Woofers and probably Tweeters too

WOOFERS in Glen Innes

I met some Woofers last year near Glen Innes, along the New England Highway in New South Wales, at an organic farm and working ranch that also hosts tourists who want to fossick for sapphires.  Both of the Woofers were Irish, she quite blond and he a shaggy red-head — a “ranga”, as the Prime Minister likes to call herself.  They were working their way around Australia, helping on farms and properties that needed willing workers.  Australia has a long history of encouraging workers to come to the Antipodes, willing to put muscle to the plow, the brewery, the factory.

Woofers are Willing Workers on Organic Farms, an international movement, started in the UK in the 1970′s. These young people may be working their way around the world, but they are also sharing their expertise with those with whom they work as well as bringing innovative organic farming practices back to their home country. Since this ranch had been productive for a century, they had a history to document and new practices to employ.

Homestead at Glen Innes

The two Irish Woofers were enthusiastic and full of information, donning their gumboots to take two kids out to dig though pea gravel found in a stream bed for tiny saphires less than 1/2 the size of your little fingernail.  In fact, my two 10-year-old charges were happy to don old gumboots from the muddy pile under the porch, dig through the gravel for 3 hours (checking each other for leaches from time to time), and finally shower off the grit (and leaving their bits of soiled wet clothing behind as kids are wont to do).

Two amazingly bouncy kids I’d brought to the sapphire mines were quiet now, writing songs on notepads during the long drive home, quiet as they imagined their heart’s exposure:  “No one listens to me” went one. “On the road to the sapphires” went the other.  Heartfelt, heart-piercing.  Both rather like the earnest Woofers I’d just met, making their way around the world, sharing what they knew with people willing to listen.

For more information about Woofers and fossicking in the New England area of New South Wales, check out these websites:  Tourist Information and Willing Workers on Organic Farms.

Where is the toilet?

Warning!

Desensitizing training:  Toilet.  Toilet.  Toilet.  My great-grandmother rolls in her grave that I’d be so common, so coarse, as to speak the word toilet.

Never used in polite conversation in the US.  Never. The pretentious “Ou est la toilet?” That, possibly.  But, “Where’s the toilet?”  Never.

“May I use the ladies room?”  ”The ladies?”  ”The restroom?”  ”The powder room?”  Slightly downscale: “The lavatory?”  ”The bathroom?”   And if you know your hostess to have travelled to Europe — “The WC?” or “The loo?”  But never, “May I use the toilet?”  Never.

My mouth goes into something like my great-grandmother would call a moue.  Pursed.  Shrinking shoulders.  Stomach tensed.  “Toilet.”  Cue: eye roll.

In Australia, the word “toilet” is used in polite company.  Perhaps not in our grand parents’ company, but certainly in today’s world.

To be frank (but not too frank — great-grandmother, grave-rolling…), the toilet is not always located anywhere near the lavatory or bathroom in Australia.  It may be entirely separate from bathing facilities.  Even separate from the sink. Bathe.  Cleanse.  As separate from toilet.  Unless one has a bidet.  But rarely in America.  (Too many options for pleasure in nether-dom).

Downstairs in our Australian semi-detached townhouse, built just 6 years ago, the toilet stands alone.  One cannot wash one’s hands in the toilet.  One can only excrete, flush, and exit.  One has to walk across a small hall (other guests politely ignore the exodus from toilet to wash basin), enter the laundry where there is an enormous laundry sink, and cleanse one’s hands.  I’ve tried to devise ways to hide the laundry from the sink function, including burning an incense-laden candle in the laundry, to adding the sink function to the toilet — all to no avail.

To be fair, there is a device one can add to the back of the toilet, making the tank into a basin.  It is costly (more than $500), and one has to straddle the toilet (that word again) in order to access the basin/tank at the rear of the device.

No Aussie seems fussed by this arrangement, but my American/Puritan sensibilities are offended by, first the blatancy of the need to wash one’s hands (and the awful pause if one doesn’t cross the hall to wash), and then the indiscretion of having to enter and exit in full view of the lounge (living) room.

