A Poetry Reading Morning

 

In Conversation with a Local Poet. . .

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A Poetry Reading Morning. . . . I was delighted to sit down in conversation with  Fiona Borland, the Librarian of the Mt. St. Benedict Centre,  Pennant Hills in Northern Sydney.

In Conversation with a local poet. It was very affirming to be identified as a local poet and know that my poetry books had been acquired by their librarian Fiona for their library. I was proud of my books A Call to Listen and Fire on Water both published over the past 6 years by Stephen Matthews at Ginninderra Press. S.A.

An invitation was put out to invite people to the Poetry Reading Morning. I had a selection of my poetry to read throughout the conversation some on nature , social justice, and indigenous story.   And then more conversation over morning tea as the Benedict Centre provide having Hospitality as one of their charisms.

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Poem on Grandchildren and Environment wins

 

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Good to receive word my poem  ‘a beautiful world’ received second place in the Annual Poetry Competition for Poetry Matters. Always affirming to have your work accepted and a cheque award is an extra bonus.  My award winning poem began with my Granddaughter  little Miss J putting my big shell to her ear and my saying ‘can you hear the sea?’ She listened seriously and said in her sweet three-year-old voice ‘I can hear the dolphins.’  That line stayed with me for the past three years. And then Thomas face-timed me from England with his  school project about  the problem of plastic  on the sea and the poem had its seed. 

AWARD WINNING POEM

a beautiful world

at the party I sit back
watch the action from the side
frivolity centres the room
spills out onto the deck

my daughters laugh 
in the kitchen
sampling each others specialities

the men outside
beer in hand
enjoy the sizzle of the barbecue

I watch their little ones 
busy at make-believe 
they are growing fast
each in their own way 
the eldest   now eight years old
is worried about the dolphins
what if they choke on the plastic and all die
the four year old responds 
i can hear the dolphins in grandma’s big shell

I remember my whispered words
as I held each for the first time
welcome little one
it is a beautiful world

now the world waits for them
silent  boisterous  open
their shining eyes also wait
and nested in hope  
my heart aches

 

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Thomas  Keating-Jones and Plastic Project

with his helper and little sister Miss E and  his school project  about Plastic and its  impact on our ocean.

Thanks to The Great Wave of Kanagawa by Hokusai for the back ground.

Thanks to Ginninderra Press for their publishing my poetry and to Cheryl Howard who supports poets and poetry writing with her journal Poetry Matters

 

 

The launch of  ‘Going Home’ by Decima Wraxall

 

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It was an honour to launch Decima’s latest book ‘Going Home’ a second in a duo of family history.   Speeches, readings from the new book, music, delicious food and plenty of bubbly flowed to make a great night great, and to say well done Decima.

Thursday last ( 19th July 2018) was a great evening of celebration for Decima as it has been ‘the long haul’ to get her latest book out there.

I have watched, admiring her tenacity and determination and like a cheer-leader encouraging from the side line, aware of the work, time and effort it takes.  And the time finally arrived.

 It is a bit like childbirth.  There is the struggle and pain and then the joy. And on Thursday evening there was joy with a wonderful sense of camaraderie as we gathered, Decima’s daughter and  family from UK, cousins from Melbourne and north coast a few nurse friends from the old day and of course, us the writers from the various groups Decima belongs to  – the WWN at Rozelle, the SWW from Mitchell Library, U3A poetry Appreciations group .

 

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The launch  speech  for   ‘Going Home’ 

by 

Colleen Keating                                IMG_6229

Welcome to you all.

My name is Colleen Keating  and I feel honoured to be asked to launch  ‘Going Home.’

But first, please let us pause a moment to acknowledge the Gadigal people. We are gathered on land of the Eora nation, and pay our respects to traditional custodians, past and present. 

I also feel happy to mention we are gathered in the Judith Wright Room, one of our greatest Australian women poets

 

Decima is a  friend and fellow writer. She inspires me and  inspires all of us in her loyalty and commitment to her writing.  Decima’s writing occupies a sacred space in her life.

Her latest book  ‘Going Home’ is the second and final in a duo.

Decima has had many short stories and poems published in Journals and Anthologies. She has co-edited two Anthologies of prose and poetry for the Womens Writers Network, here at the Writers Centre.

Her first book, Black Stockings, White Veil celebrated the 50th Anniversary of her Graduation from RPA. It was a finalist in the Indie Book Awards for Historical Fiction, and is now in its second edition. 

