I stand corrected

I am informed, by a genuine Aussie, that the pink and grey parrot is in fact not a parrot. I know you are all keen to expand your knowledge of birds from down under, so I include this quote from my friend for your edification:

"The pink and grey bird would be a galah: a Psittaciform, but a cockatoo rather than a parrot or lorikeet. The word 'galah' can also refer to a person who exhibits a significant lack of common sense - it can be quite offensive and may be accompanied by a variety of expletives."

Given the time these birds have been waking me up, I understand about the expletives, whether or not you are referring to bird or human.

Now you know.

I think the birds say it all - big, bold, brash and beautiful. That's Australia (and Australians!). I mean that in the best of ways.

I'm still loving it here! Never mind that a group of those pink and gray parrots (see photo in earlier blog - they are about the size of wood pigeons) come to sit in the sun at about 5:30am on my window ledge, and their noisy chatter wakes me up. There are other gorgeous parrots as well - a brilliant red and deep blue one, and a red, yellow and green one - but they are not as common as my freindly pink and grey ones. There are crows whose call is a slow "aa...uh oh". Cockatoos are really raucous, as are the magpies, who are not as pretty but much bigger than the ones in the UK.

Today I had some free time and walked about a mile to a lake, along a path lined with enormous gum trees (eucalyptus). I was familiar with these trees from my time in the mountains of Peru, where they have been planted as a source of fast-growing wood. There are so many different varieties here. One kind is just as pictured - almost entirely silver!

Still having great conversations with both students and staffworkers. I'm enjoying it so much - am I really getting paid to do this?!

The real conference begins

I’m starting to lose track of days, with my watch telling me Canberra time and my computer telling me Oxford time, and days running into one another with an endless stream of talks, seminars, cafeteria meals, and conversations. I have to look at my schedule to find out that it is Saturday here. And ‘there’ where you are too for that matter, though the other end of Saturday!

Yesterday was the last day of the senior staff conference, and we had an afternoon free. I managed to get adopted by four Kiwis, who are a rowdy, fun bunch, and we set of in a hire car to go to the top of a tower and get a view of the countryside. We decided to ignore Jenny, our friendly satnav, and just drive around the lake, because that was the ‘obvious’ way to go. Jenny was right, however, but we had fun answering back to her before we finally took her much repeated advice to do a u-turn as soon as possible. It is the journey that’s important, right, not the destination? – or at least so some people tell us. It turned out to be right in this case, with the destination being a bit of a disappointment – but we had a lot of laughs along the way. We ended our trip driving in a thunderstorm to the war memorial. I think there were a lot of lovely statues and other sites along the long boulevard approaching the museum, but the rain was too heavy to see. On our arrival we were bombarded by hail the size of overgrown peas, so we surrendered to the weather and drove back to campus without leaving the car.

Today 1,100 students arrived! So the pace of things has increased considerably, as have the lines into the cafeteria. They are a great bunch of kids. I especially like the students from Fiji. They have been really friendly to me in a special way. I wonder if it is a cultural difference, if they are respecting me as someone older. If that is the case, it is a really lovely kind of respect, a kind that does not distance but draws me close into their circle as one of them.

A more traditional and western sign of respect is that, as an international guest, I have special rights and privileges, signalled by a large blue dot on my name badge. I was double registered, and I have an ordinary badge as well, so I’ve put the two in a single holder which I can flip over to suit my purposes. The blue dot gets me special seating at meals with other guests, which I decline in favour of sitting with students. It also, however, gets me soft seats in the front rows of the huge concert hall where the main sessions are held, and I’m using my guest badge for those!

The last announcement tonight was a plea from one of the organizers for the students to be considerate of those who wanted to sleep by not talking in the hallways – and to consider going to bed at a decent hour themselves. I am amazed – the students who want to stay up are in the common rooms, and the halls are quiet! If this sort of behaviour is the fruit of belonging to a Christian student movement, I’m all for it!

Now I’ll take advantage of the quiet and head for bed.

In the swing of things

After sleeping well due to sheer exhaustion, jet lag seems to be settling in. Twice yesterday I found myself fighting to stay awake. Today (28 Nov) at 4am I woke up, and finally I’ve decided to get out of bed and write a little instead of going over yesterday’s events in my head.

