The Dune

"Oooh...aaaagh, oooh...aaaagh" the lyrics said. "An ice-cream saved the day, again". I listened to the song as I was driving and wondered what the words meant. It was probably about someone's kids. Today, as I assembled a cupboard, it hit me. This could have been written about a day  I had at the beach a few years ago. It was uncanny. In New Zealand, the only poisonous spider can be found under driftwood along quiet coastlines. This was "Oz". I bet it was a redback...they are everywhere. There are moments when first aid is not an option: this was one of them. If I hadn't been a female, I may have understood his immense courage during  that painful moment. I knew he was suffering but the best I could do was give him an ice-cream.  He stifled any comments about his burning, physically nauseating pain  and ate the ice-cream.  I am glad he managed to keep his cool in a moment of sheer agony (actually, this moment lasted  a couple of hours, now I come to think of it) when he got bitten on the testicle by a  nasty, horrible little dune spider. 

Digital illustration: tiny hummingbird

...of the Cave

Desert Banded Snake

This tiny, beautiful snake was lying  outside the hospital ambulance bay two nights ago. Desert Banded snakes usually burrow just under sandy surfaces, hence most sightings are at night. In the dark, against her gold body, her black stripes were a vivid red and black. On the top of her head was a lacy black pattern. She looked dangerous, despite her size. I emailed her image to a snake information site to identify her species. "Simoselaps Bertholdi", I was told.  Mildly venomous, she kills and eats skinks, legless lizards and geckos. Her venom neurotoxins are not known.  Diminutive, this little snake never grows much more than 20 centimetres in length and looks not unlike a wild, tropical worm. Recent hot, spring weather and  hail storms probably disturbed her. First recorded in the 1800's, one hot January, she is often referred to as "Jan's Banded snake". This snake is sometimes killed when mistaken for a baby Tiger snake by the misinformed.  Basically, the experts advise: leave her alone…she is very reluctant to bite and isn't thought to be of  any danger. She is, despite the local presence of  much larger and deadlier Dughites, Death Adders and Black tiger snakes...kind of cool.

Words fell from the sky...

City of Kwinana: built on the shore of a shipwreck

"She Who Carries Horses"... the true story of a ship called Kwinana.

I am going to tell you the story of Kwinana. On the train, I sometimes hear the  kids call it "Banana". "Gorgeous maiden" or "young girl"…that is what the name Kwinana means in the traditional tongue of the  Kimberly Aboriginals. According to sea lore, renaming a ship brings ill fate. In 1922 a damaged ship, the 'SS Kwinana' was beached on a semi-inhabited, lonely coast. The 'SS Kwinana' was built in 1892. A beautiful vessel, she boasted a  frosted glass window skylight  with an image of Darius on his throne, having originally being named after the Persian King. Sailing between Australia and Calcutta, she carried cargoes of horses. For 28 years she sailed,  enduring leaks, hitting rocks and,  finally,  suffering severe fire damage in her hold on Christmas Day of 1920. As a final insult, she was nearly forced to sail while in a state of semi-repair. After failed negotiations to pay the sailors a $50.00 bonus, to make  a risky  trip from Canarvon to Freemantle port, every member of the crew refused to sail her. After being towed to Garden Island, she broke her moorings during gale-force winds and the wreck came to rest on what is now called Kwinana beach in 1922.  My God, the town has  changed but the silent influence of the steam ship still lives on.  Kwinana became a city in 2012.

Kwinana is a crucible. It is an industrial area with it's own issues and  initiatives. Kwinana sails it's own ship. "Shipwreck City" is about  to be forced into merging with other councils and will be renamed "The City of Jervois". Here  is where the toughest and the most beautiful girls live, second to the Maori shearing girls in Gnowangerup. Our crime rate is high and the sound of industrial sirens sometimes ride over the wail of police sirens. Unemployment is a heart-breaker. The Aboriginal community have a unique voice in the history of Kwinana while the  area has  it's own preservation issues concerning native species and endangered fauna.  Kwinana City  is about to be reduced to the title of an unfortunate ugly sister suburb. Government is about to sacrifice a queen and call her someone else. 

