May update

Hi Everyone,

We are all going really well and settling into life here in Kalumburu! It is hard to believe we have already been here for over a week! Our house is mostly unpacked now and we are staring to feel at home in our new house. Our house is great. It will never win any home beautiful awards but it is very practical and quite big (well bigger than our place in Northmead!).

It is very hot here! It gets up to about 35 degrees in the middle of the day. Our house, school and the playgroup room are well air conditioned so it’s not too much of a problem. We have had a swim in the creek (we promise there were no crocs!) a couple of times and we have all enjoyed the chance to cool down!

Our trip to Kalumburu went quite smoothly. The kids did very well on the planes. Isabel was very excited about our take off and landing and made all the passengers around her smile! Our last plane was a little 4 seater including one seat for the pilot and one seat for Isabel and Hudson to share! Fortunately, Hudson was very tired and fell asleep even though the flight was incredibly noisy and bumpy! We were thankful that it was only a one hour flight!

When we first arrived in Kalumburu, we stayed with our friends Belinda & Tim and their kids Jacob and Riley. It was so wonderful to be able to stay with good friends! Belinda and Tim have really helped us settle in and have given us invaluable information and guidance about the community.

Our container with all our belongings arrived on the barge a few days after we got here. Grace Removals had promised us that they would organise a way for the container to get from the beach to our house (about a 10 min drive). However…when Adam and Tim went to the beach when the barge arrived it became apparent that Grace had let us down…..our container was there but we had no way of transporting it along the 16km dirt road to our house. Fortunately….the army arrived on the same barge. Adam approached one of the army guys and he was more than happy to help us. So the army used a massive fork lift to deliver our container to our house. We really felt like God was looking after us!

Amy & the kids have started to attend playgroup and they really enjoy it. The playgroup here runs 5 days a week. Amy will be running it 2 days a week but we plan to go along at least another day as well. (There aren’t too many other options here!!). There are 2 Aboriginal women who work at the playgroup too. It will be great to work alongside them and learn from them about Aboriginal culture. About 4 or 5 kids turn up to playgroup each day. Some of the kids (as young as 3) just come by themselves. It seems like some of the kids have to take care of themselves a lot of the time and from what we have heard many of them have been physically and sexually abused. At playgroup we will be aiming to create a safe environment for the kids to play and learn. We will also be encouraging the mums / carers to come along and to play with and interact with their kids.

Amy and Belinda will also run a group for some of the young mums in the community one evening a week. We will do art and jewelry making together and hope to build good relationships with these women. We also hope to build their self esteem and encourage them in their parenting. Amy has also started to run a girls group with Belinda, one afternoon a week. The group is for girls aged 10 – 16. We will be doing craft and cooking with them and trying to build their self esteem etc. Most girls have their first child by the time they are 19 here so it feels like an important age group to be working with.

The school is also interested in Amy doing some OT work with some of the students. She’s got a lot to keep her busy!!

Adam is enjoying school but is finding it to be a little different to what he was expecting. He is providing support for children from Year 2 to Year 6 in four different classrooms. This means sometimes he helps the regular class teacher so that there are 2 teachers in the room at the same time, and other times he takes a class while the regular teacher takes time out of the classroom to catch up on preparation, marking etc. The Principal has commented that he thinks Adam has a lot to offer the less experienced teachers by being in the classroom with them and chatting with them about ideas that might be helpful teaching strategies etc.

The school is quite well resourced as State schools go, which is really encouraging. Like many aspects of the community, the government seems happy to send money and/or equipment most of the time. The real difference, or should I (Adam) say ‘problem,’ however stems from poor parenting and community breakdown. I don’t think I’ve seen a student in shoes yet, and some turn up without a shirt. I taught a lesson on ‘time’ and many students nominated 8:15am as their favourite time of the day, as this is when breakfast is served at school. Sadly, I had a bunch of boys from school walk past our house on Saturday when I was out in the yard and they asked for some food – an orange or some bread was their request. Many kids are neglected and/or have been abused.
In the classroom the students have been hard to manage. They respond well to shouting (though I’d prefer not to be doing that of course) but they have no real concept of consequences, so they often disregard instructions, lose concentration and engage in teasing or tit-for-tat hitting which spirals into fighting. Some students have developed a habit of walking out of the classroom and going home if things aren’t going their way. Students often attach themselves more to one teacher, and the appearance of a new staff member is not at all a novelty. Teachers come and go all the time. All of this stems from, as I said before, community breakdown and poor parenting which includes inappropriate role modeling, neglect, abuse etc. – a tough cycle to break. The good news is that they love it when I play the guitar and there are a few gems and a few kids who will work well when the environment is controlled for them. Even in a week I’ve seen improvements and I’m looking forward to that continuing as we become more familiar with each other.

The staff at the school are all lovely and nearly all have less than 4 years experience. There are 11 other teachers and about 10 indigenous staff who work at the school either providing support for the teacher or working in the school grounds. Unfortunately though, there is a real sense of ‘us’ and ‘them’ which creates a strange and unexpected but very clear divide between the indigenous and non-indigenous staff. The ‘locals’ never appear in the staff room, and don’t come to staff meetings. I’m not sure why this is, but the Principal and other staff are aware of it and the school is looking for ways to engage and include the indigenous staff more. Generally speaking it seems there is a distinct lack of empowerment and motivation amongst the indigenous workers in the school environment. This problem is apparent in many or possibly all schools in the Kimberley as we had a staff development day in Kununurra for a few schools in the region and a large part of the day was focused on this problem.


We are really pleased with how the kids are settling in. They are amazing the way they just take it in their stride. Highlights for them so far would be swimming in the creek, playing with their friends Jacob and Riley, holding a frog for the first time, going for a bike ride around the community, playing in the sprinkler (there are no water restrictions here!) and going to playgroup! We will meet with the school principal this week to talk about the possibility of Isabel starting at the Pre Kindy. We can actually see the pre kindy room from our kitchen – it is that close!

Isabel has come down with tonsillitis…again! This is her third successive bout now. She had her last dose of antibiotics on Wednesday night and woke up with a fever and vomiting on Thursday night. Fortunately, we brought plenty of antibiotics with us and we were able to start her on them straight away. Amy took her to the clinic on Friday and met the two nurses for the first time. It is so comforting to have good health care here. All medications are provided for free! The nurses confirmed that Isabel had tonsillitis again but suggested we come back and see the Doctor on Tuesday to see what we can do about stopping the infection. We have Isabel booked in to have her tonsils removed when we come back to Sydney in July….but we don’t want to have to keep her on antibiotics all that time.

We received some very exciting news early Monday morning! Amy’s sister, Bron and her husband Ben had their first baby! They had a beautiful baby girl and have called her Maya. It took a while for us to get the news because our phone wasn’t connected at that stage. But we were so excited when we heard! It is hard being so far away from family at times like these but we are so grateful for emails and phone calls.

We hope all is going well for you and look forward to hearing from you in the near future! Our postal address is c/- Kalumburu School, PMB 7, Wyndham 6740 and our phone number is 08 9161 4840.

Love Adam, Amy, Isabel & Hudson