The Barefoot Healer

Wow, the last two days have totally changed my view of Tennant Creek. After 4 weeks of living amongst drunks and street people, and seeing filthy starving clinic in the streets, i finally got to see the strong, powerful side of the place! The Karriji-Kari women's conference was hosted by "Stronger Families" a local organization that functions as a support service for women and children, offering counseling, running a variety of groups such as traditional teaching outings into the bush, healthy cooking... The idea behind the conference was to get all the local organizations together to show the local women what is actually available in the way of services. I originally got in touch with Pamela, the head organizer, because as a short contract nurse here i was feeling pretty frustrated, not knowing who i could refer the people to who needed different help than i could offer them in a short consult in the clinic, and i wanted to know who else was offering what here.... Pamel...

We went camping out at Longreach waterhole, about 270 km's further north this weekend... The two Alan's, nurses from rural and remote, a sort of community nursing team that travels out to the surrounding camps, picked us up at 6.30, way to early for this night owl. They turned up in 2 lge 4 wheel drives, with a large cage trailer which has Alans portable camper tent thing installed on top of it. The sun was just rising in the most ridiculously picturesque manner as we drove up the Stewart highway, and I almost forgave them the uncivilized hour. There was 6 of us all up, me and my housemate fellow nurses Sue and Peta, the 2 Alan's and Emily, a young doctor from Taiwan, who alone out of all of us, had never been camping, let alone in the Ozzie Outback! After about 2 hours we turned off the highway and headed out towards the lake over dusty red dirt roads through the scrub....and numerous confusing turns onto various tracks later, arrived at Alan and Alans favorite camping sp...

What a day...or better two days. It all started when this blond fair skinned woman came into the clinic with her 6 yr old pale, blonde, blue eyed daughter and wanted her to get a flu shot. She had a funny accent and i assumed she was South African, as id seen a few families from there this week... We don't normally give flu shots to kids, so i rang the vaccine centre to double check, and they said that we could give a 6 yr old a flu shot, but that Mum would have to pay for it unless her daughter was aboriginal or had a chronic disease.... I got half way through saying this to Mum, when she went off her nut, screaming at me and calling me a racist white bitch, and how "you white bitches from down South know nothing about being Aboriginal" yadda yadda yadda.... I tried to point out to her that i was part aboriginal myself, and that that no-one would ever suspect that since i am equally pale...but she just went on yelling.... She then went out to the waiting room and ranted...

Life in the outback.... Tennant Creek Raceday was decidedly amusing. Everyone was dressed in their tarted up best...fascinators and short dressed, the men in suits and bright pink shirts... Everyone one from the white community that is, I only saw 2 or three black people. I should really say non indigenous though, there was a good collection of every other race: Maori, Chinese, Asian, Italian, Celts and every mix in-between. I managed to improvise an outfit out of a nightie, some artificial greenery and some hairclips, but the only shoes i had were my boots....and it was a tad cool and windy, so black leggings went with them, grin! Between us, Sue and i managed to lose $20.... My choices actually managed to come last! The 3 dreadlocked hippies are actually from my old home town, Nimbin! They are traveling around Australia, teaching the local kids circus performance arts! How cool is that! On the way home we stopped and filled the car with firewood, still in our pretty dresses, for ano...

Well, I've moved into "Town" with two of the other nurses.. The delightful Peta, who has years of experience as an ED nurse and out bush, and Sue, who is a midwife with a lifetime of stories... I'm learning so much just from listening to the two of them...and it's also good for me to finally have some great older role models. Intelligent, active, interesting women as housemates... We're living in "the manor", a somewhat ramshackle older house up on stilts which overlooks the carpark behind the supermarket. Which is also it seems a central meeting place for the locals. Our "manor" is the only high building, and is surrounded by a nice sturdy colourbond fence, closed with a chain and padlock. so we glide through the crowd in our work vehicle, to the waves and greetings of the locals, and then close the fence and padlock behind us, leaving them sitting out on the curb in front, shouting, gossiping, drinking wine, and generally behaving exactl...

I've been moved into the official nurses quarters...an older 4 bedroom house up on stilts in the middle of town....it's a funny place...the only building up on stilts here, and it looks down directly onto the carpark behind the supermarket...which is where all the black people hang out most of the day and night....whole family groups with Granny, kids and all, just sitting on the ground yacking. And arguing. Loudly. I feel like some kind of white massa looking down on the slaves from my compound....it's actually pretty creepy. I'm a typical hippy who is happier sitting on the ground myself, and usually spend most of my time outdoors if I can...but I wouldn't be welcome to just go and hang out in the carpark. i've never felt so separate just because of my skin color. the divide between white and black here really makes me uncomfortable. I'm not used to people being suspicious of me simply cos I'm a pale redhead...OK, well, much more than the usual you al...

My first day in the clinic.... It's all new and pretty...a lovely open round architectural design, painted white and orange...a friendly sunny waiting room and working BP and blood measuring thingies! All the staff seem friendly and open too... I spend the day working with a lovely midwife called Sue, mainly to help me get a hang of how to use the computer system, which of course is a completely different one to the PCIS system I used on Groote last year... (It sucks big time, the usual committee designed monstrosity with multiple double entries for everything...sigh.) Our first pt is an 18 month old boy...who comes accompanied by his 23 yr old mother and 4 other siblings, including a small baby. They are all filthy. And covered in sores. And dressed in filthy and totally inadequate clothes. The Mum speaks very little english, and most of what Sue is saying to her seems to go straight over her head. We manage to work out that the 18 month old is overdue for his vaccinations, which...

I'm heading up to Tennant Creek to work for an Aboriginal health centre, through a government funded agency called the Remote Area Health Corps, who so far have been incredibly supportive. Ive been given education sessions from everything from Indigenous culture to the kinds of diseases i'm likely to be seeing in remote areas, and they have gone out of their way to make sure i feel supported every step of the way-which is SUCH a nice change from working in a suburban hospital. You really get the feeling your knowledge is appreciated and needed! I was picked up early in the morning by the husband of the lovely RAHC coordinators husband in a big 4 wheel drive with the RAHC emblem on the side, which had ample room for all my bags and boxes. Mick, my alice springs mate, had loaded me with even more boxes of food, carefully zip locked bags of tea, sunscreen and a dubious tube of lye clear to combat the desert scourge of scabies. And after picking up the all important large takeaway...

Well, I've escaped suburbia and headed back outback for another nursing adventure... this time out in the desert in Central Australia. First stop was Alice springs, to have a day or two of R&R with my mate Mick. Mick has been working on the community mental health team here for the last few months...pretty scary...but he seems to have been enjoying it...and boy was I glad to see him and be enveloped in one of his big bearhugs at the airport! After he dropped me and my ridiculous amount of luggage off at his flat (note to self: In future do NOT pack when you re feeling anxious and pannicky!), I headed off down to Todd mall in search of a coffee. Alice is truly an experience. I'm used to big cities, have lived overseas and have worked with people from many different cultures.....but here the divide between Black and White is So large..... Todd mall is an outside shopping strip, filled with cafes and shops full of brightly colored Aboriginal art printed on everything from clo...