Nearly a whole dry season has passed and I've only spend one night camping! Although I'm nearly totally recovered now, I was out of action for camping during most of the dry!
Coming off my bike has been quite a setback in that respect. The fracture to my T4 appears to have healed well and the wrist bones have set as they should although my left hand is considerably weaker than it was before the accident and I still get a few aches and pains but it's only been 12 weeks so I reckon by next year I'll be fine.
A little while back I caught up with a friend I've known since kindergarten and haven't seen for about 20 years. I nearly cried to see him still living, too many old friends are all finished up now! I think a lot of the bravado of our youth has been washed away. I'm sure he's survived harder times than me but I still felt that connection that is sometimes talked about when people who share escape from a similar peril. I hope we meet again as we trudge this new path....
(P.S. How bizarre! If you want to know what my God is like, here's a great example! In the previous post I absolutely slammed the friends of my youth and criticized them savagely! Pledging that I never wanted to see any of them again... then what happened? An old mate turns up out of the blue. Just like that! OK OK I'm sorry!)
It's a good thing there's plenty to do around town at this time of year. A couple of weeks ago I attended a Stolen Generations family day in the park and who should turn up and play but Archie Roach! For FREE! His song Little by Little is such a great recovery song! Sorry I can't find it on the tube.
Over the past week we've been out every night catching every free performance we could. The drumming has been absolutely awesome! The highlight though was a performance we paid to see called The Arrival. It was a haunting story taken from the picture book by Shaun Tan, about a man fleeing persecution and portrayed through still images projected on a huge screen. The images were accompanied by an amazing ensemble of all kinds of instruments violins, trombone, drums, and various other objects to create sound effects performed by Ben Walsh and the Orkestra of the Underground. It was awesome and emotionally challenging particularly considering the current situation for Asylum Seekers in Australia.
Check out some of the images in Shaun Tan's book The Arrival HERE.
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| The boys behind the wire enjoyed Tods playing but really they just wanted to have a go themselves. |
On Saturday arvo a couple of weeks ago I had the privilege of meeting Greens candidates and awesome song men,Warren H Williams and Tod Williams when they came to visit Asylum Seekers at the Darwin Airport Lodge. Here's a song they whipped up in the morning at Parap Markets and then performed in the afternoon outside the DAL.
Warren H Williams and Tod Williams performing "I Want to be Free"
Then on this Saturday just passed Sam the kids and I joined about 80 other cyclists for a ride along Nightclif foreshore to a spot near the pool where we gathered to listen to the director of the Edmund Rice Centre, Mr. Phil Glendenning. Mr Glendenning has done a lot of work monitoring the welfare of Asylum Seekers who have been returned to dangerous countries. The outcomes have been grim. Having heard this man speak so honestly and with such authority I am now utterly convinced that it is totally necessary for everyone with any sense of humanity to speak against the current political agenda which demonizes Asylum Seekers and punishes Refugees!
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| Phil Glendenning speaks to a crowd in the NT about Human Rights |
Now we're just a couple of weeks away from the Federal Election. Rumor has it that the majority of the population of this country are prepared to vote for a party who don't give a rats arse about anyone but the Super Rich but that's OK so long as they save us from the women and children who may wash up hungry and scared on our shores! If the Coalition get the senate then they will have full power to approve any BS policy their sociopathic benefactors might concoct... Looks like we'll have front row seats for a national decent from a semi enlightened nation into a hoard of self serving savages?
