I think I am making a bit of a theme this year of joining in conversations when they have finsished. But I am at a loss of what to blog about and I meant to do this when it was going as I love books so here you go. Five books that have impacted my life. This list of course could be a lot longer and would probably be different on another day but here’s what came to mind today.

“Passionate Marriage” by David Schnarch

I think I have probably read this book or parts of it every year since I got married. I guess I am a pretty slow learner and I still get something out each time. The main theme of this book is differentiation which is about holding onto yourself in close relationships. Quite contrary to popluar cultures idea of romance and intimacy, this book argues that we need to validate ourselves and our own sharing in our relationships not expect that from someone else. When things go wrong in our relationships, especially our marriage, we like to blame the other person and spend most of our time trying to change them. Passionate Marriage puts the focus on us. If we want the sort of marriage we want we need to create ourselves not expect it from another person. It is very liberating I reckon.

“Christianarchy” by Dave Andrews

It’s been awhile since I read this book so I am not sure I can really articulate clearly what it is about and who knows if it would have the same effect now but the first time I read it felt like coming home. At a time when I was feeling that perhaps Christianity wasn’t for me this book made me feel it was. Christianarchy talks about a very radical Jesus. A Jesus that was inclusive, passionate about the poor and a grace that meets us where we are and is truly unconditional. It pushes us to also live like this.

“God of small things” by Arundhati Roy

Others have mentioned this book but it truly is rare. Perhaps not in it’s themes, no it looks at the univeral themes of love across boundaries and family and death and being on the outside but almost every sentence in a feast. The way she puts things together is truly extraordinary. It would creat a passion for language in anyone I reckon.

“Pedagogy of the Oppressed” by Paulo Friere

This was one of the first books I read when I bagan studying adult education and it very much influenced the huge passion I have for my work. It certainly got me through some of the much drier, uninspiring texts we had to read and is still what I come to back to now for inspiration in my work. I have talked about this before but this book is written in a Latin American context and calls educators to use education to liberate people rather than oppress them.

“The Curly Pyjama Letters” by Michael Luenig

There had to be a Leunig book in there and I think this would be one of my favourites. I love the way Leunig points us extraordinary in the ordinary. Who makes us feel like life is filled with wonder in all that is mundane. Whenever I read this book or any Luenig prayer or thought really I am overwhelmed with a desire to give thanks or to dance or just bask in the sunshine.

“The good news according to Luke” by Richard Rohr

I have thrown this in at the end. I know I said five but then I thought of this and just had to put it in and I didn’t want to get rid of any of the others. I read this book this year and it excited me again at another low point in my journey to read the Bible. Not in the way I have traditionally but in a way that opens up possibilities for truth and understanding beyond the literal. It encouraged me that I can still come to the Bible even if I don’t come to it as most Christians do, that God is bigger than all our limited understandings.

This book has certainly slowed me down. Written in Spanish (and not really that good) meant that it took me a long time to get through. It was basically about a guy having a summer in holiday with his daughter in a place where he grew up remanicissing “the good old days” when he was younger. The focus was definitely on the girls that he was with. There were a few interesting reflections on life and marriage and getting older and all those things but I wasn’t that excited by this book. I guess I can not really relate to that feeling of school and uni being the best days of our lives and I thought the guy wasn’t a bit of an idiot. It was good to read a book in Spanish though. I know my Spanish is slipping mroe and more each year so I need to do these things to ensure I don’t lose it totally.

I started attending a Quaker meeting a few months ago. I tried the Salvos but I just don’t think the main stream church is for me at this stage of my life. I am just loving the Quaker meetings though. We are a small group (only 6 of us) and all of us except one are pretty new to Quakerism so we have been reading a book of different readings called Quaker Basics. Obviously it is all about Quakerism and what the Quakers do and stand for. There is some really interesting and inspiring stuff in it and after the meeting in silence we have breakfast and sit and discuss the readings.