Our Puritan fathers would rather not acknowledge we have bodies, nor concede that  those bodies have needs that must be met.  We Americans, as their descendants, also have a need to avoid mentioning, or even acknowledging, bodily functions in polite company.  But how to find a place to “go,” as it were, is more a more delicate negotiation.

Only euphemisms will suffice for us:  bathroom, restroom, ladies room, lavatory, loo.  Short of clutching one’s nether regions like a child, short of using the dreaded word “toilet,”  we scan and search for appropriateness.

I cannot remember the word “toilet” being used in my childhood.  My mother would have cringed — although many things made her cringe.  Certainly the word “toilet” would have shocked her carefully learned Victorian sensibilities with which she struggled to train me.

I’m getting used to using the word “toilet,” although each usage makes me pause and consider the alternatives.  But pairing of the desperation of timing and the puzzled looks when I ask for the “ladies room” has pushed me to ask the unmentionable, the unthinkable:  “May I use the toilet?”

Aussie-isms

Lichen

Aussie-isms are those terms frequently used in Australia, but not found in contemporary American English.  They have me stopping conversation in its tracks and pulling out my little black Moleskine notebook.  “Wait, wait wait.  Go back.  What does that mean?”

My Australian friends are used to me now as I’ve accumulated quite a list of Aussie-isms.  American English and Australian English have a great deal in common, but also have dissimilarities that underscore the interesting subtleties of different cultures.

Today’s word, boys and girls, is “rort.”*  If you are an American with those hard “r’s” we insist on, the true Aussie-ism sounds like “roaht.”  Let the second “r” be slightly unformed and morph into an “ah” sound, and you’ll get it right.

“Rort” is almost always used with “the system,” as in “to rort the system.”  And it is often, but not always, used to refer to politicians who rort the system.  Rorting is sly and scheming — knowingly using the political system or a governmental system for one’s own gain.  Playing it, we might say.  And yes, “rort” is also a noun, as in “pulling off a rort.”

You can see that you don’t have to be a politician to be able to rort the system, but that even the best politicians have a wont to rort, it would seem.  Or possibly, it is their handlers and tacticians who are adept at rorting, so those at the top can remain above and seemingly oblivious to the nefarious rort.  Of course, one doesn’t rise to the top without being an adept, shape-shifter, without coming up the ranks, and without knowing how to apply a rort or spot one from a mile away.

Rort is a particularly timely addition to your vocabulary, as this weekend will find most Australians at the voting booth.  Elections have been called by Prime Minister Julia Gillard for August 21st.  Voting is mandatory in Australia with fines in place for those who do not cast ballots.

Polling stations are being set up at local town halls and community centers and poll workers have been trained.  Preferences and priorities are being mulled over at this very moment.

This year would have been an election year in any case, as the prime minister serves for three years, but a shift in Labour party politics had former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd stepping down earlier this year in favor of Julia Gillard.  Gillard, the first female prime minister in Australia’s history, must have seemed more electable to the party bosses than Rudd, who had somehow lost traction with his party.  He’d taken on a fight with the extremely powerful mining industry over fair taxes rather late in the game (and in an election year) and suffered for it.

Blissfully, the campaigning process is just six weeks long.  Aussies are already sick of the incessant ads, but as an American, I can only wish for such a swift process in the US rather than the interminable two years of sinking to the lowest common denominator (not to mention the treasure squandered on pollsters and advertising).

Not surprisingly, new programs, that will remain unfulfilled promises, are pulled from mysterious places and waved about like newborn babies.  One senses that each of these will provide a new built-in opportunities to rort.

Gillard’s opponent for the top spot is the Liberal party’s candidate (confusingly “conservative” in American terms) Tony Abbott, known for appearing in his “budgie smugglers.”  But that, boys and girls, is an Aussie-ism for another day.

*Just a small note for those traveling in New Zealand:  There the term “rort” has a sexual connotation and has less to do with a system and more with an act.

I slept with a dog tonight.

I miss my furry family when I’m in Australia.  They stay state-side under my husband’s loving hand.  I walk the dog beach in search of a stolen dog smooch, a patted head, a long-tongued kiss.