* The fire of Christmas 1920 occurred between Geraldton and Shark Bay, Western Australia. After being  contained, at first, it broke  out a second time.  Enduring unbearably hot weather conditions, the crew sailed a distance of 330 km, with fire in the bowels of the ship, to seek help at Canarvan. With only hand pumps to fight the fire, it burned  in the holds of the steam ship  for twelve days.

Little squeaky noises in the mornings...

Farmers often shoot these birds but the pink Gallah is a gentle and intelligent Australian wild parrot that is a common sight in Western Australia. They make a racket when flying over but make a more polite, soft sound when they just stop for a drink or a brief visit.

Ebola and Ebola-free nations...

When I lived in Africa, Ebola and Congo Fever were possibly two of our greatest fears…above and beyond both  the civil wars of surrounding countries and the civil war within our own. When a nurse died after caring for a patient, in Cape Town, if my memory serves me right, intense medical discussion brought an Ebola plan to every hospital. Value was granted to that one life in a hell-ridden society that was almost immune to the mind-numbing political crime and "muti-killings". You could almost say that people died like flies. Believe me…Ebola is an insidious but cruel thing. This morning, I read a regional document that included instructions for an Ebola patient's 'visitors'. "Visitors?" I repeated to anyone that would listen, "Visitors…are you kidding me? A quarantined Ebola patient won't be having any visitors!". I still remember discussing how to bring an Ebola patient into ICU in 1987, without exposing anybody, and the possibility of 2 allocated nurses remaining on the premises for the whole containment period of care. Today, on another continent, a manager flippantly said, "Things really have changed today". Easy words from someone that hasn't  even seen a case of Cholera or been exposed to the diseases of Africa. 

As a nurse, I feel that we should look at what the South African (South Africa is a country, if you weren't aware) government is putting in place. In August this year, eleven hospitals were designated to receive  Ebola cases for care. A military medical  team has been trained in special isolation techniques. An aeromedical evacuation team with a transport isolator and ICU equipment is ready. They are not taking any chances and are not assuming that "it is never going to happen". It is happening. Listen to what is coming from a country that has trialled new drugs twenty years before Australia; listen to what is coming from a country that has been a leader in Aids research. The South Africans are not as stupid as they look. They are experts at working with little for a lot less. Nations  could fall into the trap of basing their decisions on their own ethnocentric cultures. Australia's health system is gorgeous. Ebola won't care.

Final moments... 09 October 2014 Western Australia. 'Blood Moon' eclipse.

A steamy cloud edge begins to conceal the moon. The sun is threatening to rise from the other side of the sky. These are the last views of the moon following the night's lunar eclipse, as seen from Leda Nature Reserve, Western Australia. 09 October 2104.

Driving to work with insects on my windscreen

14 th Anniversary of the Day I shrunk my Flatmates Underpants in the Tumbledryer...

Beating the predators...

Minature 'Kangaroo Paw' - an Australian wild flower.

When I first came to Australia, I waited an agonising six months for my registration to come through. Before I could have an interview, I was requested to find a local person as a personal referee to put with my overseas references and C.V. Australian? I didn't know any Australians...they had to be kidding.I didn't think it would really be suitable. "Do they have to be Australian?" , I asked. Unfortunately, the emphatic reply was,"Yes". Well, the only Australian that I knew was my sister's friend, so that was what it was going to have to be. I got the job, but I still sweat when I recount that I got my first job in Australia on the assurance of  'the chick in the fish and chip shop'. 

Sometimes...

Close to extinction...Carnaby Cockatoos

If you were never one of the priviledged....

Many years ago, a friend and I watched "Whitnail & I" a couple of times in a Durban cinema. This is still an iconic, wonderful piece of theatre. Reluctantly, we half-heartedly took another male friend with us to watch it, after much animated discussion, knowing that he always fell asleep after the first twenty minutes into every movie. We never told him but we bought tickets to another movie and he ( as always) fell asleep in the middle...and he missed it. He never knew so we never worried about it. 

dheborah

see (1 hour and 45 minutes)the one and only "Whitnail and I" on

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yxus50L_G_s

The secrets of Mulka's Cave.

