Friday 6/7/12

It's pretty much our last day up north with the Desert Feet Tour.

We are setting up for a 4:00pm concert which will be my last. The Desert Feet Tour will continue for 3 more weeks until the end of July and they will be heading out to several of the remote Indigenous communities to teach the kids music and give them music equipment for them to use.

The first community- Yandeyarra- was amazing with all the school equipment and the teachers' devotion. The teachers would prepare twice daily meals for the kids while they were at school. School ran from 8:30am until 2:00pm, packing in 1 and a half hours of literacy work as well as an hour and a half of maths while the rest of the time was dedicated towards lunchtime and recess on an average day. The school was run by the Government unlike the school in Warralong, which was run by a few adults and community members.

The kids at Yandeyarra tended to speak with English rather than with their natural language and some of the kids were very fluent. Down in Warralong, it was a different story. Most of the adults defaulted to their own language which the kids followed naturally but most of the kids could speak English but they were just shy is all.

It has been a magnificent trip up here, cruising along with the Desert Feet Tour and helping out all the communities. It was especially great to see that last year, the Desert Feet Tour had given the communities some instruments and one year later they have created 10 songs of their own which are now going to go commercial. This year the Desert Feet Tour has given each of the communities plenty of instruments to last them.

If anyone wants to find out more information about the Desert Feet Tour or how to support it, visit www.desertfeettour.com or to see the Head of the tour's blog go to http://www.damienthornber.com.

Thursday 5/7/12

Today began like yesterday with a trip from Warrelong to Hedland.

There was some great scenery along the way and lots of cows in the middle of the road wandering around. The concert today starts at 11:00am and we are hoping a few bands will arrive including the Warralong Band that played last night.

LATER...

The concert was scheduled for 11:00am when the South Hedland school was having their softball competition but turned out to start at 2:00pm when they had all finished but it didn't matter because it gave everyone time to set up and also time for the Warralong Band to get there. It was all over the place and everyone just played music. When all the 750 kids had sat down in front of the truck/stage, we started off with all the singing and two kids decided they wanted to hop up on stage and play the drums as well as do a freestyle rap. I got the liberty of using Damien's new camera to be the photographer for the event.

It took a very long time for us all to pack up but we got there and are now on are way down to Newman where we will sleep at a caravan park for the night. When we wake up we have to pick Tony and and another person up from the airport. We then have a concert at 4:00pm then Digby and I will catch the plane back to good old Perth. Sorry about the lack of photos, I will hopefully post them all up tomorrow.

Wednesday 4/7/12

Today we started off at 6:00am with a drive from Yandeyarra to Warralong.

We arrived at 11:00am and set up the instruments at the music room. We made up another song for the kids to sing and tuned all the instruments. We practiced the song and then all the kids had arrived. They weren't very enthusiastic and didn't want to participate for a while but we handed out prizes and other stuff which encouraged them to join in a bit more. They didn't want to sing along with Damien's activities but when Bryte came along, they were all for the hip hop rapping. They sung along to the songs and played musical statues then musical bobs. That all finished at about 3:00pm so we headed back to our dorm and ate the sandwiches Cassy had made for us.

Now we are waiting for 5:30pm when the concert will start and we will prepare all the food while we are waiting. When the concert starts Damien and Em will start off followed by Ewan, Bryte and Willy who lives up in this community of about 70.

AFTER THE CONCERT ...

The concert was great and we had a giant barbeque with 100 sausages and the skewers I had made earlier which there were 85 of (you will see a picture of them below). Ewan sang a few of his songs followed by the usual routine of Damien,Em and Bryte. None of the kids wanted to sing the song they had made in the workshop like the kids in Yandeyarra because they were very shy.

After Bryte performed, the Warrelong Band sung a couple of their own songs which were fantastic! It was really cold like all the previous nights. The days have also been pretty cold which was very unexpected.

Below you will see pictures of my kebabs and the concert that was performed

Not any of the good photos but it's what I've got for now.

Tuesday 3/7/12

Today at the school there were more kids since yesterday everyone was out celebrating NAIDOC week.

The first bell goes off at 7:30am to tell everyone they should wake up and since it is such a small town everyone can hear it. The next bell goes 8:00 telling everyone to come to school then the 8:30 signals the start of school.

I had decided to take a class so I went into Mr. Peter's classroom. The maximum for the class is about 9 or 10 kids and there are about 30 kids in the school. The class was years 7-9 but the standard of the work is different so I got given a few sheets of what would be their year 9 average. It was a quiet classroom and everyone was very good at all their English especially since it is a second language to them.

After the class I headed over to the shed where all the music equipment was and we did another workshop but it was more about art than music but we still made up a few songs. After this we set up for the end of term concert with all the instruments. at 5:00pm the party started and we had Damien and Em play a few of their songs and then we all had some dinner which I had made 60 skewers for.

After dinner we had Ewan play about 4 of his songs then Damien, Em and Bryte played a couple of songs, then a few kids got up on stage and sang One Direction songs which was hilarious. After that Bryte got up on stage and performed 4 rap songs while the kids danced and did back flips to win prizes. After this we all packed up and headed home to get some sleep because we had to wake up early the next morning to leave for the next school.

Monday 2/7/12

It's Day three up here in the dry desert and has been a good one.

We woke up this morning and had breakfast and a small briefing before heading off to the school across the road. We set up all the instruments and Bryte created a rap song for the kids while Damien did the same but his wasn't rap. We set up the sponsor signs and parked the truck and practiced the song. I learned to play the keys for it because it was as easy.

The kids arrived after their lunch and sat down while we played Damien's song and got them to sing along. After that we taught them Bryte's song which had Ewan's music in the background. The kids won prizes for participating and other stuff which was good.

We then went out and learned the dance moves Bryte had made up for tomorrow's concert where all the kids will get there school reports and awards. After the dance we gave out the show bags we had prepared that morning then the kids who wanted to stayed behind and played on the instruments. Then we went back to our house and I read my book for a while Cassy cooked dinner. I had a shower and then dinner, which was miso soup, steak, rice and stir fry and now I'm going to have an early bed time after I read for a while.

Sunday 1/7/12

Today we Arrived in Newman at about 10 am so we went to the Capricorn Tavern and had some breakfast.

Ewan, Bryte and Cassy had stopped over night at a caravan park on Saturday night and the concert was on at 3.00pm so time was all going well. We met up with them all at the shops next to the park while the events people set up the stage for Bryte (who raps). The concert went great except the DJ had a few malfunctions.

We left the concert at four o'clock and left for Yandeyerra which is the first school we go to and spend two nights there. Helen, from Diabetes WA, was really sick so Cassy took her to the hospital in Newman leaving us with 2 extra passengers. It was really cramped together and about halfway we all swapped around and i was in the front with Damien (head of the Desert Feet Tour) and Em (the viola player). It was alright at first until Damien took his shoes off and Em turned the heat up. So I was left in blistering heat with the smell of feet. It got really bad until I started to hallucinate and see trees play soccer with each other and grass turn in to a house and then back into grass.

The trip down the red dusty pathway seemed to drag on for SOOO long but eventually we got there and that takes me to here, at 12.40am, I've just had dinner and am about to go to bed.