It has been a while. I suppose you could say we are settled in now. Last week we moved from ‘Old Broome’ to the Cable Beach area, a suburb near work and child care. We now have established a home, for the time being.
The past few months have been unsettling due to our living situation. We rented a room in a big, beautiful but unbearable house. Unbearable because the owner hadn’t told us upfront that we would be sharing with whomever wanted to be in the house too when necessary or convenient. This seemed impossible to explain to Joy, whom welcomes everybody that enters ‘our house’ as an intimate friend. That’s how it was at home; visitors were always close. And here they came and went, sometimes without notice. And unpleasant were the amount of mozzies (and lack of fly-wire) that are nowhere to be seen elsewhere in Broome this time of the year. Anyway, we lived there for nearly three months and moved on to a temporary lease (until mid November this year). This house is small, suitable and a safe haven. It suits Joy and myself perfect; open plan living, two bedrooms, bath and a small garden. We have hung up the hammock between the palm trees, a triangle climbing ladder in a big shady tree and a cubby tent on the patio. This is the first place that we rent unfurnished so we now purchased the basics in our new household. Also all our stuff we send up from Holland is unpacked. While I regretted packing some stuff the day after we sent them off in March, I turned out happy with just about everything we unpacked. Very few things I regret for not having and those are replaceable. That’s all material though.
Emotionally our move turns out a bit of a roller coaster ride for me sometimes. Mostly I am very happy, it is home and that feeling comes with being settled, at ease, not feeling that there is elsewhere to be rather. Finally being in the town (read: at the beach) I love most on this planet, living here, being able to raise Joy here – it is bliss. And there are so many aspects that we haven’t yet got to savour because we had to move on and haven’t put our roots in the ground yet. Promises of many more enjoyable moments, new habits and experiences lure me through the days wanting more. We have a routine that keeps us grounded and happy, enables us to cope with all that is different and all that is left behind. It is okay now. Also I am looking forward to be even more relaxed, so we can be a bit more flexible, spontaneous and adventurous. Often I am aware of a wish to be able to share this live with our most precious loved ones. Not being able to do that I knew before would be the biggest sacrifice and it is.
There are moments too of feeling lost. Having very few friends yet that are close at hand. Feeling not known. Wondering if uneasiness comes from cultural differences, having gone through major changes, the tides or the yet unforeseen consequences of the big decision made to chase a different life. We are surrounded with ocean on the Broome peninsula and the tidal changes are amongst the highest in the world. I believe it does influence our moods, they swing a lot more than they used to and the high and lows are comparable with the king tides (varying from 1.2m to 8m every fortnight). It seems to affect the people here too, not just me and not just the planets. Furthermore Broome holds a lot of memories and associations with major changes in my past life. Getting sussed out by people with different social rules sometimes feels like being a bug under a microscope. It makes me feel like wanting to run and hide in the high grass, dig a little hole and disappear. That’s the times that I miss dear friends the most, people that you can just BE with. So far I have to say that soon after experiencing those moments, the right people have been able to say just the right thing to me to make it easier again, to confirm my sense that I am right. It was the right decision, it is good to be here and we will stay right, better even.
Some people ask how our days look like. Not very different from the way they were before except for this blissful environment! On workdays we get up, shower, have breakfast and get ready for a day at work and day care. As I work close to Joy’s day care centre and am not forced to have breaks, I work from 8-16 h and then go and pick her up again. Joy is having a ball at Little Pearlers. Most of the time seems to be spent outside playing in the sand pit, the mud pit, on the various climbing courses or having water play. Indoors there is a lot of arts and crafts activities, reading, music and movement, dressing up, role play, the lot. By now Joy understand just about everything in English and easily shifts between both languages. Every day she finds me little presents and hands them over when I pick her up. They seem little tokens with which she stays connected to me by cherishing those little things all day for me until she sees me again. One day we will make something out of all the pebbles, ornaments, shells, parts of toys and all other little things that she gives me as an art piece of affection and connection.
Joy is growing up. She talks a lot, wants to know things, asks and reasons, experiments and just grows in every respect. She becomes tall and agile. She is still her same happy, easygoing, strong minded and funny self. Joy is a joy as always.
My work is coordinating the Minyirr Park office. More information about Minyirr Park and the Kimberley Land Council, the organisation I work for, can be found through links that I will provide at a later stage. It is simply too much to explain in a few sentences. I am very happy with this job, I love the significance of Minyirr and I believe strongly in what the traditional owners of the land do with it. Thus it is relatively easy to support them reaching their goals. Also this job is challenging for me as I consider myself as apolitical and both the land owners and organisation are politically driven. The work environment is rewarding, satisfying and subject to big movements. So one thing: I am never bored.
Time off we spent at home playing, of course shop, see friends and go to one of the beaches mainly. And that is a feature on its own. High tides on Cable Beach are favourite as the ocean is often so clear and nearly painfully beautiful, sometimes with quite big waves to play with. Just being there really is enough, but sometimes we do play, walk, run, swim or chat with others. Or we see the rare dolphin, know that whales are passing by out of sight this season and look at little crabs or shore birds. So far this is enough. Once settled again in this place Joy might go to dancing classes or something to have an activity outside of day care that she likes doing.
I am involved with the Broome Community Housing Group, a group of single persons that build houses in Broome years ago with government money on lots that the gov paid as well and where they live in for little rent. It is officially social housing but because they developed the houses themselves the housing turned out very nice and ecological. Every few years an existing house becomes available if someone moves out of Broome. As there are now quite a few members without a house (there are 9 houses at the moment and 17 members), we will put a new submission in to build a new lot of houses, very intensive but exiting. Membership of the group means commitment to monthly meetings to manage the properties together. Because of the new submission this will involve fortnightly meetings and some activities in the evenings which I am happy to do as it might very well provide us with nice and affordable housing in the future, a rare commodity in Broome.
The Broome community center, called Circle House, asked me to be a member of the management committee. As this is a group of people with again aims that suit my vision and lifestyle I am glad to be part of this too.
Evenings I usually spend on my own, reading, doing yoga (on and off) and keeping a social life through mainly the telephone, not much different from our life in Holland. And now we have internet, yihaa, access to email and weblog/sites. That will improve my digital social life for sure.
Also people wonder what we miss or like. I do not miss the infrastructure in Holland; the amount of roads, highways, houses, offices, industrial areas etc. I am very happy in this environment, so simple and relatively untouched. Proper chocolate I miss, but it might be good to have ditched the habit of having some every day. The Hema, a branch here would be very welcome. And puppet theatre. Going there is something I really enjoyed doing with Joy and there is nothing like it in Broome.
I do miss contact with close friends and relatives, really would like to see them occasionally. Luckily a few call us regularly and that goes both ways. Some don’t and that sometimes hurt. Although I do understand very well that life goes on and that 5 months in your usual routine is probably different than it has been for us. And I did notice that voicemail and answering machines in Holland are out of fashion. Not handy if you want to leave a message that you’ve rang. And our limited access to email the past period did not help either. Hopefully we make up for that by this long update.
Much love, Astrid / Fae
