Wow, the week of exams was followed by a week of work experience, or in the case of 24 IB students, a week of community service in the aboriginal outback community of Nepabunna/Nipapanha, located in the Flinders not far from Leigh Creek.

We set off on Monday, (early Monday I might add, we had to be there at 7:00am). One big bus with a third of the total luggage load reserved for food. Also on board, a ton of plants, shrubs 'n trees and irrigation apparatus.

The supervising staff, were: Mrs Harding, Mrs Bartold and Mr Ian de Boar himself.

Then there was us. We sat in the bus.
If we listened to music we listened to the following:
Daniel: Bob Dylan
Tom: Jack Johnson
Chen: Chinese boy band
Fardell: Rage against the machine
Josh: Ramnstein! DU HAST! And the LOTR payout song.
Ashwin: A grand collection of songs on his sexcellent iPod.
Me: Dance and the odd Techno track; described by the rest as: EuroTrash.
It's okay, they're just jealous and somewhat stuck in time.

If we did'nt listen to music, we played cards. Mostly Chinese Poker, but also some Cheat, Punishment and Hearts. This made the bus trip all the more enjoyable, and what we had anticipated to be a long and tiring bus trip, turned out to be just fine.

In Nepabunna we were greeted by the locals, and we organised an International Food meal for the community. About a hundred people were supposed to show up. About ten did. Much leftovers. All with good intentions.

The next day we visited the Leigh Creek area school, about an hour drive out of Nepabunna. The Aboriginal school in Nepabunna itself has closed, there were simply not enough kids. The remainder now go to Leigh Creek each morning. Before the trip we had all paired up and prepared a lesson/activity to teach a group of students. Tom and I had a group of about 10, 5-6 year olds. We made hacky sacks out of balloons and sand with them, and after collected assorted leaves and sticks to then stick them on paper. Tom had bought a very nice bottle of glue, only to discover after that it was highly toxic and one of the warning labels read keep out of reach of children and avoid contact with skin :S. More fun was had when one of the kids exclaimed, "this glue smells funny" *sniff sniff*. A worried teacher was quick in telling the kids NOT to smell the glue.

Wednesday, Day 3.
We started the day with the usual breakfast; toast, weetbix and a hot beverage whether this was tea, coffee or milo was up to the person itself. Poor innocent Samuel decided to have some toast, with the intention of eating this very piece of toast with something on top. There was jam, peanut butter, heck we even had honey. But none of these would give Samuel the satisfaction he was after. Sam opened a jar of a darkish substance and added a generous serving to his piece of toast. What he believed to be a chocolate spread turned out to be the infamous Vegimite, tum tum tumm. With one bite his face froze and as the horrible taste spread quickly through his mouth he screamed, fell to the floor and froth formed at the corners of his mouth as his body shook with heavy pulses. Fortunately he survived the ordeal, and we made sure we got him some Nutella by the next day.

Colin Murdoch, (a real country bloke and maybe even an aboriginal wannabee) came to talk to us after. After telling us how much he loves John Howard (not) he instructed to build a flinders landscape on butcher's paper, using all the things we could find around the place. We collected rocks, sticks, sand, kangaroo carcasses, aboriginal excrement and crafted some fine landscapes. Only for his model sheep to come and wreck it all after. Yes he talked about sheep, and sheep eating trees. BAD SHEEP! We went through the Aboriginal history from when the whites came in 1788. Quite interesting. Picked up some things I didn't know.

After we set out to fulfill what we went to Nepabunna to do. 1)Build fence. 2)Build garden. Yay. I joined the gardening group. We had several sleepers and a lot of sand at our disposal and then of course the plants and irrigation stuff we brought. We bordered off the garden bed, leveled the sand and put in the irrigation. Then came the fun part where I got to drive a tractor, to move some heavy rocks onto the garden bed. It was quite the beefy machine and I felt pretty proud being able to operate it. It surprisingly easy and with a bit of outside help, I managed to move the rocks with only 2 casualties. Following was a bitch load of planting. Digging holes, watering the holes, then putting plants in the holes and then closing the hole. Holey moley! It was good though and we achieved a lot in just one day.

