Downs and Ups in Ceduna - the edge of the Nullarbor

My first impression is that Ceduna is  a sad and tough place. There seems to be a big alcohol problem here. An  aboriginal couple have been yelling at each other in their own language all afternoon, even raising stones (but not throwing them) outside the barbed wire of the caravan park.  It was sad to see and even sadder when I went into the  town and sensed the tangle of feelings there.  In the café I was greeted with friendliness but an aboriginal woman and baby with an adolescent girl got a rather wary “What can I do for you then darl?” Maybe it was my imagination. The woman ordered a pizza very exotic to my ears – crab, mussels and something else and it was happily supplied.  But everywhere there seemed a tension bordering on disgust. Aboriginal people looked the other way when I passed.  I went into a charity shop to find an apron (and did, it was a dollar, a bargain) and noticed a sign indicating that only shoes and clothes would be “put away”  It was explained to me that a curtain behind the counter was full of things selected but not paid for.  “We keep them a fortnight and then they go back on the shelves and we don’t put away big things”  To have to save up to buy second hand clothes suggests poverty indeed.

Feeling a bit  dispirited and slightly ashamed of being a caravan person with butterfish and cauliflower in the fridge I went on to the indigenous art and language centre and was uplifted by some really lovely paintings. I got into conversation with Lynnette who runs the language side of things. Herself aboriginal, she is passionate about  the centre and the vision she had for the whole place.  She told me about Maralinga and how the nuclear testing had wrecked whole communities by bundling them them off their land and how the authorities had neglected to get everyone out before the detonations.  Even now she reckons the wind brings the dust down to Ceduna and contributes to the high cancer rate.   Lynette is a woman of many parts.  She goes round Ceduna after work in a van to gather up the drunks and get them somewhere safe and warm for the night.  

Before we left for the drive across the desert we revisited the centre thinking we might get a small painting.  We each had a favourite but disliked each other’s and eventually settled on a dot painting involving a very blue waterhole.  The artist was working in the studio room and came out rather shyly to meet us.  She’d had a painting bought by a gallery in Switzerland, she said.  We felt lucky to get ours.  We had lunch at the training café in the back of the building,  Tasty potato with coleslaw rather surprisingly served in a MacDonald style box.  Apparently MacDonalds and KFC are coming to Ceduna soon and the centre is providing essential experience for aboriginal young people to put on their job applications.

It was cheering to see all this going on and I felt very happy to have been received with such warmth by these good people who spent ages telling us things we wanted to know.  Pam even gave me a twig from a medicine tree.  “What does it cure?”  I asked.”Everything” she said “Drink it like tea.”  And I shall.