A wonderful evening of two-way learning

One evening, a small group of students and staff were sitting on the grass outside the dining room eating dessert. As more and more people joined them, I was intrigued to see that they were all enjoying (along with pudding) a lunar eclipse of a rare super blood moon. As luck would have it, this moonlit night was also when the Bunuba Rangers had joined us for dinner and were offering an after-dinner Cane Toad Roundup (I have had to stop calling it a Rodeo as the local students are way too quick to joyously draw comparisons to my horse riding skills).

Once the kitchen crew had finished their duty, we walked up to the bore area with torches, gloves and garbage bags. There was a false start after our highly skittish participants enthusiastically disclosed that some unexpected splashes sounded very like the thrashing of a crocodile. However, we regrouped, took some deep breaths and were on our way again, (although anyone without a torch seemed to be much more obsessed with shadows, now).

Soon everyone was jumping around bagging up feral toady intruders, learning how they varied from local varieties, the most humane way to dispose of them(into a designated Toad Freezer behind the Gurranda classroom) and the sophisticated way our rangers ‘taught’ wildlife that cane toads make you sick if you eat them (frog leg sausages, no less). It was a wonderful evening of two-waylearning, while bonding on Bunuba country (that still gives me the giggles).

Kym Adams, Induction 46 Leader

Induction 46 student blog

It one of those days that you have to appreciate. We spent all morning watching the movie Putuparri and the Rainmakers. We saw Putuparri develop as a young man surrounded by his elders who take him to their country. He hits rock bottom through alcoholism and then finds himself again through the creation of the artwork as part of his clan’s native title claim (see Ngurrara Canvas).

Just an average day, but it was a really good average day that left us looking forward to our adventures to come.

Ella Brown, Induction 46

By 10.00am we were packed and on the road heading towards Fitzroy Crossing for the first time on this Induction. The trip was basically to the local IGA as pretty well everything else is shut on a Sunday. Fitzroy Crossing is far smaller than we expected. It had a few shops, houses and a footy oval. We ate our lunch there while a swarm of hawks circled above. Some kids fed them by throwing bread and meat scraps into the air for the hawks to dive onto mid-flight.

Later, we visited the Fitzroy River and walked across an old bridge, which has now been replaced as it is impassable during every wet season. Here a local Bunuba girl, Letisha, who had joined us for the day, told us about the fresh water mangrove leaf bush medicine which helps with painful catfish spikes. Handy.

Emily Eger and Niamh Craven, Induction 46

Today, we all wrote questions about Aboriginal things on sticky notes and Kym Oakley (a new teacher at Yiramalay, a Malgana woman from Gathaagudu in Shark Bay, WA, who is on Induction 46 with us) answered them ‘You Can’t Ask That’ style. She answered as many questions as she could and promised to follow up any tricky ones with our Traditional Owners, who couldn’t be with us today. We asked questions about Aboriginal law, remote communities and how spirits function in daily life.

In the afternoon, Kym found four recipes for us with traditional bush tucker spices like Lemon Myrtle and Cinnamon Myrtle. We cooked scones, cakes, biscuits and damper and had a great afternoon tea.

James Dutton and Will Hardy, Induction 46

Today we learnt about mnemonic memory tricks. Indigenous people used them to remember large amounts of information over long periods of time. We alsoplayed Friends Bingo which helped us build new connections with people that we didn’t really know. After lunch, we headed down to the Big Quarry to go jump of some cliffs into this man-made reservoir. On the way back to Yiramalay we stopped to get some boab nuts, which was a new experience for most of us.

After some free time to get changed and washed up, we had dinner which was curried sausage, lasagne, chips and rice before finishing with some chocolate cake as dessert as we watched a blood moon lunar eclipse pass by. As our after-dinner activity, we went cane toad hunting with the local Bunuba Rangers around the campus as cane toads kill a lot of the local species with the toxin that is contained within their skin. After catching several bags of cane toads, we headed back to the dorms to finish the night with some free time.

Marcus Wood and Matthew Zhang, Induction 46

Yiramalay Newsletter

Issue 81 · 22 Jul 2021

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