Letters from a Digger appeared as the first part of the duo.

She has had her first book of poetry accepted for publication by Ginninderra Press to be out mid 2019. 

Going Home is Gordon’s story, a remarkable, loveable man, bigger then life. 

It is a story wonderfully told, set in the Australian context at a time many of us here remember. 

In the hero’s journey there is the wound. Decima’s writing carries that intriguingly,  a life shadowed with a secret and sense of loss, with a pinch of serendipity, including the arrival of an inspirational teacher just at the right time.  

At a recent poetry symposium in Adelaide that Michael and I attended it was discussed how Fiction and Non Fiction, are both the same and different, in telling the Truth. It made me think of ‘Going Home.’  It’s evident that Decima, has assiduously researched the facts to ensure both accuracy and a good story. 

Historic fiction puts flesh on the bone,  transforms anecdote into drama, uses suspense, stimulates our imagination. Going Home, tells Gordon’s story honestly. There are no punches pulled. It explores the powerlessness engendered by serious illness and the courage to accept an unwelcome diagnosis.

You hear and smell see and taste the scenes, as this moving tale unfolds. 

The following passage set after the death of Rabbi Shomer, (Gordon’s mentor) embodies a moment of pain in his journey: 

 

Gordon felt the Rabbi everywhere and nowhere. In the following days, the house echoed with his voice. At the same time, the silence was palpable. Sometimes Gordon rushed back from school, bringing news of the day for the Rabbi. And recalled his friend had passed. He ran faster so he wouldn’t cry. And arrived breathless, dry-eyed. 

It broke Allie’s heart to see his sad face. Her own sorrow could be borne, if only she could do more to help Gordon. She brought him milk and biscuits, saying, ‘I wonder if you’d like to hear some music?’ He nodded, fearing tears should he speak. 

 

Even the ‘taste of milk and biscuits’, the comfort food of after-school caught me.

Albus Dumbledore in Harry Potter says:    “Words are in my not-so-humble opinion, our most inexhaustible source of magic” And ‘Going Home’ has the magic of an historic 20th century read.  For many of us it takes us down memory lane of late last century.  It is a book that will be cherished by Melissa and Jason . You must be very proud of your Mum for bringing this story to fruition. And to Dessie and Gordon’s smart and gorgeous Grandchildren Miranda, Toby, Ella and Harry this is a gift for you.

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I  congratulate Decma on this fine achievement and proudly declare  Going Home launched.  May it have many enjoyable reads.

Now i would like to call on the writer of the day, the author Decima Wraxall. IMG_6231

SHARED FOOTPRINTS GINKO WALK: WINTER

TWO SETS OF FOOTPRINTS

by Michael and Colleen  on beach walk winter

 

 

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CK  beanies coats and gloves –

our shadows long

on washed sand    

 

MK at the edge –            

foam trimmed

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CK  surprise

orange sand crabs 

bask in winter dawn

 

MK  slant of sunrise

yin-yang shadow

stone and shell

 

CK  spaciousness

on a winter beach

solitary seagull

 

MK    low low tide

untouched canvas

be awake                                                        IMG_2326

 

CK   over seaweed 

flirt of swallows

warms us

 

MK  fisherman and heron 

wade knee deep –

winter warriors

 

CK   rock pools mirror

clouds

our lives stilled                                  IMG_8152

 

MK  dawn

cuts sea and sky 

pelicans wait

 

CK burdens fall away

in morning light

willy wag tails

 

MK winter sun

softens our world

two sets of footprints  


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Wild : the new anthology by Ginninderra Press Launched.

 

THE LAUNCH OF THE ANTHOLOGY   WILD

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Ginninderra Press

Under the editorship of Stephen Matthews and his co-editor Brenda Eldridge. the weekend  felt a family affair. Add to it the editor of the new Anthology to be launched Joan Fenney and  her partner  the owner of the enchanting  East AvenueBook Shop even more so. And the launch of the wonderful Anthology Wild at the Tea Tree Gully Library, amidst poetry forums , the celebratory evening dinner of flowing champers, making good friendships,  delicious food and  Wild poetry readings and the Sunday poetry readings at the East  Avenue Book Shop  all added spice to create a feast and proved a great celebration.

Adelaide Experience

For Michael and  I the added extras were the tram ride to Glenelg Beach , lunch in the  Adelaide Botanical Gardens, the visit to the block buster Art Exhibition The Impressionists on loan from the Paris Musee d’Orsay  and having time to research my next project at the Universary Library and th SA State Library, a highlight on its own for the hype of being in the Reading Room sitting before the boxes of early material sacred enough for white gloves.

