Episode 1

When I first met Lily’s Mum, I just knew that my life was destined to change dramatically.  As a white British man, with only a few non-white friends, this new relationship was going to involve a considerable leap of faith if we were going to dedicate our lives to each other and any resulting children.

Angie and I were of a similar age; both having enjoyed travelled independently and shared a lifetime of involvement with the Roman Catholic church.  In fact, it was friends I’d made through the London Students’ Chaplaincy that had prompted me to apply for the teaching post in Harare which brought us together.

Something else we had in common turned out to be the importance of children: with me taking care of them in the classroom and Angie applying her many skills in the hospital ward.  My beliefs had always led me to value children, although my own experience of any parenting was quite limited. At least it was until meeting the rest of the extended Lourenço family!

My own father had been largely absent during my childhood years, so when he cleared off completely in my late teens, it meant the opportunity to learn directly about being a Dad in my own right had been largely non-existent.  

Angie’s own family involvement was reinforced by her professional experiences as a midwife and then a pediatric nurse, leaving me light years behind when it came to understanding and caring for the wider needs of youngsters.

Several friends back in York and London had always been keen for me to take their children off for an afternoon in local parks – little did I realise at the time just how much of a treat those trips out were for my adult friends – so I wasn’t a complete novice.

Angie soon started to provide some catch-up training for her husband-to-be…..

“Al, just take N (her niece of three years) to the toilet.”  

This command led me towards a situation way above anything I’d experienced before.  In all my teaching I’d not dealt with children under teenage years!

Thankfully my small companion was completely OK with this shared mission and my panic duly subsided.  The fear of not knowing had been replaced by a dramatic lurch forward in my understanding.

Angie was even more beautiful in her pregnancy, which arose quite soon after we’d exchanged our marriage vows.  You might be shocked to hear that I was out partying in London, some months later, when Angie successfully gave birth to Lily’s brother, back in Harare.  

Overlapping teaching terms and holidays meant that I could leave Zimbabwe and return to my former London secondary school to earn the £s not available due to sanctions against Mugabe’s government at the time.  

Our firstborn had decided to arrive two weeks before Plan A kicked in, so I was still in England. The sterling would allow me to buy a pushchair and essential cuddy toys from Hamley’s Toy Store! Cotton was grown in Zimbabwe those days, so nappies were readily available.  Most other baby products items were in seriously short supply.

On my return flight, British Airways staff were quite perplexed as I’d taken advantage of “Bring your pushchair aboard free.” They wondered at first where I’d stashed the baby?   To everyone’s relief, my explanation that McLaren buggies were not available in my new home, set the matter straight. And they didn’t charge me for excess baggage.

So, my opening days of ‘fatherhood’ were characterised by a clear and obvious absence.  If you’d like to share some of how that narrative unfolded, watch this space.

Wishing you peace.

Alan

Uluru at sunset     

  Earlier this year in March, I moved to Yulara, home of Uluru to work in an Aboriginal primary health clinic.  Uluru is a very ancient, special site (the 'rock', locals end up calling it) meaning 'meeting place' by the Anangu  people. It was fascinating learning about the Anangu culture and how far the Pitjantjatjara language actually goes.  I met different groups of families here that speak Pitjantjatjara all the way from Halls creek, in the Kimberely WA to Fregon in South Australia!  It is amazing how many different Indigenous dialects that so many Aboriginal people learn over the course of their life.  I was always astounding also, by driving around after work, or on the way to the supermarket that I used to see Uluru in the distance!  I felt so happy to be living there.

  The town of Yulara however, primarily ended up existing as a tourist spot to see the Rock.  Mutitjulu is a protected Aboriginal community of the First Nations people that would live nearby the rock.  In reality though, Aboriginal families migrate often around Country.  The hotels, campgrounds, power grids, water and waste management of Yulara were all developed there to facilitate visitors flying in or driving to do the tourist activities nearby.  It has therefore become an interesting social mix of people that have lived there for years, to young peope that come and go every few months to work in hospitality, the tourist industry and the Indigenous Academy to get jobs elsewhere in Australia.

  So this meant I went from a busy hospital life, to working in what felt like more of a GP clinic, but with endless streams of tourists with frankly, mostly frustrating needs.  Walking around the supermarket it would be very commonplace to hear white Australian tourists complaining on the lack of fresh vegetables (there were most things there) and the price of everything.  I would wordlessly watch them with eyebrows raised knowing that the trucks start driving at 1am every day from Alice Springs to bring supplies to Yulara, which is difficult enough to get them to Alice Springs in the first place.  The most common supplies would also go within a day because often 50-100 people a day would turn up  to stay at the campground in peak season, so despite the delivery driver's best efforts it is hard to accommodate so many fresh supplies every day in the desert.

