A Town Like Alice

Tuesday, May 10:  The trip is going so well and this is a really a very nice group of people.  We are obviously feeling very comfortable with one another and enjoying being together.  Today we were off on the bus to the airport for our flight to Alice Springs.  On the way Roxy was telling us about the recent increasing violence in Alice Springs amongst the aboriginal people.  We were told not to go into town at night and to avoid being by the river, where many of the native people congregate and troubles can occur.  Partly because of the problem one of our dinners in town will be a BBQ hosted/cooked by Roxy at our hotel.  Our Aussie slang for the day is "bonza", meaning great, really good.
     We arrived in Alice Springs a little after noon.  They are on the same time as Adelaide.  Alice Springs is in the Northern Territory, which has 20% of the land mass and 1% of the population.  Darwin is the capital and beef cattle breeding, horticulture and agriculture are the main occupations.  The Arrante group of Aboriginal people are predonimant here and the caterpillar is their spirit.   Unemployment is very high among the native people - 65-70% compared with around 1% for white people.  
    After settling into our hotel we all walked together into town and found places to have lunch.  After a bit of free time we met to go to the Royal Flying Doctor Service to learn about the work they do in rescue service and bringing medical service to  remote areas.  Then we took a bus to the Overland Telegraph Station, which was the site of the original town of Alice Springs.  Our guide at OTS was Alec, who was one of the "half-caste" children involved in a sad part of Australian history.  Many of these children were taken from their parents by the government in a misguided effort to integrate them into white society, encourage them to intermarry and eventually "become white".  Children were forcibly taken away in many cases and had no idea who their parents were, and many times never were reunited or only found their families many years later.  They missed important life cycle events and rituals/initiations that needed to be performed at certain ages so that boys could become men.  Alec came to the OTS when he was very young, so he has no memories of his aboriginal mother, but his Scottish father did keep in touch with him over the years.  He has an amazingly positive attitude about all this and feels that this saved his life, as his mother wasn't able to care for him, and he was able to get an education and learn skills that enabled him to feel successful.  He eventually made his way to Darwin and found that he could box, and he had a very successful career in Sydney until his wife finally told him to stop as she was afraid about his health.  He worked for the electrical company for many years and now conducts tours of the OTS and has a remarkable memory for a man of nearly 80.  He also gave us a demonstration of how to throw a boomerang and showed us how he can crack two large bullwhips at once.  He said he could kill a snake with one.
    On the way back we stopped at Anzac Hill where there are monuments to soldiers who died in the two world wars and other conflicts.  We watched the sun set, which was lovely but very fast!  Dinner was at the Red Ochre where we all ate at one large table.  Tomorrow we will be doing the Outback Trip with Lindsey, who is an aboriginal man.