More photos for this blog will be posted in the next few days.
Last Wednesday started off with a bang when we discovered that our cabin door was latched from the outside. At 6am on my only sleep-in day this semester. I'm not completely sure why all of the cabins have exterior locks, but they turned out pretty handy for some pranksters. As our cabins are on 2 meter stilts, we only had 2 window exits onto the front porch. By the time we popped out a screen, I was awake enough to investigate other prank possibilities. In the girls' bathrooms the showerheads were missing so I went over the the boys' to borrow, and discovered that there was green dye in the showerheads. We decided to leave them for the boys to experience. I headed down to the Centre to get some breakfast and found that all 40-odd pairs of spare shoes that students leave down at the Centre were lined up one by one, toe to heel in a meandering loop down one side of the building. Both of the fridges were 'dressed up' with clothes magneted to them and hats with wigs set on the top. Also, the bell that is used to call mealtimes and classes was missing. It later turned out to be strung high between two trees on our driveway. Best of all, I was told to walk up to the carpark. All three vans' tires were removed- they were sitting up on blocks. The tires were on top of the carpark roof. A little later, the site manager turned on his ceiling fan and flour covered the room.
By the end of the day, I had learned how to put tires on (quickly too, we had to leave for a field lecture). It took a week to get the bell back.
Just a few days ago was homestay weekend for the students here. We were set up in twos, threes and fours and matched up with local families. I was assigned to 'the stained glass lady' with my friend Nate and another student, Sandra. The couple, Christina and Dermot, were very nice, smart, fun people. Christina is indeed the stained glass lady, teaching 5 classes a week to community members out of the studio behind their house. Dermot is a consultant on Aboriginal-Environmental issues, especially working to allow the management of Parks and protected areas by Aboriginal peoples. Neither was originally Australian, but I would trade this funky couple for any other Australian family. They loved to talk after dinner, once telling us how they embarked on a 3 month sailing trip to Indonesia with another couple, each couple bringin a baby under the age of 2. On a 30 foot sailing boat. In any case, we went on a few hikes and spent a fair amount of time relaxing with books and 'playing' in the glass studio. Christina also makes glass beads and after giving us a tutorial with the torch, she said we should feel free to 'play' to our hearts' content. I ended up with 15 or 20 glass beads and a small stained glass piece by the end of the weekend. I didn't really want to go back to a cabin full of girls and cooking for 30 after the weekend, but here I am.
My beads!I've been keeping busy with interviews and distributing questionnaires for my Local Foods research project.
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