The first retrospective post
I had intended to write a group email farely regularly and have failed. I will try and write more frequently to this online journal;
I have worked for about 6 months in Sydney since I wrote the long email detailing what I was up to. For the first 3 months I was working in a busy (by Australian standards) A&E. It was a lot of fun - the best bit was making friends with the other British junior Drs and nurses. There is a real sense of camraderie. I realised that i enjoyed the faster pace and doing procedures.
In the middle of working there I went on a four day trip from Ayer's Rock (Uluru) to Alice Springs. Uluru was fascinating and awesome. Getting off the plane into midday 40 degree celsius birght sunny day was like opening an oven door. The airport has about 4 flights per day and you walk over the run way to get to the terminal. Uluru is obviously rich in culture:
We had an excellent guide who told us about the Aboriginal people. They do not like being called Aboriginees and would prefer Aboriginal people or black fella. They are many different tribes; they have existed for 40,000 years and have no written language and so when many of them were killed their culture has vanished as there were no records kept.
Uluru (the rock) is sacred to them and they would prefer it if nobody climbed it. The Australian government discourages people from climbing it but allows it as they do not want to lose revenue (they tax everyone who sees it by paying a national park entrance fee, a very small portion of which goes to the Aboriginal tribe who still live there).
They have many initiation rites and rituals, one of which sounded particularly painful:
They used sharp stones to make a cut from the tip of the penis down the underside of the shaft to the base, then put a small piece of wood at the base to keep the communication open, then wrapped the wound with leaves. Once it had healed they have in effect a bypass route so that they can have intercourse to procreate or not if they remove the wooden plug.
Alice Springs was a funny place as there was nowhere around for hundreds of km - a very relaxed way of life.
I have worked for about 6 months in Sydney since I wrote the long email detailing what I was up to. For the first 3 months I was working in a busy (by Australian standards) A&E. It was a lot of fun - the best bit was making friends with the other British junior Drs and nurses. There is a real sense of camraderie. I realised that i enjoyed the faster pace and doing procedures.
In the middle of working there I went on a four day trip from Ayer's Rock (Uluru) to Alice Springs. Uluru was fascinating and awesome. Getting off the plane into midday 40 degree celsius birght sunny day was like opening an oven door. The airport has about 4 flights per day and you walk over the run way to get to the terminal. Uluru is obviously rich in culture:
We had an excellent guide who told us about the Aboriginal people. They do not like being called Aboriginees and would prefer Aboriginal people or black fella. They are many different tribes; they have existed for 40,000 years and have no written language and so when many of them were killed their culture has vanished as there were no records kept.
Uluru (the rock) is sacred to them and they would prefer it if nobody climbed it. The Australian government discourages people from climbing it but allows it as they do not want to lose revenue (they tax everyone who sees it by paying a national park entrance fee, a very small portion of which goes to the Aboriginal tribe who still live there).
They have many initiation rites and rituals, one of which sounded particularly painful:
They used sharp stones to make a cut from the tip of the penis down the underside of the shaft to the base, then put a small piece of wood at the base to keep the communication open, then wrapped the wound with leaves. Once it had healed they have in effect a bypass route so that they can have intercourse to procreate or not if they remove the wooden plug.
Alice Springs was a funny place as there was nowhere around for hundreds of km - a very relaxed way of life.
posted by Saul Kaufman at 11:21 PM
2 Comments:
hi saul. Am living in Alice at the moment, off to 'the rock' next weekend. Interesting about the splayed icks isnt it. First time i heard of it was when i had to catheterise an aborigiona, and no-one had told me!...imagine me a)trying to hide my surprise and b)trying to work out how the fuck i was supposed to catheterise it! (surprisingly easy as it goes xxx
Enjoyed, latest posting, Sogs, and had good laugh.
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