Last weeks reading were really profound for me and spoke directly to a situation I have been having at work. A student of mine a few weeks got a little frustrated with another student in the class who had answered a question he had posed. This is something I encourage in my classroom, I like creating a space in which we all learn together and from each other so I asked him stay back and talk about his problem. I was nervous as this student has also always been quite cold with me as well. However we had the most amazing conversation. He started off quite aggressively telling me that he came to class to learn English from me. He said that in Africa the teacher teaches and the students learn. If the students know so much then they don’t need to come to class he argued. He also said that he didn’t like group work. He told me that the other students in the class were rascist, that he has been studying with them for a year now and they hadn’t talked to him before, only now in my class. I was secretly pleased with this revelation, one of things I have most enjoyed is watching the students build friednships and learn about each other’s culture but obviously it is hard for him so I asked if he would prefer to work with the other Sudanese students. He said he wouldn’t. He is from a different tribe to most of the Sudanese in Alice and in my class and it was this other tribe that came into his village and murdered his parents and older brother. I was obviously shocked but his coldness with me was starting to make more sense. I listened to him as he told me his story, and he calmed down as he did so. He told me about how he came to Australia and his wife and children still in Sudan.

Since then I have thought about him a lot. About his life of course but also his thoughts on my teaching. While I have to say he seems to be a lot better in class since our chat I have been really struggling to work out how I can be the sort of teacher he wants without changing my style completely. Not only do some of the other student’s report to like it but I think it is actually a leads to more learning than a totally teacher centred approach. Not to mention I think it is really the only way I can be, While I was battling with this in my head I read this in the Quaker book. The author is actually a teacher as well, who does traning with other teachers about their strengths and weaknesses so it speaks directly to my problem but I think it works in all areas of life too.

“I ask the teachers to help each other to see that our limitations and liabilities are the flipside of our gifts, how our weaknesses are the inevitable trade offs we must make for having the strengths we have. When I understand my limits as trade offs for my strengths, something new and liberating happens within me. I no longer want to have my limitations fixed for to get fixed would be to compromise or destroy my gift. Instead I want to learn to acknowledge, embrace and live more gracefully within my limitations. So I will never be a good teacher for some students but perhaps I can find a way to keep the situation from souring.”

My calves really, really hurt today and I have a massive bruise on my right foot. In fact I am limping in such a way that I am worried others may think I have done a little something in my pants. My little injuries were obtained on Friday night. We went to hear a local Latin band (can you believe it Alice Springs has a Latin band?) called “los bandeleros perdidos”. They were playing at the Lane, one of the best venues in town, on the roof of a local restaurant. They were fantastic and we danced lots. In fact everyone did. They played a lot of Samba music, a dance I actually know but it is very intense on the calves. It is a dance I used to do a lot in Peru but obviously not very much now days because my calves are still aching two days later. The bruise on my foot was from another dancer whose high heel came down hard on my foot. All in good fun though so worth it.

There has been lots of live music in my life lately and that makes me very happy. Last weekend we went a fundraiser held on the most beautiful property near our place. Anyone could get up and sing or play music or act. We even had someone do some trapeze stuff. Some of it was great and some of it wasn’t so great but either way I think it is cool that there is a space where people can just come and have a go in a supportive atmosphere. There was also some live music at Olive Pink the week before that. Another spectacular setting, in the Botanic Gardens, especially as the sun came down and everything glowed as it so famously does here in the centre.

Martin’s friend Sy was also around for about ten days. He plays the didj so we heard him a few times a round town. One night he played in a restaurant with the local saw player who is amazing and Martin even played drums for a few songs. He also played one night in the big room at Keith and Mum’s place. Malley and John came with family and a few friends. There wasn’t many of us but in the end we were all playing something (drums, guitar, didj, tapping sticks) and dancing, the sound was great. John was singing traditional way too. It was very cool.

I attended another protest on Tueday. Well, the organisers weren’t calling it a protest they were calling it a welcome. You see the NT state government has come to Alice for parliament this week and we were asked to come down to the convention centre to welcome them and remind them that there are many people in Alice Springs who do not want a Uranium mine in our town. Not sure how many of us there were, it wasn’t huge but it wasn’t small either but we seemed to get a fair bit of media time. Local media of course but that’s okay.

In regards to the other protest about the Alice Springs by laws that we were sleeping out against we had a bit of success really. I mean not just us of course lots of people wrote letters and attended meetings as well as our sleep out but the council obviously heard and seriously watered down their by laws. Still not perfect as far as I’m concerned and a lot more needs to be done in this place to improve but they were watered down enough to be fairly insignificant. So that is a bit of boost really and hopefully a nice little reminder to all of you who read this and are involved in many areas of social action that it can make small differences I suppose.