Kelpie in the surf at Tallow Beach

I talk to people about their dogs.  “May I take a picture of your dog?” I ask.  Sure!  And I get a short dog-history from people I’d never talk to if I didn’t admire their furry companion.  “This kelpie is a beach dog.  Born here, raised on the beach.”  I think the message is that this kelpie, bred to work sheep and cattle, isn’t nervous around people as many are.

If I approached a stranger, admiring their sarong or a hat, I’d never get past “hello!”.  Scary woman on the beach!  But admire a dog, and now I’m a bestie.  Drink, dinner, a conversation about dogs?  Of course!

Some dogs leap and chase balls furiously on the beach and into the surf, as my furry companion tonight does.  Some trot sedately with their owners, eschewing balls and childish doggish things.  Some are dignified, some watch the surf for their human companions, some dash for others’ balls, and some bounce in the surf, ball-less.

Inka, my friend’s little labradoodle, joneses for thrown balls.  My arm aches and shoulder twinges.  Inka doesn’t care.  She’ll trot beside me, in front of me, only distracted by other curly creatures that carry their tail up and over.  Poodles and labradoodles require a sniff and a doggie greeting.  Others are greeted with a snap, yipe!  Get your own!   Sniff along elsewhere!  Inka fascinates all the dogs, but is quite selective in her own choices for friends.  We like this in a girl.  Ball, please.

Two dogs after one ball

Contrary to Inka’s very well-behaved life at home, with me, she sleeps on my bed, cuddles on the couch, and lives a coddled life.  We chat and play, and I pet her every time I’m asked.  Just for a day or two.  I hand her back, reluctantly, to her own person, and forage again on the beach for a little dog-time.

I don’t tell my own little furries that I’ve slept with another.  What happens in Australia, stays in Australia.

With all things possible, I walked on the sky.

Walking on Clous

The tide has been low at my favorite time of day to walk.  And when the tide is low, and the sun lowers over the banksia and bottle bush dunes, the water glazes the beach and leaving just enough moisture to reflect the sky.

A late afternoon walk presents a gift to take in with all my senses, after a day, between the storms, and before a glass of wine with the news.  A fall, lingering sky.  A wise sky, lighting the pock-marked crone of a beach with just enough peach to remind you of her once-smooth skin and youthful beauty.

All things are possible under this sky, walking on clouds on the beach in the afternoon before the rain.

A Useful Epithet

Rubberlip Morwong.  I hadn’t been searching for something to call the guy who cut me off in the traffic circle, but now, turning the name this way and that, I reckon I’ve found a useful epithet.  Or a descriptor for the sales clerk unable to hide his distain for my simple, albeit American, request.  I could imagine applying it to a recalcitrant supplier or a particularly dull client.  Rubberlip Morwong.  Perfect.

Rubberlip Morwong.  Just the syllables have a ring to them.  Even just plain Morwong has its epithetical possibilities.

It turns out that the Rubberlip Morwong has a serious side.  They don’t all do a tap routine along the bar at happy hour.  No, undersized RM’s have been seized at the Sydney Fish Markets in a recent raid.  Underaged drinking at the umbrellaed tables, hiding out from demanding and marauding gulls?  After-hours dance club and bar at the Fish Market?  All possible, in my world.

The fish seized at the Sydney Fish Markets were under the 30 cm (11 in.) limit.  Harvesting undersized fish limits future breeders and quickly reduces fisheries in the name of greed.  What morwongs would do such a short-sighted thing!

Grey Morwongs, commonly called Rubberlip Morwongs, are in a class of white-fleshed fish like snapper and cod.  Their typical length is around 80 cm (2.5 ft) and weigh in at 4 kg (9 lbs).  Night feeders on crustaceans and invertebrates, morwongs inhabit the southern Australian continental shelf from Brisbane on the east coast around the southern edge to Perth on the west, around the island of Tasmania and in the waters off New Zealand.

Whence the seized?  They were donated to OzHarvest, an organization that collects unused food to distribute to charities.  There.  Profit on the undersized denied, but the resource utilized at the same time.

