Because the humor of coming to work in Australia and being put up in a prison was not lost on me, I was briefly disappointed to learn that I was not, in fact, going to be living at Port Hedland’s ex-detention center.
While some visitors to this remote northwestern corner of the country apparently do have the pleasure of staying in the repurposed jail (which, I was told, the government retains the right to de-repurpose at any time), I have instead been given three weeks’ accommodation at the somewhat euphemistically-named Port Haven Village, a miners’ camp encircled in wire fencing at the edge of the city airfield.
Actually, it’s nicer than it sounds. The camp must be almost brand new; I don’t know exactly when it was built, but my room looks like it’s hardly ever been touched before.
It, like all the others, is also surprisingly well-appointed: each single-occupancy bedroom comes complete with a mini fridge, electric kettle, flat screen TV, and even an itty bitty in-room bath with a complimentary bar of soap. (I tried to upload a video, but since it didn't upload in the 18 hours I let it sit, I think it's just not happening.)
Likewise, the camp itself is nearly all-inclusive. For better or worse, it was clearly constructed with the idea that the miners, most of whom are fly-in, fly-out workers from less desolate parts of the country, should never have to interact with or even see the local area at all. There’s a dining hall and a bar (the unappetizingly-labeled “dry mess” and “wet mess”); a small gym with coaches and fitness classes; a pool; a miniature Astroturf cricket field encased in netting on all sides, including the top; a shop carrying candy, emu jerky, and toiletries; multiple laundry facilities; a couple barbecue grills; and, though I don’t know what you’d really do with them, two holes of putt-putt. I imagine it’s quite like living on a military base, complete with street names that are clearly trying too hard to convince you of something, like Opportunity Way and Prosperity Road.
If the miners’ camp has exceeded my (low, though quite amicably so) expectations, though, the city of Perth, 800 miles south of here and where I began my Australian adventure, did so even more. I arrived in that city, the capital of the unassuming Western Australia State, on the afternoon of May 12, after having left Knoxville two days prior. On my antipodean journey, I’d stopped off in Chicago in the early evening, paused in Los Angeles after dark, and then outrun the sun all the way across the Pacific for a 17-hour night that ended with sunrise over Sydney. And finally, after passing my first Australian morning and afternoon in alternating states of fidgetiness and narcolepsy, I descended from a flawless blue sky and into the opalescent little city of Perth.
My first impression of the city, gained blearily from the airport shuttle bus window after falling asleep at the bus stop and almost not waking up upon the bus’s arrival, was of a network of busy, dusty roadways connecting a decent but rather uninspiring collection of shops, apartments, and American fast food joints. I wrote an email that night comparing it to Fresno, a city I’ve never seen but which I imagine to have a similarly anemic ambience, though at triple the size.
Well, I take it back. It was clearly meant as an insult, and I hereby retract it (though my completely unfounded distaste for Fresno still stands). Perhaps it was because I was in a stupor, or because my vision was as blurred as if I’d spent all night in the library. Perhaps it was because my diet for the past two days had consisted largely of airplane-issued cookies and bland mushy things slathered in the requisite British Commonwealth scoop of butter. But whatever the cause, when I awoke at 4:30 the next morning and ventured out into Perth, I was immediately struck by the plain agreeableness of this clean, safe, palm-treed, well-functioning, and calmly congenial city.
I had breakfast at a café tucked down a little alley, and then walked along the spotlessly-maintained riverfront pedestrian path for miles until reaching the University of Western Australia, where I enjoyed a pleasant lunch with an equally affable quartet of sandal-clad linguistics professors. I spent the ensuing afternoon in a delightfully perfect park overlooking the city (the view is pictured to the right--and the crooked horizon is due to its being upside down on the bottom of the earth, not due to the photographer, I'll have you know). I then had dinner at a swanky Indian joint right on the water where the dishes were priced, amazingly, at “whatever your heart feels” (a tricky sociological experiment indeed, as I’m pretty sure I overpaid).