Yesterday was a great day – I’m getting to meet so many people, and they are all very open about sharing what’s happening in their lives with me. Currently only senior staff and a few international students are at the conference. These first two days are a time both of focusing on staff needs, and also presenting opportunities that exist for student work in New Zealand, Fiji, Vanuatu and Papua New Guinea. Yesterday I head about the student movement in Vanuatu, where there is no full-time staff worker. Last year for the first time an apprentice worker went there, only 21-years-old and in his first year of training, green as grass, and yet the movement grew immensely, with many young men joining in for the first time. It’s sad to think that there are so many student groups worldwide that are without leadership or encouragement, like buds just waiting to blossom.

Lindsay Brown (former ‘director’ of IFES) spoke twice yesterday. He has stepped in to replace Daniel Bourdanné (current ‘director’ of IFES) who is unable to be here. I was very disappointed that I wouldn’t get to hear Daniel speak…but I haven’t been disappointed with Lindsay! In the morning he spoke on 10 lessons learned in 30 years of involvement with IFES, giving practical advice to staff workers. I liked the fact that he didn’t skirt around difficult issues, but dealt with topics such as the need to adjust one’s pace as one gets older, and the importance of ‘developing a bottomless capacity for disappointment’ when it comes to human beings! There is much of what he said I’d like to talk about in detail with some of you, and no doubt that desire will grow in the days to come. Eventually there will be downloadable MP3 files of the talks.

In the evening they interviewed me briefly, which was fun. My colleagues in the office will be proud of me – I was able to fit in the phrase from our new vision, ‘releasing student initiative’ and also introduced the gang here to the concept of us in the Oxford office being the ‘international service centre’ – though I also mentioned that while we liked the concept, we are still not entirely at ease with Daniel’s phraseology. Most here agree that it sounds a bit like a petrol station on a motorway. The comms team needs to work on it more I think!

Other than the conference…I attempted to go for a short run after lunch yesterday when I had a free hour. Not a bright idea, running on a full stomach, and I had forgotten how debilitating the heat can be. Only mad dogs and English men go out in the noon day sun…you can decide which I am. However, far be it from me to complain about the heat – it is delicious! Hot days and cool nights – what more can I ask for? In the night there were some spectacular thunder storms. Australia desperately needs the rain. In Melbourne, for example, they are approaching the dry season with reservoirs at only 32% capacity.

Enough rambling. Today I may get to join a group guests who are sightseeing, so tomorrow I may have a more exciting blog.

At this early hour of the day, short on sleep, I feel I’m not adequately communicating how great it is to be here. Singing with the group yesterday, though, I had a strong sense that this conference is not just about me meeting people, about learning what’s happening, and bringing back to the office all sorts of information. What’s happening here is for me, too

Below are 3 pics, in order: the two best friends of a jet-lagged me, and Lindsay Brown (in case you wonder who is he and if he is male or female!) eating breakfast.

p.s. This blog is a day late…I’m only now in the early evening having time to upload what I wrote this morning.

I made it!

It’s 5:15 pm on Wed. I got on a bus for Heathrow airport at this time on Monday, and have been in transit ever since, with only a few snatched hours of sleep. The computer says it is 6:15 am in the UK, my head feels as if it is filling up with cement, and all I want to do is sleep. I’m trying to stay awake for dinner and for a couple of hours afterwards so I can adjust to time here. I think I’ll make it to dinner.

The flight here was not the nightmare of boredom that I imagined it would be. How does one fill up 22 hours on a plane? The answer for Qantas is – a marathon of eating! Barely had I squeezed myself into the allotted space when a cheerful flight attendant was there passing out menus – yes, in economy no less! Along the bottom of the page was a timeline of the trip’s eating opportunities – 4 main meals and almost endless snacks. It did indeed pass the time. However, it all became rather irksome when, in the darkness of the night, as you felt yourself finally slipping toward blissful oblivion, you were jerked back every half hour or so with offers of a glass of water or a piece of fruit.