When I looked Rubberlip Morwongs up on the web, I found that the common name is now Grey Morwong.  I had to ask myself, is “rubberlip” a vestige of an earlier era, on in which derogatory names were commonly applied and used with impunity?  Would I be violating a PC code of some sort if I used the morwong’s common name?  I easily and unknowingly trip over Aussie-isms and have been alternately encouraged and chastised by different groups of friends over the same words.  Still, I like the Rubberlip Morwong’s name.  You could affectionally call your best friend a morwong, or perhaps even “Rubberlip.”  Versatile, effective.

Just having Rubberlip Morwong tucked in my back pocket, waiting for the perfect opportunity to employ its awesome weaponry, is good enough for me.

More info on Rubberlip Morwongs, now also referred to as the Grey Morwong?  http://www.sea-ex.com/fishphotos/morwong.htm. or http://www.dpi.nsw.gov.au/fisheries/recreational/saltwater/sw-species/rubber-lip-or-grey-morwong

Note:  I was first introduced to the amazing Rubberlip Morwong in an article in the Sydney Morning Herald, Saturday, March 12, 2010, titled “Market Raid Nets Undersized Catch” by Jessica Mahar.

Back Down Under

Twice-a-day swim at Rushcutters Bay, Sydney

My winter-softened toes gasp at my enthusiasms — blisters festooned with band-aids, layered one over the other, sandals rotated to provide new pressure points.  I’ve washed the grime of a 30-hour day’s travel from my skin in an overlong shower, blown my hair dry and “put on my face” as my mother would say.

I’ve tramped up the hill through Darlinghurst to Elizabeth Street to a favorite boutique, and then across and down through the Cross to my favorite Potts Point Bookshop and found a new Nicholas Rothwell to read.  Just up Macleay Street, at the Potts Point Deli, I loaded lovely buttery Sicilian olives and marinated artichoke hearts, a short baguette and a soft Kings Island Blue into my carry bag.

I gasped at the price of tulips ($35 a bunch!) and retreated to my favorite Bloomy’s flower shop on Bayswater for some equally pricy hyacinths from Tasmania and with the owners, Janet and Nelson, had a chat about global warming as their clever fingers made wedding arrangements with mandarine-colored tiger lilies and sage lambs ears — textures and colors alive in celebration.

And now I’m back in Darlinghurst, full circle, on my daughter’s terrace under cover from the warm rain, my skin soaking up the air thick with moisture, cheese on baguette, a pile of pits the only remnants left from archies and olives, dozing over Rothwell.  Tomorrow, we’ll walk some more — down to Rushcutters Bay and back again.

Content, at peace. I’m back in Oz, my home under the heart.

Absolutely Positively

On a lazy March Saturday afternoon, we turned my daughter’s boat-like decade-old Mercedes into a side street to check out the new Donna Hay store.  (40 Holdsworth St, Woollahra NSW 2025, (02) 9328 6555, www.donnahay.com.au)  The neighborhood is charming and the side street offers an alluring view into old and beautifully rehabbed properties that now shout cha-ching!

Donna Hay’s store, though a tasteful complement to the neighborhood, was a disappointment.  The one interesting thing in the store was the budding branch in the window.  The rest of the store looks like a stylish magazine spread or a cookbook page — staged white on white with just the hint of the signature robin’s egg blue and a small accent of taupe.  Almost everything, truly.  The overwhelming whiteness reminded me of a woman who came to my booth at a wholesale show some years ago and told me she was opening a shop in which everything would be green.  She’d buy what I had to offer in green, too.  I wondered how long she was open for business, in her green shop, or who her customer base was?  Donna went for white and robin’s egg blue. Donna already has a customer base, many of whom will come to see her store, like we did. I wonder how long Donna will be retailing, too.

In the basics of retailing, or Retail 101, as I like to think of it, one brings taste to a customer’s hands, and those point-of-sale displays? — don’t let them leave without buying something, anything.  Get those customers on a mailing list, and give them a reason to come back to the store again and again.  Simple, no?