Wild

An impressive anthology with poems of over 100 Ginninderra poets,  from across this big country of ours  Thanks Stephen for your continuing support of Australian poets. Ginninderra Press goes from strength to strenth..

 

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Myall Creek Massacre Commemoration Weekend

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The Myall Creek Massacre Memorial is a  healing place. This is our second pilgrimage out to Bingara to participate in the memorial commemoration. A pilgrimage for every Australian who cares about our shared history and acknowledges white Australian has a black history. Being the 180th Anniversary since the Massacre we had the opportunity to participate in a full day symposium at the Universary of New England on Friday and I met Bruce Pascoe who gave the key note address. I had read his original Dark Emu but the latest edition has so much more in it as more and more information comes to light. Thank you Bruce Pascoe for inverting almost everything I thought I knew about pre-colonial Australia. It makes us all richer. My poem shared history, I read at the memorial  will be published in The Good Oil SGS later in June.

Thank you also to Lyndall Ryan for her tenacity at research on Mapping the Massacres. with her new interactive map. When my sister, Margaret Hede, sent me a map a year ago of Lyndall’s  work I was stunned, blown away as the saying goes and to meet her and listen to the next stage of  her work was uplifting. One can google Map of massacres to find lots of information.

Photos below of Bruce Pascoe and Lyndall Ryan amd yours truly with Bruce’s updated book

 

 

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The next two photos below show over 1000 people gathering at Myall Creek and  holding my Grandson’s winning entry in the Children’s’ Vision and Dreams for the Future Competition . Thomas Keating-Jones lives in England but i am proud of my daughter Elizabeth assisting him to enter  and helping him understand the word Empathy.

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Myall Creek Massacre Commemoration

Myall Creek Memorial 180th anniversary program:18838942_1797371287241211_2834088407915097287_n

The four-day program of activities (7-10 June 2018) planned for the 180th anniversary will include:

  • Thurs 7 June: a historical exhibition at the Armidale and Region Aboriginal Cultural Centre and Keeping Place about the history of the Myall Creek Memorial;
  • Friday 8 June: the Myall Creek and Beyond one-day symposium at the Oorala Aboriginal Centre, UNE exploring the historical, legal and cultural significance of the massacre;
  • Friday 8 June: the opening of the contemporary art exhibition Myall Creek and Beyond and an exhibition by Inverell based artist Colin Isaacs at NERAM in Armidale;
  • Saturday 9 June: Sounds of the Country concert at the Roxy Theatre in Bingara.
  • Sunday 10 June: the Oorala to Myall Creek bus for members of the local Aboriginal Community, UNE students and staff to attend the memorial event.
  • Sunday 10 June: the 180th anniversary memorial event at the Myall Creek Memorial near the site of the massacre (near Bingara).

Sunday 10th June the 180th Anniversary of the Myall Creek Massacre

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A very special commemoration  at the site of the Myall Creek Massacre.was experienced by about 1500 people gathered with descendents of those killed and those who killed j in a grassroots reconciliation movement at the sombre and informative memorial.

Again it raises awareness of the Myall Creek Massacre as a national identity and as a formative reconciliation event. It is now part of our shared history.  Michael and I had the alarm on and drove our 20 kms to the meeting place an hour early.

What serenity is this beautiful land.  Brown grasses, fields stretching to the hills the amazing trees and the wafting mist.

Unlike Friday with the Symposium where i wrote many notes for this day I arrived back after this amazing day  out at the memorial with my mind filled with happiness. Yes happiness and yet we had been at a commemoration of a most violent crime which is being noted as genocide. I think the happiness was  because I felt HOPE about being together where people held hands, joined together and walked with determination for the future of our nation.

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There were many highlights reading my poem, shared history at this sacred memorial on the ridge overlooking the slope of the massacre and having a great group listening and taking a copy..

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My grandson Thomas winning the poetry award for the children  competition Thoughts and dreams 180  years on:  What have we learnt.  I will put his poem up in a few days.  

 

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I have no notes for the day.

What caught my eye was a crisp clear winter Sunday morning. with a mist snaking along the river.
What touched my heart was a coming together of many people from all over the country for love and reconciliation 
What whispered  in my soul   We are here standing together and that is amazing
We gathered in a field  20 kms out of Bingara. The CWA had coffee and tea for all and we ordered a lunch. for later. We had a minutes silence and some speeches then set out for a walk of about a kilometre to the site.

