An Interesting Conversation Overheard at the Bus Stop

Sometimes the job of Rural Chaplain gets you into some pretty interesting conversations as well as taking you to some pretty interesting places!

The tank stand in the school yard at Weilmoringle Public School.

This week finds Julie in Weilmoringle attending a cultural exchange camp with the students from Weilmoringle Public School and Mosman Boys Preparatory School.This is the result of a lot of work over years by Julie and one of the local elders, Josie Byno, not to mention Marg Coddington, the local school principal at Weil.

Two programs come together this week, the "Book Buddies" program and an idea to promote bush walking. "Book Buddies" is a program being piloted in Weilmoringle, where a city school or organisation links up with an isolated rural school to provide books to students for whom a book shop is often a 4-5 hours drive away. Bush Walking is being offered so non-Aboriginal people can experience the bush with an Elder who knows it like their mother. This is the second of such walks and there may well be more if the interest from Mosman has been anything to go by.
Mosman students will visit Weilmoringle for 3 days, having fun with local kids, roughing it, sharing books,bush walking and eating local foods. The details of the camp have been worked out by enthusiastic Mosman teacher, Meredith Eakin (known to blog readers as Meredith of Mosman) Julie, Josie and Marg.

And this is where the interesting conversation comes in........

Julie was in Sydney last week waiting at the bus stop to take her into the city when a call came from Weilmoringle.

Julie: "How are the plans for next week coming along?"
Weil: " Good. There's just one thing we're having trouble with though.."
Julie: " Oh, yeah?"
Weil: "It's about the food."
Julie: 'The food,yeah?"
Weil: " We're not sure if we can have the emu we planned."
Juie: "The emu -Oh,why?"

Weil: "No one in town has a gun."

Julie: " A gun........surely someone in town has a gun to shoot an emu?!'

At this point Sydney local bus goers start looking around and nervously edging away.

Julie:'There has to be a gun somewhere!"
Weil: "We'll do our best!'
Julie: "Good, the boys were looking forward to it. Emu is a favourite local meal."

       NB:   No emus were harmed in the writing of this blog but we can't say the same for up at Weil!

                                                     Emu photos courtesy Robin Loznak