Tuesday night the lawyer came home late and we had a great long chat about the Northern Territory and about The Intervention and about being a female lawyer. She told me that there are some really serious cases of child abuse in the communities but social workers and government agencies are hesitant to remove children from their families because of the Stolen Generation guilt. I can understand how it's pretty uncomfortable to be put in a situation where you have to remove Aboriginal children from their families given how much hurt that's caused previously. But at the same time, maybe we are letting down this generation of indigenous Australians by leaving them in abusive situations.
In our conversation she also advised me to become a barrister. She reckons that as a woman it's more suitable since you are independent and can have more flexible hours. She makes a good point.
Wednesday I was in the office again. I prepared a volunteers' handbook, and a 'how to' guide to using CLSIS (our client database) as well as a bunch of community education programs one about family law and another more general youth education one.
Wednesday night we cooked eggplant and pumpkin and rice and the lawyer and her husband had some guests over. Their daughter and fiance came as did a friend of theirs. Their daughter is a family lawyer and her husband is a public prosecutor. The friend works in the corrections system as a quasi social worker for prisoners on parole. Let me tell you, it was fascinating. The stories they had. It was particularly interesting hearing a public prosecutor and a parole officer chatting. Since they essentially deal with the two ends of the prison system - when people enter it - and when people leave it.
Today (Thursday) we had a cultural education seminar. An elder who does this professionally came out to talk to us. I learned many things.
For example - traditionally aborigines have highly gender segregated societies. It's patriarchal. The men make the decisions for the community (though, they might consult with the women). Men and women who aren't related to each other can't talk to each other or look at one another. indeed this applies even if you are related through marriage. Which means that you can't look at or talk to your mother/father-in-law.
Furthermore in these promise marriages there are multiple wives. Sometimes with a very large age gap between the husband and wife. Furthermore the wife can no say in getting married and within the marriage sex is his right and she has no right to refuse.
Also, aborigines have black magic. They have witch doctors who will curse people to become mentally ill, or sick in general and die (sometimes by killing themselves). So if you are in a fight with somebody you can get the witch doctor to 'sing' them. But they also have good witch doctors who can cure you. Sometimes.
Lastly, and I found this particularly interesting, in the Tiwi Islands (Torres Strait Islanders) there's a group called 'sister-girls' of trans-gendered men. How interesting is that?!They have sex with otherwise straight men only and insist on being counted as the women. Very cool. It was also really surprising to hear about the gay people in these remote communities and how they are tolerated (if not fully accepted). Though, obviously, eventually they all seem to move to big cities. But it was great hearing how the indigenous communities are ok with variations of sexual identity.
Tomorrow I am (finally) off the Katherine.
Woot!
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