That afternoon, we came ready to spend a little bit or maybe more if we found something nifty.  And we did buy the new Donna Hay cookbook, which we could have gotten anywhere, and left with an insipid, custardy, bad rice pudding, ordinary taste in our mouths.  You can see that the same formula that was applied to the successful magazine and the successful cookbook series was employed in the store too.  But somehow, two dimensional acuity does not translate to three-dimensional success.  There is a stylized magazine there, but no experiential substance.  Too bad.  What a wasted opportunity.

Dogs in Woollahra, Sydney

On the way back to our car, however, walking gingerly over heaved sidewalks and beside delightful old gardens, we did stumble on a fabulous sign put up by the City of Woollahra.  One that leaves no doubt about its intentions:  No dogs on this pitiful excuse for a lawn.  Absolutely, positively, totally, unequivocally, unambiguously, without a doubt — no dogs.  I guess the city of Woollahra doesn’t want any dogs there, huh?  I don’t know about you, but the small flame of a rebellious teenager flickered for a moment, wishing I had a dog to bring to their park — in the dead of night — to leave a small message.  To be environmentally conscious, of course, I’d wrap the gift in a plastic bag and tie a pretty ribbon it and place it at the bottom of the sign.  Almost irresistible — absolutely, positively.

Expectations

Sunset on the pools at Ruby Gorge, NT

A year ago, an article appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald about a creative camp, run by a naturalist and an award-winning artist, in a stunning setting several hours outside Alice Springs in the Red Center of Australia.  The reports were glowing.  A friend asked if I’d seen the article. Was I keen to go?  She’s a hoot — wonderfully innovative and creative. With her along, it couldn’t be other than lots of fun.  We signed up.

In the intervening year, economies shrank, but the creative camp still loomed large.  What bliss it would be to just think about art for a week, to do art for a week, to be fed and taught and organized, to enjoy the company of other artists in an exceptional setting.

I tried to keep my mind open and free of expectations, but I realize in retrospect, that I did harbor some, hidden in the far reaches of my psyche and formed from experiences over 15 years getting to know some wonderful Australians.

I expected to meet some interesting charismatic people.  I did.  The campers were a fantastic lot — funny, engaging, talented, with life-experiences worth sharing.  If we hadn’t been admonished not to talk about our life-experiences other than at Ruby Gap, we might have learned more, engaged more.  I learned heaps from each of them, though, and couldn’t have been more delighted to be in their company.

I expected the landscape to be fascinating.  It was amazing.  Folds and ribbons, layers and tilts, determined plants in the face of extreme drought and momentary flood.  Wind-prints and footprints in the sand and sudden pools and reeds in a dry river.  Last tides frozen in rock and ghost gums rising from rock in solitary cool defiance.

Ghost gum with Bitter Springs Dolomite

I expected the camp leaders to enjoy people.  If you aren’t fascinated by people and their stories, their talents, and hope to learn as much from them as they learn from you, why operate a hospitality-based business?

Not only were our hosts clearly not interested in those who attended camp, their mercurial and irritated posture indicated that they wanted to be left alone, free from the demands we might inadvertently make on them.

I found this such a curious long-term posture, because in reality, those, like us, who participated in such adventures become the marketing voices of the camp’s future.  If the owners didn’t naturally enjoy people and want to engage with them, at least, in their own self-interest, they should have faked it.  It was a gig, after all.

I expected the hosts to be cordial, not moody, angry nor charismatically challenged.  Their personalities set the tone for the camp and colored each day.  None of us was spared a jab or disparaging remark over the course of a week in the desert.

Sharp, impatient, derisive, and sometimes profane retorts became the norm from our camp leaders.  It doesn’t take much to keep people away.  Steering clear?  You bet!  By day three, each artist retreated, wary and remote.  By day six, we’d rallied again and so had they, but the damage was done.  Opportunities and possibilities lost like puffs of smoke.  Gone.  Done.

I expected the leaders to have organized our time — a hike in the morning before tea, perhaps, and a tactic or still-life or master class after lunch.  We did have 3 hikes in 7 days, to be accurate.

