a big problem it is not only for the australian government, but also for the Aborigianl community. Anyway, all i've written down is just my impression, my point of view....Nobody should take it as a personal attack or as a criticism to Aboriginal people in general.
Now i'm in Darwin. It is very humid and hot, so i spent most of the time in the swimming pool of my backpakcers. My flight to Perth leaves tonight (saturday
modern class rooms...
...in the "third world"?? the 18th) and on monday my trip up the west coast begins. 😊 for 2 weeks...then to sydney!! and then back home...i cant really believe it!! time passes by too fast!! I'm excited to see what the next weeks will offer, specially bc i know it's going to be again very very different to what i've seen so far!!!
xxx love ya all and miss all my nice travel-mates!!! muaaaaaak!!
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