Alice Springs

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Alice Springs reflections 🏜

Disclaimer: I've only spent one full day here, so these are my very very early impressions.

☀️ My first sign that I was going to learn a lot on this "side quest" was when my Didi driver in Melbourne asked me if protesting at Pine Gap meant that I was opposed to logging

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His question made me laugh, but I also have to acknowledge I'm only a couple of steps away from his level of ignorance.

Pine Gap (and more importantly the protests against Pine Gap) is almost a complete mystery to me.

So I'm very much here to learn.

☀️ The people I've met so far have put in sooooooo much work to make this "convergence" as meaningful & impactful as possible.

☀️ Collaborations are powerful. We are stronger together. I love joining together with a mish mash of humanitarians and doing "something."

☀️ On a more personal note. I'm feeling a very deep sadness. And I have figured out why.

Alice Springs is the Australia I thought I was moving to 31 years ago. It's as if something inside me is exhaling seeing so many First Nations People. This is what Australia looked like in my mind's eye as a naive twenty year old when leaving Jerusalem for Sydney in 1995.

But then there's this contraction in my heart because it's very obvious that for most of the  Aboriginal community...life has been extremely harsh. And I've never witnessed the unfiltered personal impact of colonialism in Australia, as I've had here in Alice.

The upside is hearing Language being spoken EVERYWHERE ✨️ I actually got all teary listening to some boys kicking a footy and speaking in their own language.

Apparently there are nine main languages spoken here, but feel free to correct me because that's just what one person told me.

I'll keep sharing as I go...I'm curious if you know much about Pine Gap.

🙈 Veronica

Oh!!! And there's already a camp dog & camp cat!!! I didn't dare ask how many days they travelled for 🐾

(Oh and those hands are the woman I met on the plane ✨️)