But between the constant eating, a little light conversation, several movies (I recommend Australia’s Shine and also enjoyed In Bruges) and even a few snatches of sleep, the time did pass, and quite soon we were disembarking in Bangkok, the refueling point, for a wander round the airport. Unbeknownst to us, the airport had recently been barricaded due to some demonstrations, with the result that our flight crew for the next leg was over an hour late. This meant that we arrived late in Sydney and I missed my connection to Canberra. I was shepherded, along with hundreds of others who had also missed their connections, to a special Qantas Domestic transfers ‘pen’ which had far too few people at the other end processing us. As a result I missed several other possible connections, arriving in Canberra to find that lots of people new my name, thanks to the couple who had come and waited in vain for me for about an hour and a half. Sadly, in the chaos of leaving Oxford I had neglected to get any information concerning where I was going and who was picking me up – no address, no telephone numbers. I was able to find out some info online however. In the end a number of limo chauffeurs became involved in my plight (Canberra airport is very small) and one of them rescued me, driving me to the university for free!

I can’t believe I’m actually in Australia! Gradually it’s sinking in though – seeing flocks of raucous parrots and watching a cockatoo in a tree outside my window (don’t these things always live in cages?) helps. All the trees are very different. And there is something here called a ‘sun’ that has a companion called ‘warmth’ – that is very different from Oxford. Mind you…by their standards it is cool here at the moment…but I am still enjoying it immensely. I’m finishing this now at 8:00 pm, having been revived by dinner, and am noting that dusk is only now settling in. Another discovery here – a Cadbury’s chockie bar – coconut and cherry covered thickly in dark (70%) chocolate. Mmmm…

On that note – I am going for a wee walk to see if I can relax a little and get back into tired mode again. Tomorrow is full tilt conference – the people I’ve met so far are lovely and I’m looking forward to meeting more from outside Australia in the next two days of Expo that highlight the movements in PNG, Fiji, Vanuatu and NZ.

Photos in order (can't figure out how to put captions with them at the moment):

Luxury accommodations - already trashed minutes after I arrive! :)

ANU campus across the street from my dorm.

Parrot of some sort.

Anxious for nothing?

The day before I leave...still have that queasy feeling, wondering if everything is going to get done, if I will pack the right things, if the bus to Heathrow will get stuck in traffic, if I will have left undone things I ought to have done...all those little things that betray my insecurities!

Travelling is strange. It feels somehow that as the distance increases between myself and my friends, the relationships are somehow going to be stretched thin. I think it is not just me who feels this - I'm experiencing that phenomenon of everyone suddenly wanting to see me before I go (even people whom I haven't spent any significant time with in over a year!), just at a time when I have less time to hang out with people. I know it is silly - that a relationship is not physical. And that I'll be in email contact. Perhaps there is also some unconscious fear that something will happen and we won't see one another again. So I'm feeling a kind of generalised queasiness at the moment, and eager to end it by getting on the plane, which will signal that I can release my paltry attempts to control the present and relax into the future.

Today I'm meeting the friendship angst head on by cooking Sunday lunch for some good friends. Craziness perhaps, given all I have to do, but it is a good way to see a number of people at once, so in the long run I hope it will save me time!

Talking to someone at work on Friday I realised that she and I both share a curious habit when we are about to travel. We decide at the last minute that there are certain jobs that we have put off for months or even years, that absolutely must be done before we leave. I wonder - do men indulge in this kind of silly behaviour too? I once decided, on the eve of a 9-hour drive to Toronto, where I was going to visit friends before flying to the UK for the summer, at 11:30pm no less, that I absolutely had to hang my bicycle from the rafters in the basement. I managed to knock some insulation into my eye, giving myself a corneal abrasion, which meant a midnight drive to emergency, driving home at 1am (very carefully) under the influence of mega-painkillers, and leaving a day later.

Is writing this blog one of those unnecessary last minute things? Probably...

I attach a picture of my half-packed suitcase - this one's for you, Andy, since you have taught me that nothing is too insignificant to take a photo of. Actually I think my suitcase is pretty boring, but I want to test how to do pictures, so when I have something interesting I'll know how to do it.

Okay...I think this is enough procrastinating for now!