I really dislike cleaning my car. In fact it may be the chore I like least in the world. I was very happy when we lived in Enmore and would go and pay to get our cars cleaned together around important events (remember that??). And they even gave us free coffee. Anyway I don’t feel like I can do that anymore. When you have as much time as me you can’t really justify it and it wouldn’t be the same on my own I don’t think. So yesterday I gave my car a much, much needed clean. It had become a bit of a “shame job” as they would say here. It wasn’t fun really but it certainly was satisfying getting in my car this morning and it was all lovely and shiny. In fact I have rediscovered that the seats are actually grey and not the red they had become with the dust.

Every second Sunday (or something like that) they show a more alternative film at the cultural centre here in Alice. My mum made me go and see with this with her (and you can read her thoughts on her blog too). I assured her after it that I would not be going to see a movie with her again unless she had thoroughly researched it. This was definitely one of the more unpleasant experiences of my life. An hour and half of nothing but a group of men walking through the Tasmanian wilderness getting cold and hungry and then when they got too hungry there was a gruesome killing until there was only one left and then it ended. There was the occasional dialogue which is apparently good quality but that was fairly inaudible. People also say the scenery is amazing and I guess after a week of 40 degree heat I should have enjoyed seeing green, cold and rainy Tasmania but I was so tense with it, knowing what it was causing the men to feel and become that I could not even enjoy that. I guess that was the director’s aim so people say that it is a “good” movie but to be honest I find it hard to agree when all you want to do it get out there. That they didn’t glorify violence was perhaps the only positive thing I could come up with in the discussion after the film and that they let you have a beer in the cinema, something I am enjoying more and more in this heat.

when a weather forecast of 36 degrees brings waves of relief and delight
when you start drinking more iced coffee than normal coffee
when the idea of travelling more than 20 minutes for anything seems absurd
when you read the local news more than the world news and you know people in it (and you’ve even been in it)
when you have at least one conversation a day about indigenous issues
when you start referrring to yourself as a “white fella” or “black fella”
when you say “aw true” as a response to almost anything
when a few drops of rain is a news worthy event
when you get used to showing ID every time you buy alcohol
when you bump into someone you know at almost every event you go to

This is actually word!!

I have been trying to learn Arrernte for the last couple of months. Unfortunately I can not go to classes as I work on the same night they are on so I bought myself “A learner’s guide to Eastern and Central Arrernte” book and CD and have been trying to spend a couple of hours a week. I am usually unsure if this type of learning works but I seem to be proceeding as fast, if not faster than my friend who is attending the class.

Arrernte is a pretty hard language to learn. Words like the word above highlight the difficulty in learning the pronunciation but believe it or not I seem to be getting my head around all that. What is hardest is that it is so hard to translate most things directly. The Arrernte people had/have such a different way of understanding things and therfore communicating to the way we do that trying to put anything into a sentence that makes sense to them is almost impossible I discover each time I translate what I have learned into something I can say to my Arrernte friends.

It is good to be learning Arrernte. I don’t think I’ll ever speak it fluently but it sure teaches me a lot about the culture and language learning. Also, so many other indigenous languages from here and around the world have been lost it is exciting to me that some including Arrernte have survived. And with only 2000 or so speakers left in Central Australia if it is to survive then other people have to start learning it. Funny though the other two languages that I speak are spoken by millions and millions of people whereas this one only 2000.

Last night we had our house warming party. It was such a lovely night I must say. The weather was pretty hot yesterday so I was a little concerned people would be uncomfortable but it cooled down nicely for the guests arrival and we had a good central Australian sunset for them to enjoy as well (not that I can claim that one).

Malley and John also led a smoking ceremony for us which I was really moved by. It was a real honour to be participating in something their people have been doing when they move to an area for 40 000 years. I got all teary.

Apart from that people just talked and ate and drank. We had some singing and dancing under the stars and some people played drums. The kids played games and cooked marshmellows on the fire. Malley had us women doing some aboriginal dancing. It was all lots of fun.

Martin likes having parties and I think I have come around as well. I do get a little stressed before them (and during them I suppose as I try to ensure that everyone is okay for food, drinks, people to talk to etc) but I really enjoy offering hospitality. I really enjoy watching people interact and have fun at my home. Last night was really special for that as we had a bit of a mix of cultures there who all seemed to have some really good interactions. In this town (and in this country too I suppose) I continue to be confronted by the racism that exists within us and so events such as these “normal” and “ordinary” as they are, feel sort of special and important.