Remarkable women of the desert

I started a new job a few weeks ago. I couldn't be happier (well maybe that's not true, but I'm pretty happy!). In this job my role is to support indigenous teachers in their learning and training. What I really get to do is talk and spend time with a group of remarkable women (and a couple of men). Some of these women have been teaching at the school in their remote community for up to 30 years. This in a system where 'whitefellas' come and go like pieces of rubbish blowing across a dusty football field.

I asked one of them how long she had been teaching for. 28 years she replied. And how many Principals had come and gone in that time? "Oh" she laughed "too many...maybe 15 or 20, I can remember'. But I bet she does. i bet she remembers each and everyone of them. i bet she remembers the ones who gave her hope and the ones who took all her power away. I bet she remembers the ones who treated her with respect and acknowledged her wisdom and knowledge, and the ones who judged her as knowing nothing based on her broken English.

And her story is all to familiar to the rest of the women in our little group. They have seen so many Principals and Teachers come and go, come and go. But they are still there. They are still putting up their hands to do more study, to become even stronger advocates for their children's education. They are still the ones who try their best to 'orient' new whitefellas into their schools. They are the ones who talk to me now with great concern about the next generation of teachers. 'Who is gonna teach in the school when we get too old? We have to mentor those young ones'.

And hey are grateful to me for any small help I can offer them and i feel inadequate sometimes, but they are immanently gracious and i will do my best not to let them down.