SNEZ E-News and Tour Update - In Numbulwar

Class 3/4

We're home at last. After spending months in temperatures of 25 to 30 degrees, being in the wintery Blue Mountains was a huge shock to the system. However it's a good time to hibernate after all the colour and movement and have a decent shower.

The last leg of our tour ended in Numbulwar, a very small seaside community in East Arnhem Land. We did 2 weeks of teaching with the youth at Numbulwar School organised by teacher Selena Uibo. Our focus was on songwriting, recording and performance.

The 2 weeks was pretty intense; meeting the kids, setting up the music recording room, getting the song written and recorded and doing a final concert for the local community, as well as getting the hang of the place. We even worked with a couple of elders to translate the songs, the kids had written, into the local 'Wubuy' language, which is slowly dying off in Numbulwar. Check out the Part 1 of our time here.




There were 2 shops. The 'big shop' and the 'little shop' - and they were both pretty basic and expensive compared to mainstream shopping.    Stewart was very pleased when he discovered that, although the shops didn't really have too much of a range, they did have m&m's......party time : )

School finished about 3 pm each afternoon and after that there really wasn't much to do except work on the days recording, eat m&m's and rest.  One particular night, Stew heard a bass guitar playing in the distance. We tracked it down the street and found out it was the local band 'Yilila' rehearsing for the their huge gig at the Garma Festival. Yilila are pretty renowned in the indigenous live music circles. They invited us into their backyard, while they rehearsed out in the open sky. The women were cooking short neck turtles they had caught on the beach, on the fire. We felt so privileged to be part of this wonderful experience. Apart from the fact that I'm veggo and the turtle smell nearly killed me : ) I sucked it up! 

Leonie and the elders translating songs into Wubuy language

I formed a very special friendship with local camp dogs called 'Dingo' and 'Nina'. They were on my doorstep every morning for their breakfast and back again at 6 pm for dinner. They ate us out of house and home, poor Freddy felt a little out of sorts : )

Anyway, stay tuned for Part 2 of our Numbulwar Adventures.
Smell ya  later

snez & stew