Sunburn in a Sunburned Country

Bill Bryson knew exactly what he was talking about when he titled his book about Australia. Thursday and Friday of this week I went out into THE BUSH with a local indigenous man, Uncle Rusty, who had us out in the sun almost all day. I'm taking a class called Linking Indigenous, which is basically an introductory course about how the indigenous people of Australia lived and evolved into what they are in today's Australia. Of course, the one thing I did not do was put on sunscreen, so I got fried. I did expect it at some point, but it's the first time in a month (yeah I've been here a month, crazy huh?) I've been sunburned.

Despite my lobster looking arms, neck, and face I learned a lot about nature from Uncle Rusty. We stopped at the most random places on the side of the road, and he starts pulling the bark and leaves off of trees. He was saying how his people use these materials to make the roofs on their homes. Various leaves are also remedies for stomach pain or can be used for dye. He even showed us one leaf, which can be found around uni, that makes soap! If I end up finding it I'll be sure never to buy soap here again.

While out ol' Rusty I heard a lot about the skin group (tribe) he was from and the traditions that they practice. Some of them I find very strange because they are just so different. One thing he said is that if girls and boys don't start acting responsible by the time they reach 14 they are speared by a member of their community! I'm pretty sure I'd have been speared. Luckily I'll make it to see 21, which happens to be in less than a month! Uncle Rusty also came back to Campus the next day and brought a few things with him. He talked about rocks that the aborigines use to attach to weaponry and engrave in things like boomerangs. Then he whipped out spears and boomerangs and taught the class how to throw them. I wasn't great at throwing the spears, but I was pretty good with a boomerang. I was the closest one in my class to almost catch it when it circled around. One thing I remember Uncle Rusty saying was the boomerang is really more distracting to the wild the aborigines hunt, but they can still do some damage if need be.

So after missing two days of class to learn about indigenous culture a little, it was Friday. I made my way to another town in Queensland named Ingham with my Australian friend Jason (who lives in there) and two of my American friends Julie and Kristen. We all stayed at Jason's house for the weekend, and it was a great experience. First, we were greeted by his family and a delicious meal. One dish with rice, ham, onion, corn, and capsicum (bell peppers) and the other dish with chicken, cooked onion, capsicim and some REALLY good tasting sauce. So far these two dishes were the best thing I have eaten in the southern hemisphere. The next night for dinner was a full scale Australian BBQ: sausages, steak, macaroni salad, coleslaw, grilled mushroom and even SHRIMP. Unfortunately, "shrimp on the barby" is not a common thing to say here despite what you may hear. Jason said it anyway though just so we could have a laugh.

Friday night after dinner we got ready and went out on the town. But when I say going out on the town, I mean walking a small distance down the main street of Ingham. We stopped at a local tavern first and had a few pints of beer. While there, Jason and I played pool with a particularly large woman who kept squinting and closing one eye to see through her beer googles and a short man with a thick black mo (mustache). We won our game of pool and then moved on to a bar next door, where ther was loud music blaring and plenty of interesting people to meet. One guy was doing some ridiculous dance moves for us and later moved on to a girl on the dance floor.

I, for one, met some interesting people while with my friends. One of the bouncers grabbed me and put me in a full head lock! I was shocked as I was being completely normal, just standing around talking or dancing a every so often. He let me go though and when I turned around he was laughing at my reaction. Later, Kristen and I got him to pull it off again so we could get pictures of it. I also met a man from Melbourne who I got a ridiculous picture with, but I'm not sure what he was doing in a small town like Ingham after coming from a bustling metropolis.

Toward the end of the night, the bouncers had to actually assert their authority because a fight broke out toward the enterance outside on the sidewalk. We managed to sneak out before anything got serious and walked the 10 minutes back to Jason's house. While walking down the main street, we came upon a german shepard wondering around and gave it some love. We figured it belonged to someone at the one of the bars along the road, but it ended up following us all the way back to Jason's! I sent it off with a firm "go away" and it ended up leaving. Oddly enough, the next morning during breakfast Jason's dad pointed out there was a lost german shepard put in the paper! Jason's mum called the owner and hopefully everything turned out okay.

Saturday, Jason's dad took us out on his boat! He took us to a "secret spot" but the hike was rough. Mainly the rough part about the hike was the fact that one of my sandles busted 2 minutes after the hike so I went barefoot. Luckily, Uncle Rusty taught me a trick to prevent getting cuts on my foot by stepping on the side of my foot first. The bottom of my left foot is a little scraped up, but I think Rusty's advise helped me.

On an unrelated topic, one thing I've been doing with my American friends and mostly Jason, but a few other Aussies as well, is talk about differences in speech. The basis of speech is of course the alphabet. Well, 2 out my 3 initials are not the same here in Australia. The letter "z" is pronounced "zed" and "h" is said "haiche" (as opposed to aiche). Other words such as oregano, Adidas, and herb are said differently and Jason and I poke fun at each other all the time about the way each other speaks. We've undergone countless hours rambling on about which one makes more sense, and of course in the end nothing is resolved. Still its something I am finding very intriguing here.

It's been a great week! I feel as though I'm truly being cultured. Now alls I have to do is catch up on school work and let my sunburn turn tan and I'll be golden.