Remote Indigenous Australia — where time stands still

In a remote East Arnhem Land community time seems to stand still. The air is heavier and there is very little breeze. During the heat of the day, everyone stays in their houses or sits quietly in the shade of trees.

The children have gone home from school for lunch and there is no sound in the small community apart from the squawk of crows and the gentle lapping of waves on the beach.

It is very peaceful. A paradise of sorts. There is no cell-phone reception, and for the past two years no internet either.

Talking to other balanda (white people) we discuss what people do with their time. Seven years ago the community was a hive of activity. A community band practised every night, the grass was mowed, rangers had cars, and there was a playgroup where mothers sang English songs to their babies and toddlers — “one, two, three, four, five, once I caught a fish alive…”

Now, the grass unmown and the rangers no longer have cars — their vehicles going the way of all those subjected to relentless travel up and down the corrugated and pothole-ridden East Arnhem Land roads.

Without cars, there is nothing for the rangers to do. Their supervisor talks about the difficulty finding meaningful or even purposeful activities for them. There is a job going as a caretaker at the school but no one in the community wants to do it — accustomed as they are to getting paid for doing very little.

Welfare money is keeping this community alive and it can’t imagine another future.  One of my companions says the problem with the Yolgnu people is they are not time travellers — they live in the here and now. Few can budget their welfare money to last the whole fortnight and ‘book-up’ is rife.

Most can’t see how getting a job, even a low paying job, could lead to better things. Those who can, leave.

The one shining light of the community is the school. A husband and wife teaching team have managed to impart a love of reading to their students and for the first time ever children are reading novels. Perhaps these children will be able to imagine a different future for themselves.