The next day, Saturday, was much cooler and looked imminently stormy, so I was glad to be back at the airport after another pleasant café breakfast. While checking in, I considered my choice of seat on the airplane carefully, as I was determined to see my new country from the air on this seminal flight. I even sacrificed the exit row for the last remaining window seat.
That seat, unfortunately, ended up being right next to the propeller, which completely blocked the window. Perhaps even worse, it was also right across the aisle from an obese man who vomited the entire time. So though there was nothing to be seen out my window, I spent the three-hour flight with my head turned sharply toward it nonetheless, intently studying the side of the propeller housing.
And then I landed at the Port Hedland airport (see photo on left for the border between the airport and the miner's camp). It's a tiny facility where passengers and everyone else mill around together in one room and my new co-worker, Jess, somehow recognized me though I’d never sent a photo. Perhaps she’d Googled.For my celebratory arrival dinner, Jess took me to a place she proclaimed as one of the most exciting dining options in the area: the mess hall at the miner’s camp where I’m living. As she explained, the whole office staff had taken a dinner outing together there the week before and had apparently come away immensely excited, as they’d grown quite tired of the other five options in town. And it was indeed good, and much more worldly than I would have expected from a cafeteria serving an outpost of burly men, boasting such delicacies as stir-fried tofu and grilled barramundi and baba ghanouj. At twenty-two dollars a meal, though (even for breakfast!), it’ll require more than some pureed eggplant to convince me (though I’ve since discovered that $22 is actually on the cheap side for a restaurant meal here—on my one off-camp restaurant outing, I had a $30 all-vegetable salad).
The next day, Sunday, I went to the art museum (which is, to its credit, really making the best of the ten pieces it’s got, all from Perth-based artists) with Nick, a short, gray-haired, chain-smoking, constantly-swearing, raspy-voiced and generous-natured female linguist from Melbourne who’s been filling in at the language centre while they’ve been waiting for me and who, as a fellow Port Haven resident, has been my guide and extraordinarily helpful chauffeur. (She’s leaving in a week, though, which means that I have precisely that long to a.) obtain a car, b.) learn how to drive it, as it will be a manual transmission, and c.) remember to keep it on the left side of the road.)
And then the following day was Monday: my first day of work. The photo below depicts our parking lot, company car, and some of the area behind the office--which is at the heart of town, mind you. Without laboring the details, I’ll say that it’s been really great so far. (I got to develop a brand new file-naming protocol for the office! No, actually, it’s really exciting.
Posterity and archivists alike will hopefully be pleased, and I tell you I surely am.) I’ve also been tasked with putting the finishing touches on two illustrated, audio-accompanied wordlists before the funder’s big deadline in June. One of these lists will require traveling “out bush” to track down some of the three or four remaining speakers of the Thalanyji language in order to make additional recordings, probably sometime within the next week or two—so I’ll get to see some of the real outback pretty soon (I’ve heard they’ll roast you a kangaroo!).Otherwise, all is quite well here! Traveling apparently wore me out even more than I originally thought, as I’ve been a somewhat sick with a low fever and sore throat since Sunday, and even had to miss work because of it on Thursday. I also had an allergic reaction to the chinstrap on my new sunhat, which resulted in an irritatingly itchy rash on my neck, and, if that weren’t enough, also redeveloped the same sort of non-itchy but nevertheless unsightly welts on my face (egads) as I did upon deplaning in Indonesia last year. Sigh. Perhaps I’m also allergic to the eastern hemisphere. In any case, it appears my immune system is a bit compromised. I’m hoping my lymph nodes will stop expanding before they actually pass my ears. But all things considered, I’m actually feeling quite well and have every hope of being in top form by next week. Which is when I’ll write to you all again!
Props to anyone who’s made it this far. I miss you all and send good thoughts from down under!!