And, true, we did have a three techniques demonstrated.  The first, oil pastels and water-based media, resulted in a temper tantrum from the owner about returning 150 pastels to precisely the same boxes in the same order they’d arrived in.  The joy of exploration quickly evaporated as people struggled to find the correct combinations and then drifted away from the atmospherics.

Algae in pools on the Hale, Ruby Gap

I expected that there would be enough art materials for everyone to explore the techniques presented, although most of us brought what we wanted to work with.  We were often told that there were not enough art supplies for everyone to participate.  I wondered if they weren’t expecting 8 people?  What did they have in mind?

Our first day in camp, our creative camp leader showed us the art materials and their place in the storage bin.  She pulled out prayer flags created and hung around camp by a previous group and searched for her favorite.  There were three blank flags and eight of us, so the group flag exercise was limited to three “if we wanted to.”

This turned out to be a theme:  supplies were limited, but we could do it “if we wanted to.”  We could do anything with the art materials if we wanted to, but if we asked to explore one technique or another, the tone of the response was irritation.  The good will and hopes of the camp ebbed with each push/pull of invitation and irritation.

The art bin was stored between camps.  “We don’t look at it between camps.”  As we had dug the last of the glue out of the last two glue sticks, the next two camps were out of glue-luck. But they could “do whatever they wanted to” — except glue things together with glue-sticks, make prayer flags, use good paper, make lino-prints.  Because there won’t be enough for everyone.

We began to work in pods, nurturing and caring for each other, avoiding the hosts.  I walked and drew each day, returning for tea.  Except for the meals, our hosts became peripheral.  Who wants to engage with people who treat you as if you are misbehaving school children?

Ruby Gap on the Hale River, NT

To be fair, there was a plus side.  The logistics were well-organized.  The vehicles were well-kept and their spaces and cavities creatively employed.  Our swags were clean and comfortable.  The meals were healthy and tasty.  While we were chastised for drinking too much wine (and did any beer drinkers switch to wine?  shame!), there was enough for 2 small glasses each night (and 2+ mugs for the hosts).

It’s not enough, though, to bring people to a remote place, to say “you can do whatever you want” but to be angry and combative if one asks to use certain materials, if one asks where something should be returned, if one asks a question or offers help.

I tried to greet each day without expectations and with joy, but I struggled to remain positive, to find that joy, to find the amusing incident.  Defense and protection are at odds with openness and delight.

Over the weeks since my return, I’ve replayed the week.  Could I have escaped from art camp gulag?  Asked a ride from passing tourists?  Why didn’t I?   By day four, I considered asking to be returned to Alice Springs — a 4 hour drive in a high 4-wheel vehicle. I learned that others in previous camps had longed for escape too.  All of us kept hoping that it would get better, that the hosts would redeem themselves, get a grip on their own issues and help reshape our — and their own — experiences.

Last tide metamorphosed

The “maybe’s” are legion:  Maybe being the 6th camp of 8 scheduled meant the hosts were just too tired, too burned out, too over it.  Solution?   Cancel the camp and refund the money?  Don’t schedule so many? Hire an art teacher who enjoys the gig and a naturalist who likes people? Maybe this group of people just didn’t fit the hosts expectations?  Solution?  Take a course updating your hospitality and management skills?  Maybe, maybe, maybe.

Would I recommend Larapinta Creative Camp?  How do you feel about charismatically challenged, mercurial leaders in a stunning landscape?  Your call.  Your $1550.

Matched

Matching this to that invites a scrutiny of detail:

the amount of bush-herbed olive oil in the dipping dish to the amount of bread twisted from a tiny baguette,

the weight of the wallet to the country where dollar and two-dollar coins add up and weigh down,

and

cash in pocket to item desired,

look right

want to need,

sleep cycle to sun cycle,

hunger to mealtime,

clothing to weather,

walking left to looking right,

bin to basket, rubbish to trash, trolly to cart, sachet to packet,

EFPOS to debit,

early spring to August,

pleasure to joy.

Back in Oz, I’m mysteriously matched.