Down Under Day 2

Last night after getting to my room I finally met my roommate, Juliano. And yes I am not making this up he is from Belo Horazonte in Brazil. He has a wife and daughter in a town about 2 hours from here and has come her for work. We talked for hours in Portuguese. I loved it. It was great. We talked about the differences in cultures and traditions here as compared to Brazil. He said one big difference is that in Brazil there isn’t much of a social service system for the poor or disabled and here there is an incredible social service system. His wife gets paid 500dollars (about $560 US) a week to stay home and take care of their daughter. That is to encourage mothers to stay home with their children so they don’t have to put them in child care. Also, he told of how it was possible to get disability for about anything. While there was a side of this that he saw as really good he also talked of how it drove him a little nuts because it seemed like everyone wanted to get on disability and it didn’t take much. I don’t know how many people really are on disability but I’ll look into it. In his mind he saw the people as lazy because they had the perception that if they didn’t get work they could government assistance. So while he thought it was good for the country to take care of its poor. He also thought it made them lazy in his mind. Kids don’t have to pay for college because of a program called hex which, nobody seems to kmow what it means, but if you enroll in it they pay your tuition and then when your annual salary gets to a certain level instead of a tax refund they put that money toward the amount of debt they paid. So most of the kids go to school for free and only if they end up getting a good job and begin making good money do they have to pay it back and even then it is paid as a withholding of their tax return. I don’t know if this is really the way it works but it is an interesting model. So he saw a lot of kids get done with college and not really do anything because they could also collect welfare and even though it isn’t much it is enough to live on.

One other thing I noticed is the cost of things here. I paid 15AUdollars for a fast-food hamburger. I also paid 2dollars for 3 mandarins for breakfast. It is kind of crazy. Juliano said it is very expensive here. It seems a lot more expensive than the US. I’m going to keep track of it and see what some of the other places are like.

I spent the morning at the research center I found yesterday talking to them about aboriginal families. It is amazing how similar an experience was had by the aboriginal tribes here as to the Native Americans. Children were taken from their parents to be raised by white people in order to “educate” them and get the wild out of them. They were given “Christian” names and taught at white schools. The aboriginal people were relegated to “reserves” that were locations nobody wanted. They were then promised by the government that they would be taken care of. Today, there is virtually no industry there and the tribes live off of money from the government and have a terrible alcoholism problem and high suicide rate. Sound familiar?

Anyway, I had a wonderful morning talking to them about marriage ceremonies and family dynamics. They have a great deal of tradition that is gender specific. Women don’t know the men stuff and men don’t know the women stuff. She said it was sacred but also said that it wasn’t restricted to native peoples. For example if she were to marry a white guy and he wanted to be initiated into the tribe they would welcome him with open arms and teach him as a full member. She said this was important because the traditions are passed to the sons and daughters by their aunts and uncles not their parents. It is a big responsibility to be an aunt or an uncle. I had a great morning.

Then it was time to head to Dungog. The train ride was about 3 hours for what is about a 1 hour car ride but I didn’t mind. The scenery was awesome. Here are some pictures

After arriving in Dungog I found the hotel and knew I was in the right place. I walked from the train station into town and there was one street with businesses and the rest is just houses. Just the small town I was looking for.

After getting settled in I want for a walk and found a bunch of guys playing a game called bowling (not our bowling thought). I watched for a while and they invited me to play Wednesday night. They have a social game that night and asked if I would like to join them. I’m excited.

Jana was going to call the hotel to talk and I don’t have a phone in my room Which meant I waited in the lounge area till 9. Normally this isn’t too late but jet lag caught up with me. I was falling asleep standing up and didn’t want to fall asleep on the couch cause I need to get into the right rhythm. At any rate finally talked with Jana for a few minutes because I was using their phone in the bar.