Bonjour mes amies,
Start your day with a laugh:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmDf7QP5XFs
In 1971 when we did an epic road trip from Calgary (Alberta, Canada) to the Panama Canal on our way back to Australia, our route included the 300 Km stretch from Nashville Tennessee to Birmingham Alabama. From Birmingham we travelled South to New Orleans Louisiana.
In April 1968 Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. In August 1969, Hurricane Camille, one of the 20th Century’s deadliest hurricanes hit the US States of Mississippi, Alabama and Louisiana. By the time we travelled through the Deep South, the social and physical aftermath of both calamities remained palpably evident.
In Birmingham the Negro (which African Americans were referred to back then) suburbs had a de-facto curfew operating. Whites (‘Pinks’ would be a more accurate description) avoided these areas and as we drove through, we were followed by disbelieving stares (“What them Honkys doin’ round heeya?”)
When we came to no-man’s land we stopped at a small shop which was still open at dusk. As we walked in, the white lady behind the counter asked us what we wanted, as if the black people who preceded us into the shop were invisible. Our body language implying we were quite prepared to wait our turn, revealed our non-local provenance.“Where yoowall from?” We replied “Canada” (less complicated than “Australia”). The hostile stares from the black people in the shop showed us we had broken local protocols by acting in a non-arrogant way, thereby denying them the opportunity to despise us. After making a few purchases, the lady told us, in a mile long drawl that we had “the cutest lil’ol accent” which just goes to show accents are in the ears of the beholder.
Further South, as we entered Louisiana, we turned into a welcoming place with free coffee.
All along the highway there were derelict boarded up farm houses obviously vacant and covered in lianas vines and creepers. Reclaimed by the swamp.
Hurricane Camille had destroyed many houses and extinguished many homes.
All the same, Louisiana had a friendlier atmosphere. The black/white divide was far less evident.
The Band – Across The Great Divide – 1970….
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMPwytwZ3jg
Often when I walk into our shop, me being the kardiya (non-Warlpiri) who tries to manage it, I’m immediately accosted with questions: “are the pies hot?”,“can we get diesel here?”,“do you sell bicycle tubes”. These questions aimed at me are as if the Warlpiri ladies behind the counter are invisible. “Payunumpa Nampijimpa?” (did you ask Nampijimpa?) “she says the pies are still cold” “Yijardu wankaja” (She was telling the truth). Or to the kardiya tourists “We certainly do, these ladies will look after you”
I’m currently savouring Alexis Wright’s 2006 Novel ‘Carpentaria’. I’m consuming it like one does fine liqueur – a tiny glass at a time- I’ve nearly finished it.
Desperance manages to be simultaneously similar and entirely different to Gabriel García Márquez’ Macondo and Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. Also in places the novel makes me think of Salvador Dali paintings especially his famous melting clocks. It’s a roller coaster ride, a torrent of words, a kaleidoscope which slips from reality to surrealism from social comment to farce to hilarity and tragedy to spirituality and superstition, intelligence and ignorance, love and evil, greed, hate and compassion. It’s one of those books which allow the reader to read into it what he or she wishes. As someone who has lived on an Australian Aboriginal community I’ve found it full of pearls of wisdom and little shining metaphorical gems.
At one stage Will Phantom who is being hunted by the helicopter borne heavies from the Mine as well as the Federal constabulary for various acts of sabotage and defiance, manages to slip the net by absconding from Desperance in one of Mozzie Fishman’s convoy ‘rustbuckets’. The police have a problem- not a single photograph of Will can be found. A line-up of Will’s relatives is no help- they don’t even look all the same and all look different. To the kardiya Will Phantom lives up to his name- he is invisible.
Many of the officials, bureaucrats, inspectors, politicians, enforcers, consultants, mentors, instructors, contractors, opportunists, controllers, facilitators, and other visitors to Yuendumu, arrive saturated in opinions and preconceptions, armed with pre-written reports, agendas and recommendations. They talk exclusively to kardiya residents or to each other. They know best.
Yapa are invisible.
….Still a man hears what he wants to hear, and disregards the rest…. Simon and Garfunkel ‘The Boxer’..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QjbG_5UGNE
A bientot,
François