Dull days in the outback and fraudulent messages from down under....

Look, I'm not saying I'm not happy to be up here in the outback, thousands of kilometres from civilisation; light-years away from bookshops, cafes, swanky bars, cinemas and the beach - and did I mention bookshops?

No, I'm not saying that at all.

However, I will admit that the first line in her memoir 'Diplomatic Baggage', by journalist and diplomat's wife, Brigid Keenan, does strike a proverbial chord with me when she writes:

"Oh God, I don't know if I can bear it. This is my first morning in Kazakhstan and it is only 11 o'clock and I have already run out of things to do and I have another four years to go (that means one thousand four hundred and sixty days) until this posting comes to an end. How on earth am I going to get through it?"

Hilarious read...

A certain truth rings loudly from this paragraph for me. Yes it is a privilege to live somewhere as extraordinary as the Pilbara - how many people can claim that? But I sometimes wonder if my awe of this existence, and thrill at the uncommonness of it, rather overshadows the actual experience itself. I suspect my sole satisfaction in living here is more to do with the the fact that I can amaze people with this information at a dinner party in the distant future. A bit like the Japanese tourist whose holiday high-point is showing people the photographs afterwards.

We've been here six months now, and now that things have finally settled down, I'm finding there's not a whole lot to do.

Of course there are the basics: there's a library, post office, newsagents, chemist, supermarket, off-licence and breathtakingly over-priced milk bar, but these things can only entertain one for so long before a yearning for the house of horrors that was Midland Gate Shopping Centre kicks in.

Yes there is a vibrant community up here and people really have to make an effort if they are to survive. Unfortunately I've little interest in being sociable unless there is wine involved, so this aspect isn't quite working for me.

View from our house...

                                                                     

And so now my days consist largely of watching CNN on the laptop (no TV channels yet) or listening to the Bush Telegraph on the radio, while fending off a lingering feeling of guilt about the still packed bags which sit accusingly in the bedroom (with all the moving we've done over the past couple of years, unpacking everything feels a little pointless).

DH did gently suggest the other day that I might think about sorting out the laundry room, which currently resembles a church jumble sale. Stung I told him I was very, VERY busy raising HIS five children, to which he replied - not unreasonably - that "Anyone who can have a bath in the middle of the day is not that busy."

I honestly could not argue this point.

Of course things do happen here occasionally; we recently had the Caravan and 4x4 Car Show Extravaganza, the title of which rather over-sold the event I felt. But there was at least a free bouncy castle which went down a treat with the children, and I even bought a can of diet coke from a stall...

But more exciting was the annual Red Dirt Rocks Ball, to which myself and DH looked forward enormously despite slight misgivings about whether 'ball' might be the correct term, particularly when the flyer mentioned that men weren't expected to wear a tie.

We debated hotly over whether my floor-length silk gown was rather OTT for the event: DH felt it was, I felt it wasn't (knowing secretly that it was too tight so the point was moot). In the end I decided on a cheap knee-length party dress from Norma Jane. It would, I felt, do just fine.

It didn't - I was decidedly under-dressed. I had underestimated the women-folk of Paraburdoo and Tom Price, who had pulled out all the glamour stops for this event. It was a little like Miss World in there (without the swimsuit section) and the women were almost exclusively in floor-length gowns adorned with diamontes, rhinestones, tulle, and in one case a full floor-length tutu! With matching hair! She looked like Glinda of Oz. I felt shabby by comparison.

The town hall had been dramatically transformed (again, I had expected little more than a few flaccid metallic balloons and some streamers) with glowing furniture, draping white fabric and glitter. If you squinted it almost felt like we were in a nightclub, and for one night I suppose we were. The whole evening was great fun, it's just a pity it only comes once a year.

Mutant Messages from a New Age Fraud

Anyway, as part of my efforts to 'make the most of it' up here in the bush, I've been trying to read as many bush/outback-based books as possible.

My first attempt was 'The girl in the steel-capped boots' which I devoted three and a half minutes to before discarding (although interestingly DH read the whole thing - he said it was because it was about life as a FIFO worker, but I reckon the romantic story-line had him captivated).

My next attempt was 'Mutant Messages from Down Under', by Marlo Morgan, which proved to be far more interesting.

The premise is a 50-year-old American health worker travels to Australia for work, and is contacted by an Aboriginal tribe named 'The Real People' who claim to carry the last remaining essence of humanity, uncorrupted by civilisation. They invite her to what she thinks is some sort of award ceremony to thank her for her work with young disaffected Aborigines. She is driven several hours into the desert and effectively kidnapped and taken on a four month walkabout, where she learns their spiritual secrets, masters their culture, learns about desert-living and eventually discovers that she's been chosen to bring their message to the world.

I was captivated! This book is the most widely read book about Australian Aborigines in the world and has been translated into more than 20 languages. I briefly wondered if I could track down this tribe and get them to tell me their secrets to share with the world - I would lose so much weight with all that walking around, while getting a lucrative book deal afterwards! I considered getting in touch with her for their contact details.

Whenever I particularly love or hate a book, I tend to search out reviews to see if others agree. It was then that I discovered that this book had been exposed as a fraud over and over again.

Of course the signs where there - it had occurred to me that if a group of non-English-speaking Aborigines threw all my belongings onto a fire and then insisted I follow them on a four month walkabout, I might actually resist a little - a lot in fact (assuming I hadn't considered the potential weight-loss and lucrative book deal which might ensue).

A more authentic account

Also, the author is obliged to sleep on the ground in the bush, with nothing but a small dingo fur to keep warm. I thought about this for a minute - I mean, who in their right mind would do this on the very first night, having been essentially kidnapped, without making a fuss? (See the photo above for a shot of typical bushland - the potential for snakes, spiders, dingos and all sorts of other nasties is endless.)

Also, why would a group of Aborigines choose an American woman they don't know to pass on their secrets to the world? Many critics have pointed to the fact that much of the so-called 'Real People's' culture and secrets have nothing to do with real Aboriginal culture, and are more like the practices of north American Indians, something Ms Morgan might be more familiar with. And in fact when Hollywood were on the verge of taking up the story, a group of Aborigines travelled to America to confront the author about her lies. She tearfully confessed apparently, before continuing to peddle her tale once they'd left.

Would I recommend it? Well if you get it for free why not? There's always something to be learned from a book. However, as a piece of literature it's pretty poor, and there are better books on the outback out there. I'm currently reading Bruce Chatwin's Songlines, which promises a much more authentic story about outback Australia.

More on the book hoax http://marlomorgan.wordpress.com/