By far the favourite travel companion was Mrs Harding's granddaughter, Emily. Yes, everyone quickly fell in love with this clever little 4 year old. In fact, she fell in love with most of us too, and as it turned out, I ended up getting married to her. Yes it's true, I was involved in a pedophilic relationship. We were made to wear rings and it just went too far. Anyhow, Emily always wanted to be part of everything and she'd always come to sit on everyone's lap. This would be funny for a few moments, but in the midst of a demanding game of Chinese poker it was just too much, and you just had to get rid off her. Haha, as mean as it may sound we'd pretend other people would want her. "Here Emily, go to Lisa, yes that's it, Lisa likes you!". *Thinks to self* "hehe sucked in".
Emily was also quick to note that Ashwin was somewhat different from someone else and that he was in fact dirty and smelly, directly relating to his blackness. Yea she quite the witty one, Emily.

The nights were cold in Nepabunna, and many people suffered restless nights as a result. It didn't help then that Ryan, as his usual self added to the uncomfortability by 1. Farting endlessly 2. Publicly masturbating/flashing. Yes, we had to view Ryan's knob on more than one occasion. We didn't let Chen get a good night sleep either. He was always tired and we often used to soccer balls to take volleys at his bunk. Gold. Especially when Chen got really pissed off and yelled, "FUCK OFF RYAN, I'M SERIOUS!". haha. We were having philosophical discussions on one of the nights when Josh noted Wyk withdrawn in the corner of the dorm reading a book. He asked him "Wyk what are you reading?". Not knowing what to answer, Wyk responded with "What are YOU reading!?" and quickly pulled his sleeping bag over his head. ahahah Ben Wyk gold.

Or who could forget that final night when Patrick ate three spoons full of raw coffee for God knows why. Heavily under the influence of caffeine Patrick tried every single way possible to wear off this seeming everlasting source of energy. He kept jogging on the spot and even though this was rather humourus at first it became quite annoying. Patrick was later heard running circles around the dorms and even around the toilet block. Moral: Don't eat raw coffee.

Many beds were sabotaged as the initial plot arose to remove the bed planks from Alstin's bed. This would leave merely the matress on the frame so that when Josh would return to lie on his bed, it would collapse and pointing and laughing would be had. Heck even the overseas students had their digital cameras ready to capture the action. However, Josh was not about to be fooled and he noticed the loose planks underneath his bed. Were were not to be beaten that quickly and a few of us decided we should try Miller's bed. LOL, we waited for ages for Miller to come back and we had hidden the planks this time. Miller never came and it was after dinner that we returned to find Miller in the dorms very very angry, ready to kill. Aah if only we'd been there when it happened. The next night, some of the boys and I decided to steal matresses from the girls' dorm. When most people were still having dinner we sneaked out and took as many as we could. Then we piled them up on Ryan's bed and turned the boy's dorm into a jumping castle aaah, good times.

On the last eve, a communal barbeque was held and we had kangaroo around the campfire. Quite a primitive sight, cutting meat of a dead (cooked) animal like that. But really it's no different to what we eat from the supermarket. It tasted quite nice, kind of like Lamb. It was after, that we gathered around the campfire and Jason noticed smoke rising from the bottom of Tessa's jeans. Lol, she was completely unaware, but the cuffs were clearly glowing red so Josh was quick to cover it with sand, and it was put out safely. Lest we forget, Tess' jeans.
After the f00d, we presented our mural (crap) and song (crapperer) and Wally, a local sang us some songs:
First there was:
"It's rumbling it tumbling. Ooh my wallah it's tumbling like a big bass drum!"
Then we sang:
"Nepabunna in the Flinders will always be my home!"
Next on the list was DJ Boongz0r with his latest wiff 'n sniff mix. That track rocked.
That last one may or may not be a joke.

After a disco in the youth center and many goodbye's we all had a short night rest before the long bus trip back to Adelaide where we were greeted by rain and grey skies.

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