I have always known how important sport is to the people who live out here. I dont think I fully realised the extent of it until last weekend. The Utopia store was hosting a Sports weekend. This is basically a weekend where small Homeland Communities come together in a central location and hold a round robin Football competition for the men and Softball competition for the women. We whitefellas hear whispers of them when they are about to happen. People start saying things like 'Must be football this weekend'. It's never really clear whether the sport itself will materialise until the actual weekend itself. Sometimes people start the rumour because there was one at the same time last year. Sometimes it's because a particular group have intended hosting one but simply haven't gotten organised in time. But every now and then the rumours prove to be true and the sports weekend happens.
Thus was the case last weekend and the stream of cars heading north up the Sandover highway left a cloud of red dust in their wake. Groups had come from all over the place. Utopia Homelands, like Mulga Bore where I teach, were well represented but there were also teams from Mt Leibig and Areonga which are a good 5 hours drive from Utopia. It was actually the biggest gatehring for a footy weekend I've ever seen.
The action started on the Saturday. It's never really clear who exactly is organising the draw, but eventually two teams start playing when someone toots the car horn siren. At the same time the womens softball starts up with a team listing drawn up on a scrap of paper and someone recording home runs while sitting in the dirt under a tree.
While the adults play sport the kids run around playing their own smaller versions of the games, or clambering all over the playground or shooting hoops on the basketball court.
Mr Whippy has seen an pportunity to make a killing and has set up shop nearby. Sadly the machine isn't too keen on the heat combined with the demand for soft serve and periodically gives up the ghost. There was also the best looking ute competition, this year won by the ute completely done out in Bombers colours, with the Mightly Magpies taking out second place.
Now ordinarily a sports weekend runs over onto a Monday. This is a commonly accepted fact out here and we at the school, being the culturally sensitive and accomodating people that we are, dont try to fight this. We simply drive our cars up to the store and join in the festivities. It actually a really nice time of catching up with all the communities at once.
So Monday arrived and we headed up to the store. Footy was in full swing, as was the Softball. The Mulga Bore women were playing and there was contention when the pitcher for the other team was discovered standing too close and striking out our team far too cheaply.
The main concern came toward the end of the day when it became clear that the Football was not going to finish that day. The solution - keep playing on Tuesday. Not a problem for the Communties, more of a problem for the schools. We dutifully opened our doors only to find all of our students still holed up at the Store. 'It's finals today, must be no school 'gen' was the only comment from the Community Teachers. And clearly the fials is the business end of the season. I heard of no less that 3 major fights breaking out - disputes over umpiring or the outcome of the game. Apparantly even though there are scorers and timers and umpires the done thing is to let the Local side win no matter what - to save face. Apparantly that didn't happen and the Local side were none too pleased.
Finally on Wednesday the carnival was over and school could resume. Except for me. The Mulga Bore mob informed me that they were heading over to Alcoota for Sorry Business. An old man had passed away over there and they needed to go and pay their respects and compelte the traditional grieving rituals. Problem was they had been delayed a couple of days. "We'll be going soon as that footballs finished' they kept telling me. And here I thought everything stopped when someone dies. Apparantly football is the exception to this rule!
