Our association with our friend Tricia, her friend Margaret and Margaret’s family is teaching us a lot about living in the ‘bush’ in Australia. Tricia comes from a very small country town and when she returned from international teaching, she took a position as governess at Ternag cattle station in Queensland. She belongs to the Malyangapa indigenous Australian tribe from New South Wales and was an indigenous lecturer and was involved in indigenous studies for 30 years.
Farm families have huge properties on which they run their cattle stations. It is a total commitment for all involved. Often there are extended families with sons and daughters taking part in the business. They are very self-sufficient and are prepared to handle most any situation. Children are taught to take part in the running of the farm and learn to drive at an early age, often drive farm machine or drive themselves to school. They are innovative learners and take advantage of the opportunities provided for them on a working farm. The children learned to weld, hunt game, do yard work, brand, inoculate and muster cattle with their own horses. They usually are very skilled horsemen.
The children may go to a bush school which may be 70 k from their home. Others take part in distance learning. Their governess or parents supervise their online/on-air lessons and are required teach individual subjects as well.
A generation ago the lessons were received and sent out by mail. When the children reach secondary school (grade 7-12) many go off to boarding school, sometimes 1000 km away in cities or large towns. This ‘bush’ education system has proved to be a very rich and effective learning system, producing generations of independent capable people.
Although it may appear to be a lonely isolated existence but the reality is far from that. They are very social and although there were many km between farms, they still have many opportunities to cultivate close relationships with their neighbors. There are weddings, birthdays, football games, camp drafting events and scores of relatives and friends who came in for a weekend at the property. A hub of activity is the community hall which was built as a cooperative effort by the families. There are always Jackaroos, a governess and other workers living on site. They are an important part of the farm team.
The property families are very self-sufficient, they travel to town sometimes 2.5 hours away, to get supplies to last perhaps a month or more. They have large freezer to store food and usually have freezers running on the back of their trucks, for the run to town. The properties are a busy work place and can have up to 24 workers or more depending on the tasks, as well as the family members and house hold staff. Everyone has generators to combat power outages.
To add to challenges to all this, the weather can reach 37-42 Celsius.
The life of Bush families is not for the faint of heart.
Comments
Post a Comment