Lajamanu

If you drive roughly 600km through semi-arid desert South West of Katherine NT Australia, you eventually arrive at Lajamanu, a vibrant Aboriginal community surviving in the middle of the Tanamai desert and home to over 700 Warlpiri people.

During the years of 1996-1998 Lajamanu also became my home. I sought out employment as a teacher at the Community Education Centre, and found myself teaching English language to children who taught me more about the intricacies of being human than I imagined possible. The classroom environment remains almost absurdly removed from the community outside with it’s own well established ways of teaching and learning. I believe our most valuable exchanges and mutual learning experiences occurred in the evenings sitting on the front step, or under the shade of a tree, speaking some English/some Warlpiri, sharing stories about our lives and events in the community.

This work is a small taste of the visuals I absorbed while a Lajamanu, as well as a more serious questioning of ways we may more effectively share our knowledge between cultures, recognising the current education system’s generally narrow approach to teaching, and the consequential impact on many Aboriginal Children.

I grew to love Lajamanu and greatly miss the times spent with people there. The community is highly dynamic, filled with so much beauty and energy along side some of the harshest aspects of life. Its not an easy life for anyone there, however there is such a strong sense of life that makes it very hard to leave.

Eloise Mitchell 2000.

Mulan

Mulan is a small Aboriginal Community in Western Australia's east Kimberley. The Community is 44 km to the southwest of Balgo and about 10 km east of Lake Paruku. Mulan had a population of approximately 100 people.

Most Mulan people are speakers of the Kukatja language. Kukatja is closely related to Pintupi, spoken at Kintore and Kiwirrkura and many people living at Mulan are closely related to people at those communities as well as at Balgo.

Mulan was established as a permanent Aboriginal community in the late 1970s by Walmajarri people moving away from the Balgo mission to the Lake Paruku.

The community is covered by the Determined Tjurabalan People Native Title claim.

The community is managed through it’s incorporated body, Mallingbar Aboriginal Corporation, incorporated under the Aboriginal Councils and Associations Act 1796 on 26 April 1983.

Photos: Eloise