TALES FROM AN OUTBACK TEACHER
Bill ‘Swampy’ Marsh is one of Australia’s most prolific storytellers, with 15 books under his belt. The most recent is a collection of memorable tales from teachers placed at Outback stations and remote communities. Unsurprisingly, the Territory is in the
Alot of the stations used to contract casual jobs out to blokes who wanted to do work during the mustering season.
To that end I organised a course to teach six younger fellas stockman skills, and it was during one demonstration that my horse fell and I came off, hit my head and had to be flown to Adelaide.
I was very lucky I didn’t die because I was on life-support in Royal Adelaide Hospital for nine days, with less than a 20 per cent chance of survival — or so the doctors tell me — and then I was in a coma for three months.
I later heard that after my accident some of the elders and three of the ladies I’d got to know quite well sang for me and held a ceremony to make me better.
I had to stay in Adelaide for nearly a year while I recovered from the accident. So if you can imagine, there I was at the age of 31 having to learn how to talk, eat, drink, read, write; the whole lot, all over again. But during a twoweek break between being in the Royal Adelaide and going into the new rehabilitation centre, I took the chance to whiz back to Ti Tree to get some of the things I’d left behind.
When I arrived back in town I saw one of the elders, Archie, walking down the street. Archie and I were good friends. We used to talk for a long time. So I went over to him.
“G’day, Archie,” I said. “It’s really good to be back in Ti Tree.”
But when I went over to shake his hand, he wouldn’t look at me. He just sighed and shook his head.
So I said, “I’m only here for a few days, then I have to go back to Adelaide.”
He seemed a bit happier at that. Then, when I added, “But hopefully I’ll be back early next year; back to work,” he slapped his leg and said, “Oh yukata,” which means “shit”. I said, “What’s wrong?” He then looked at me and said, “They’re gonna call me a silly old man ’n’ not listen to me at …” and he mentioned the communities where I used to run the courses. As it turned out, after I’d had the accident the people out in these communities were asking Archie when I was going to come back.
I said, “Gee, that’s nice of them to have been so concerned about me.”
“No it’s not,” said Archie. I said, “Why?”
Archie pointed toward the airstrip and said, “I was out gettin’ some berries ’n’ I seen ’em put you on the doctor plane ’n’ you was proper crook.”
They used to have a medical clinic in Ti Tree. He said, “So I ask ’em at the clinic, ‘What’s happen to Richard?’ ‘n’ they tell me you was no good.”
I then explained to Archie how I was lucky to be alive because, if it wasn’t for the sister at the clinic, the Flying Doctor plane and the doctor in Alice Springs, I’d be kumanji, which means dead.
So that was all OK. Then later that day I went to the clinic and said to the sister, “Did Archie come in here once and ask about me?”
She said, “No, not just once but several times. The day after your accident he came in the morning to get some tablets for his wife and he asked, ‘Is Richard in hospital?’”
She’d replied, “Yes, Archie, he’s gone to hospital.”
He said, “Can you phone the hospital? I wanta talk to him.”
She’d said, “No, Archie, you can’t talk to him.”
She used the medical term to say that I was in a coma. But he didn’t seem to understand what a coma was, so she just said, “Richard’s asleep.”
That was OK, so he came back that afternoon and he said, “Can you phone him for me?”
“No, he’s asleep.” “Oh, still asleep.”
Apparently a couple of days later, when he was coming back from the shop, he knocked on the clinic door and said, “Can I talk to Richard today?”
So she’d rung through to Adelaide and checked. “No, Archie, he’s still asleep.”
He said, “What, him asleep again?”
She said, “Yes, he hasn’t woken up yet.”
On Friday, the doctor came into the Ti Tree clinic and when Archie took his wife down there for a regular check-up, he’d apparently again asked the sister, “Can I talk to Richard?”
She said, “No, he’s still asleep.”
He said, “Oh, that’s a whole week now.”
Then on Monday he knocked on the door and asked the same question. “No,” she’d said. “He’s still asleep.”
Archie said, “That’s 10 days, sister. He’s not sleepin’. He’s kumanji.”
As I said, the word kumanji means ‘dead’.
They were still apparently asking about me out in the communities, so Archie had got together with a couple of the other elders, Clem and Douglas, and they called a big meeting where they told everyone I was kumanji. So that was that. They all thought I was dead. And now, all of a sudden, I’d come back alive.
Anyhow, there I was, standing right in front of him. So Archie just shook his head and he said, “Richard, now you come back alive, they’re not gonna believe me about nothin’ no more.”
So my coming back really threw a spanner in the works. They didn’t know how to cope with it because, once someone’s dead, they never come back to life. Never. Once you’re dead, you’re dead. Then after I did eventually return, I had to explain to them what had actually happened and the procedure I’d had to go through to get well again. And even then it took a long time for them to accept the situation and for me to win their confidence back, and once more be accepted back into their culture.
So that’s one story. Now, the other one happened when I was the adult educator in Ti Tree. One day the police sergeant said to me, “Richard, can you help Jimmy the Tracker with his reading and writing so that he can help out with some of the administration paperwork?”
I knew Jimmy quite well because I used to teach his son back when I had the Year 6-7 class. Anyhow, Jimmy was very reluctant. He wasn’t making much of an effort. He wasn’t getting involved. He had a book of police procedures and he was having trouble understanding them, so I said, “What’s wrong, Jimmy?”
He got angry then and dropped the book and went outside. I gave him time to calm down before I went out to join him. He was sitting there having a smoke. He said, “I wish I wasn’t a blackfella.” I said, “Pardon?” He said, “Us blackfellas can’t do nothin’. You whitefellas can do everythin’.”
So we got talking about his job and I pointed to the book of police procedures and I said, “Look, Jimmy, the story is all in there. You just have to learn to read it.”
I said, “It’s just like you being a tracker,” and I pointed to the muru — the scrub — in the distance and said, “Jimmy, look at it this way; when someone’s out there in the scrub and they’re missing or they’re hiding, how do you know what to do? What’s the procedure? How do you know where to start looking for them? How do you find them?”
Jimmy thought about it for a moment, then he looked at me with a cunning grin and said, “Richard, the story’s all out there. You just gotta learn how to read it.”
I held up the book and said, “Well I can read this book, but you can read the landscape. No one person is better than the other. I’ll prove it. Let’s make a deal.”
At that time my job was to work with people in the different communities and I was having a lot of trouble learning their Warlpiri language. And, of course, if I couldn’t understand what they’re saying or doing, I couldn’t be effective in my job. I said, “Righto, Jimmy, I see you for two hours every day, all right?” He nodded, yes. “So how about for the first oneand-a-half hours I’ll help you with my language and for the last half-hour you help me with yours?” “OK,” he said. And that’s when I started to get somewhere with teaching Jimmy the Tracker how to read and write better. And he started teaching me the Warlpiri language and a little about their culture. And to be honest, I think I got a lot more out of it than he ever did.
It's really good to be back in Ti Tree