  Once, a blustery Canadian older lady asked me where the toothpaste was when I was queueing to pay in my nursing uniform after work.  Bemused, I said I think it was down the hygiene/medicine aisle.  "Well aren't you going to show me?!" she asked me in frustration, at which I laughed and pointed to my badge that said 'REGISTERED NURSE' underneath my name.  "I don't actually work here, I've finished work," I smiled at her, at which she huffed "Well you're the only one in uniform so I thought you worked here!" And then toddled off in the direction I pointed at.  All the staff were currently working hurriedly on the tills, as there was a line of about 30 people that all came in at once.  It is good practice to develop patience in the desert.  I wish that visitors would understand, that when they go to rural Australia, there are not the same availability of resources as bigger, coastal towns.  A friendly attitude often takes you a long way 'out bush'.

  Working on call was also surprisingly tiring at first, and I think for the first month all I really did was go to work, go for walks, and sleep.  It was a much slower pace than what I was used to being in hospitals, even much smaller, rural hospitals.  But I still found the changes tiring!  We would get an on call 'allowance' but not formally paid overtime for when you had to go into work between the hours of 5pm to 8am the next day.  If people would ring you, for example if they had a fever, and the flu at 3am, asking for paracetamol, you wouldn't get time off work for that either.  It is your own problem if you can't go back to sleep and have to focus at work the next day on four hours' sleep!   At first, I underestimated the need to drink as much water, which many tourists to the region did as well.  Just because it's more arid, and you won't therefore sweat as much as somewhere like Darwin, the quiet desert still demands your attention to prevent you from feeling more tired and thirsty than usual.  

  It was intimidating looking after people on call by myself, and to be honest if I still hear that specific ring tone for the on call phone then my heart jumps into my throat and I feel on edge!  However thankfully I got much more used to it, jumping into the ambo at any hours of day or night, even driving hours for roadside pickups from motorvehicle accidents or sick kids in community.  I never forget being called to the Valley of the Winds to pick up a hiker that had injured their knee, with the handover on the sat phone being "catastrophic blood loss".  It took around 45 minutes to get the landcruiser there by the back 'roads' (rocks, not roads) with myself in terrified anticipation of all the roadside trauma things I might have to do.  I haven't put a pelvic binder on by myself?!  How would I get someone with a head injury down a rockface in a cervical collar??  What if I can't get an IV cannula in to replace their blood loss??  Finally on the ground, I hiked up my nursing scrub trousers and forded a shallow stream, already sweating in the midday sun even though it was 25 degrees, swatting away flies and trying to keep up with the barefooted rangers.  They were pushing their version of a stretcher, a sort of elongated wheelbarrow with handles, with incredible ease whilst I struggled to hike up the smooth, steep rock with no hand holds and carrying an emergency bag on my back.  I was getting more frustrated with my slowness by the minute in case the person was non responsive by the time I got there!

...Anyway, it turned out to be a very fit and healthy Dutch lady who had scraped open her knee.  The blood loss was not catastrophic.  She had no head injury.  She was a little shaken up at falling over, but otherwise a nimble mountain goat who climbed her way back down to the ambulance before I did.

  As well as the Yulara clinic, we would move every other week to the community 2-3 hours away to sleep overnight and run the clinic in the day.  It was still tiring and odd though being away from your usual house, with usual kitchen appliances even (and coffee!).  The house that we used to stay in the Aboriginal Community was much older-appearing despite other nurses' best efforts to make it more comfortable.  It had pretty views of the rocks around us, but other than watch tv, or visit the local shop (open 10am-1pm and 3pm-5pm..most of the time) there was nothing else to do.  Thank heavens for Starlink Wifi!  You couldn't go too far either, as you were also on call for people in the community.  I quickly began to see why so many Aboriginal health needs fell through to cracks, and the difficulty in continuity of care.  It took me what felt like foever to learn the names of the people there, but now I still remember their names and faces. I miss them. If I got to meet any of them tomorrow, I would be genuinely very happy.

 However, the work politics and itchy feet started settling in, and whilst I did love driving my lovely (second hand) new car, a 6 hour each way trip to Alice, just to go to the pharmacy, wasn't ideal.  So once I even caught a cheap direct flight to Melbourne from Yulara for the weekend to go to the shops and experience some of the city!  When work takes up so much of your life in such a small place, with unbalances and unfair dynamics they feel much more amplified than if you were somewhere bigger.  Anonymity doesn't exist there, either.  There, work bled into every day life and it felt suffocating as I lost all remembrance of what a good nurse I actually was and how life could be fun again.  As unique as the desert life was, it wasn't meant to last..

  My time here wasn't as long as I was anticipating, and my decision to leave after 6 months was not an easy one.  Life felt like it was thrust all into chaos, and I started driving to Alice springs with all my earthly belongings crammed into my first ever car.   I was feeling numb as our notice period was only a week, and it didn't all feel quite real to be leaving somewhere I thought I was going to stay for much longer.  I still managed to have fun on the last weekend, splashing out on helicopter rides around the great monoliths and enjoying them from a different perspective.  It was interesting that Uluru for me was the place I went to when I was feeling emotional and fighting off the need to cry before finally giving in, sometimes just in my happiness at seeing her.  And Kata Tjuta was where I went to do more introspective, probing reflection, asking myself certain questions but more importantly understanding what answer was being given.

  I'm sure I'll have more desert stories to share, so stay tuned!