Driving home, from Mulka's cave, a fox ran across the road in the dark. Seconds later, a white owl dived before my humble vehicle. My mind could not tear me from thinking about the cave. Mulka's cave has it's own traditional story, passed down by the Noongars. If we were to examine our own world tomorrow, it would be a complex task. We relate things to how we exist today. Examining different possibilities, and keeping human nature and history in mind, I think that the legend, is most likely,  very close to the truth. I believe, however, that Mulka didn't really eat children...this was a subtle way of keeping the kids away from the cave because of  the dangers of  loose rocks and snakes. This was not a place to play in...Mulka may have been scaring everyone away. However, a child may have died here. Spearing is still a traditional means of punishments in some quarters. Death today, still  sometimes brings retalliations.

Looking at my photographs, though, I think that there are older rock paintings as well as marks made during the time of the settlers. The word "axe" and hand stencils made in colours not used in other older Aboriginal rock art makes me think that someone trusted was brought here once. There are small painted hoof-prints above the back entrance, and I think that I imagined a large white animal with udders very close by. Is it possible that some cows made their way down into the cave, I wonder? Immediately beneath the painting is a small image which could be a child or a small animal. Examination of photographs show things not easily visible to the eye.

It would be so simple to stay here for a few minutes and leave, even if you have travelled a great distance to get here. It is a space that was probably used as a place of shelter in the most extreme weather conditions...the rocks make it a difficult living space. A culture that was used to sharing, would have sacrificed the living space if only a few could use it. 

The enchanting sound of the tiny green-eyed finches and a few other diminutive flying native birds will leave an immortal sound in your ears. This is a quiet place. Sometimes, the most gentle things are the most difficult to forget.

see

http://youtu.be/3RwkDmB_kpE

Barbarique...last steps.

Every human should be granted their entitlement of dignity for every step taken during their last walk. Grant it willingly, in case it is one day your own.When cancer strikes, the walk is sometimes desperate, clinging to the hope of extra days to extend it. Sometimes, it is slow and calm. From the time we take our first steps, our lives become a long, meandering sojourn towards our last walk.

Seeing the faces of pain and fear on images of  men forced to stoop as they make their final walk,  drafts  a confronting and confusing  picture. The final walk should never be a desperate scramble, nor be trod  with fearful steps. Let there always be someone to plead or question for others before the silence brought on by the savage. It takes a courageous man  to muster strength to walk when  crippled by the demands of the revengeful in war and the brutality of cowardice. 

Dheborah Quirke

http://youtu.be/Az4i6bGQyZo


*if you have time to watch something lovely, watch this Coldplay video  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQeMxWjpr-Y

How much hot soup can you handle?

RFDS Australia: Photographs of Royal Flying Doctors' Kalgoorlie Crew taken tonight.

In the last photograph, you will notice the red and blue ambulance lights in the background, as Malcolm (Corrigin ambulance crew) does two quick runs down the airstrip...when he had set up the lights earlier, he'd had to move off a kangaroo. These photographs were taken about quarter to three this morning (18/05/2014), during an emergency airllift.

Dheborah

see

http://youtu.be/FQIQd4RrHvg

textile: devore print by dheborah

shh...

textile by dheborah

Just for the hell of it... here is some music from the Republic of South Africa in the very early 1980's (not everything came with a music video in those days)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V96r4cAKCMc

"Oh, F#ck" moments.

I think everyone has had one…you are lying down in bed, floating through some clouds, and dreaming about Adonis. Suddenly, it sounds like a six foot piece of ice has been thrown from an over-flying jet and landed outside your bedroom window. Somehow…your body manages to move from a stationary position to a standing position…three rooms away. You have just had one… it's what we call, not in in medical terms, an "Oh, F#ck!" moment. Something happened three weeks ago on MH370. It was sudden. It was catastrophic. I think, frankly, that this would have been one final "Oh, F#ck" moment.

see

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uAspqCD34Hw

Digital Illustration: Blink

"Blink" by Dheborah

When you visit a town with half a name...Evidence of Australian counter culture in the 60's.

The Wheatbelt is scattered with small architectural surprises. A Geodesic Dome, constructed in the 1960's,  remains part of Beverly's town  landscape... and it's not all you will find.

Digital illustration: "By,babe"

"By, Babe"  by dheborah 

...for "the Fang"