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I think the second piece of advice that
I’d give people is, if there are particular
things that you really like then you should
take them with you. Don’t expect that
there’s going to be a coffee shop that has
decaffeinatedlattesout therebecause, I can
assure you, there won’t be. It’s probably,
the bucket of Moccona, on a good day, or
Nescafe on a bad day. So, you need to be
able to take those sorts of things with you
and be prepared for those sorts of events.
I suppose the third piece of advice,
especially for those going to work with
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander
people, is learn to stand back, shut up,
listen and hear. Have an open heart,
be willing to laugh at yourself because
you are going to be in those cross
cultural situations where you have no
idea what’s going on most of the time.
What has been one of your
best experiences working in
these remote communities?
I think my best experience working in a
rural, remote area in terms of actually
having an impact, was when I worked
for the Queensland Aboriginal and
Torres Strait Islander Health Worker
Education Program. I wrote their
curriculum which was the first one
accredited in Queensland back in 1991.
We used to go out into the communities
and interview the students and we’d
go out and teach the students in
communities. They used to come in
and we’d go out and actually run the
programs. I think the generosity of
spirit that we experienced in those
communities was just overwhelming.
It was humbling to actually
be part of that process and
to feel accepted as part of a
remote community.
They’d put on great big dinners up in the
Torres Strait Islands with all that amazing
coconut rice and all that fabulous food
and they’d have dancing and just make us
truly welcome. It was humbling to actually
be part of that process and to feel accepted
as part of a remote community when a
lot of people in the Torres Straits speak
English as a second or third language.
It was a very satisfying experience, more
than satisfying, it was a fundamentally
changing experience to feel so accepted
and to feel so incredibly inept at the
same time about what we were doing.
‘Have an open heart,
be willing to laugh at
yourself because you
are going to be in those
cross cultural situations
that you have no idea
what’s going on’