The Kalumburu Experience: Part 1

There are moments of experience in every Man's life that he or she looks back on and says, "What was I thinking?!"

Kalumburu was, simply put, one of those experiences.

Ah yes, I will take up the bald-headed business in a little bit.  Just hang in there.

As of today, I have not done a blog post for a full 3 months!  And this time it is actually not due to laziness or my "writing muscles" simply failing me.  Being some hundreds of kilometers from the nearest "connected" town means having limitations in the way of communications.  And in my case, Internet, an important means of communication and information, was almost dictatorially limited.  Needless to say, posting pictures, videos, etc was simply out of the picture during my entire duration in this remote aboriginal community.

Kalumburu sits as the Northernmost inhabited settlement of Western Australia.  It consists of roughly 400 people, almost all of which are indigenous descendants of those having lived on the Australian continent for some 40,000 years.  In contrast to Western civilizations, such as Europe and America, the aborigines did not develop infrastructure, communications facilities, etc over the course of their history.  They were a primitive people with very practical means of surviving in one of the most difficult and sweltering climates in the world: the Australian Outback.  The tribes from the Kimberley region have been exposed to Western ways for only some 120 years.

Here's a couple that we hung out with while fishing in the nearby river.

Working 6 days a week in one of the only two stores, we saw and dealt with nearly every person and family in the community.  And a major part of the community that cannot be overlooked is the children.  Probably a full third (or possibly more) of Kalumburu is children.  So many kids you can't even count.  They came into the shop daily for candy and their school lunches.  Some of them were adorable. 

This is little Garth.  We called him "Garthy Shmarthy".

Some of the other little ones. 

Their history and culture is something unlike anything I've ever seen.  I could give a short history and description but it would be so horrendously incomplete.  Wikipedia provides a good breakdown, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indigenous_Australians

As for Kalumburu itself, it started as a Catholic missionary settlement in an area called Pago about 20 kilometers from its current site.  In 1937 water supply problems forced the missionaries to move to 

Kalumburu, situated on the King Edward River where water was abundant throughout the year. 

The foundation and some wood posts from the previous monastery at Pago, 105 years old. 

The missionaries established housing, medical services, a bakery, etc for the aborigines.  For decades they oversaw the activities and families in the community as it slowly grew.  Aborigines came from the bush to live and work in the community.  In the 1970s, the responsibility and supervision of the community moved from the mission to the Australian government.  The mission still remains, with a priest, a church, youth center and store. 

The current site of the Kalumburu mission. 

For a number of decades, the mission and people of Kalumburu were pretty self-sustaining. They had cattle, they grew their own crops, made their own bread, etc.  They sold crops and meat for needed materials and supplies.  Only two barge shipments came a year for things like flour and sugar.  

This is no longer the case today.  Here are some pictures of the old bakery. 

The old mission nursing center.

The day after Christmas, the guy who handles much of the mission's functions took us for a little tour around the paddock they own.  His name is Michael or "Mad Mick" and he's been working there for 40+ years!  Yowza!

And here's a little clip of our walk to and from work every day.  Kalumburu has too many stray dogs.  Sometimes the dogs would approach us -- and not always for a friendly pet.  This little guy though was quite harmless, I must say. 

Now I'll explain the shaved head.  When you're in a community like this, it's easy to say that you're pretty disconnected from regular society.  You are physically detached from paved roads, supermarkets, movie theaters, bars and such.  And you're also detached from your friends and family so it's kind of like, "Hey, what the heck; I've never shaved my head before."  

So on my birthday, Lui shaved my head and forever then I was known by the community as "BALDY HEAD."  The kids would say it in their funny accent and then they wanted me to say it, which I of course repeated back to them with my version of their accent.  It was fun. 

I also experimented with some other not-so-fashionable looks. 

Before we left, we said goodbye to the only two Kalumburu police officers.  One thing they said to us that I'll never forget is that the two of us had done something 99% of Australians haven't done, which is live and work in one of these communities.  It truly was an experience. 

So much has transpired since our departure from Kalumburu.  We've been to another part of the Kimbereley for a week, traveled to Sydney for 4 days and made our way back to Thailand for 2 weeks.  In just two days we'll be leaving for Berlin, Germany.  Deutschland... Jaaaaa!  Everything happens so fast when you travel.  Nearly impossible to keep up!

Stay tuned for Part 2, which I can promise will be quite entertaining.  Here are some miscellaneous shots from  some of our excursions and around the community.

The vehicular graveyard.

Enjoying a refreshing beverage with one of the locals.  They spend much of their time in the day outside on their porches, lawns and walking around.

Enjoying the beach.

A beautiful humongous Boab tree, very common to this area of Australia.