Wild flower....

look for the lesser.....

                                    

Winter kangaroo things

Driving through Western Australia during winter and spring will leave you with a vivid, more personal impression of the land. If you are starting off in Perth, consider spending one day doing a first aid course. St. John's ambulance run them all week long but for $130 you can do the Senior First Aid course at  Training Course Experts at 3 Aberdeen street. It is a 10 minute walk away from the central train station. The course covers everything from deadly jelly fish bites to using the tiny defibrillators at swimming pools. There is a booklet that you have to complete and hand in (you will need to pick it up at least the day before). The small classes are usually attended by students, medical staff,  prison guards and men with plans to work in remote areas.  www.training-course-experts.com


Wicked campers have a camper van vehicle hire yard in Northbridge if you are travelling in a group  www.wickedcampers.com.au . Some travellers swear by Flight centre for cheap flights but the Qantas agents have special deals and short-stay packages which include accomodation for similar prices to all major cities www.qantas.com.au  .You can easily fly to  Kalgoorlie (Kalgoorlie has about 25 pubs) and drive out to the Oro Banda Hotel if you feel like a little bit of the wild west. Sky West fly from Perth to Albany during the week. Albany itself is not an exciting city but the region has long, cold beaches and the surrounding ranges and parks have their own secrets. Locals will tell you how the Japanese sheltered their submarines in lonely coves during  WWII.


The road between Gnowangerup and Albany can be deceivingly calm...it is deadly.....this is where you may be graced by glimpses of wildlife. On one of the emergency runs down this road, ducks smashed the windscreen of our rural ambulance.You are likely to see a  large eagle tearing at a kangaroo carcass or different marsupial species grazing on this stretch of road. Remember: Not all kangaroos look like "Skippy". Our roads are often long and straight but wildlife steps out in front of you without warning. Do not drive without a phone with 'Next-G' or you won't be able to make emergency calls for fire or a smash . Don't take your eyes off the road.

Members Only.

 Member Number 33.

2006

Beyond Post Apartheid art

The day I left South Africa, the two friends that had taken me to Durban International Airport (Robyn Kearney and Craig) were stopped from entering the airport because of security measures.  I had waited two years to be able to leave due to international sanctions. It occurred to me  that I was about to be blown out of the sky. The threat of terrorism was  something that enveloped us daily. My suitcases were opened and searched at the airport entrance while the  South African Police and the incredible Bomb Squad's Alsatians became the replacement for families and friends. No-one else was allowed in.

This painting is a small artpiece I did in Perth. I had stopped feeling nervous every time I walked past a rubbish bin and I had almost forgotten the metal detectors and body searches in the supermarkets and the night clubs. I didn't paint for some time.....I couldn't afford paint and brushes. My early works in Australia were highly detailed pencil works with unintentional traces of Africa within. I did paint some giant, purple cockroaches onto the senior room of a boy's boarding house but never considered it an artwork.  This has no name and I painted it whilst sharing a rental unit with a heavily tattooed, reformed lizard-legged drug addict called Micheal.



A small note for the Alternatives: I found a fifteen year old video of Helge Janssen's that Robyn Kearney has put onto u-tube. Helge was an iconic force behind the underground music culture in Durban during the civilian war. 

The Morgues I have been to....

Tonight I wheeled another body to the morgue. Modern trollies are constructed so that they can be placed next to the refrigerated cabinets and the inner tray is pulled across two hinged metal slides. Once in place within the centre of the trolley, small foot pumps are used to raise or lower the body tray....like the hydraulics of  a bar stool. 


The mechanics of the trolley has made it possible to slide the deceased across at the level of a hospital bed  before lowering the body to reduce visibility prior to covering. Two people are required to comfortably slide the body across into the fridge. 


A body fridge is a simple structure. "Ours" is two storied. Two heavy, cold steel fold-down doors with circular, rotating handles open outwards and are lifted up so the body can be positioned and moved across. The stainless steel tray fits into the metal slides and is pulled easily across into the chamber for storage. Rural hospitals do not always have the luxury of a funeral parlour so when one dies, one may spend a long weekend in cold storage. When our small hospital had no local doctor, we once had to wait a number of weeks for a locum to pass through on the way to a coastal town before the death certificate could be completed and the body finally placed in a local grave.


Hospital morgues vary and not all hospitals have them. I was locked inside one on one occasion and I can assure you that it actually felt quite soothing. Most private hospitals do not have their own morgue. They arrange for funeral directors to collect the deceased person once the family have been to pay their last respects. In this case, the nurses wash the body and  lay them out for collection. Dentures are put in, the jaw is supported, eyes are closed and soiled clothing carefully changed. The collecting company (often a family business) will place the body in a zip-up bag, sit them up and wheel them out in a discreet fashion. Discreet may mean via the underground carpark or via the front door, depending on the establishment. Some of the funeral companies collect a single body while others stack them neatly at the back in compartments, almost like a mini-body bus.


The first dead body I ever saw as a student nurse was on night-duty, which prompted my student colleagues to torment me by using every possible opportunity to scare me with rattling drip stands rolling out of elevators in deserted, dark corridors. It wasn't the bodies that scared me.....it was the occasional groan of expelled air which could be heard as you turned them. It was the moving shadow that you saw moments before finding one. It was the gentle tap on your shoulder you felt while you were on your own with one in an empty room. The old nurses taught us to always open a window to release their spirit or they couldn't leave.


Before locking the morgue tonight, I said,"Good night, we will see you in the morning," closed the door and went back inside to open a window......not enough to make a howling noise but just enough to allow a cold, shivery breath-like breeze drift through the room and down the empty corridors.