 

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There was the  welcome to country, the lighting of the fire, a bull roarer ringing out to let the ancestral spirits know we are here,  With vibrant dancing and song , clapping sticks and the earthy drone of the didgeridoo, more then 1500 of us singularly filed before the young man holding the fire in a coolamon fanning the eucalypt leaves making the white smoke for our cleansing, there was a woman who signed our foreheads with red ochre and then the walk to each stone along the way where students read the information on the stones and then at the Memorial we gathered.

It took a few hours for this as you can imagine. And at the memorial lots of speeches, singing, readings, and two candles lit  . . the red one by the descendent of perpetrators reminding us of the blood brutally shed on this slope and the children came forth and lit the green candle a symbol of hope, healing and new life. Aunty Sue Blacklock a descendent of a survivor of the Myall Creek massacre, and a Kamilaroi elder said it was very emotional on their first few visits to the site more then 25 years ago.
They built a cairn of rocks and reflected on the sorrow of the place.  
They placed a red bottle brush on an old rock.  
It was a painful place, sad,  full of sorrow. many could not go there.
In time when two other descendants of survivors became known  they had meetings to make a memorial and then one day a descendant of a perpetrator walked in embraced and asked forgiveness. This memorial was opened in 2000 and victim and perpetrator walked together as one.
On the day of the first public commemoration when they were all gathered with story, music and song ,
Aunty Sue says:

A large number of white cockatoos flew up from nowhere and circled in the sky . My heart was freed. I have no more heaviness in my heart. Their souls were freed that day . Our ancestors souls were set free that day” 

 

 

reconciliation black and white together

A moment of reconciliation when the descendents of the victims and  perpetrators stood side by side in solidarity of shared history.

Now each year on this anniversary we come together to rememberIMG_5290and
today we stand here together and it is amazing.

SOME EXTRA EVENTS WE EXPERIENCED

After the Symposium the day wasn’t finished .We drove from the University to NERAM (New England Region Art  Gallery and Museum) for the opening of the contemporary art exhibition  Myall Creek and Beyond. Here we saw work by many talented artisans, listened to Indigenous Music and sipped champagne.

Of alf the special  things I have experienced it was the seeing or more experiencing the  possum cloak  which took close to 80 hours of work by a gathering of women for the Myall Creek Commemoration.

 

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Two other events that enriched our long weekend was a historical exhibition at the Armidale and Region Aboriginal Cultural Centre and Keeping Place .

and on the Saturday a concert at the Roxy Theatre in Bingara.Sound of the Country.

 

 

Myall Creek Memorial Commemoration Weekend

Myall Creek and Beyond  Symposium

 

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Myall Creek 1838 and beyond symposium  at University of New England in Armidale was a very full day, with papers from many academics . It featured a great line up of  artists, writers, poets, song writers and dancers, historians, lawyers and commentators. This word  beyond  to mean not  just moving on but deepening and spreading the story like roots deep into the soil become the anchor of a tree.

Of course this weekend was especially focused on the 180th anniversary of the Myall Creek Massacre but many spoke of seeing beyond 1838 to find its significance in history, law and culture. And it is seen hopefully, as a reaching out to many other killing fields identified and unidentified and  both still in pain.

It was especially important to meet Lyndall Ryan from Newcastle University whose paper explained the online map in which she is compiling details of massacre sites, as they meet the criteria to be designated as a place of a massacre. We have to memoralise all the sites,  acknowledge and be aware, find the evidence for ordinary Australians to understand. This is an important part of the story of who we are as Australians. It can no longer he secret, hidden, whitewashed.  Australia has a black history.

It is white fella business and black fella business to move forward.  If we do not know and acknowledge our past we cannot be present to move into the future. Again it is like a tree, if it does not have its roots planted deeply into the earth, its present cannot be health giving and its future is one of weakness.

Myall Creek is part of a National project,  a very important movement towards Reconciliation.  It is a catalyst.  It acknowledges Australia has a black history, and that we are prepared finally to listen.

 

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Bruce Pascoe, and myself.  Bruce is the author of Dark Emu and he gave the keynote address ‘Australian’s Failure to Know its History’

My highlight was meeting the historian Bruce Pascoe, author of the well known Dark Emu and I was able to buy a new updated edition as more and more  evidence comes forward and he updates the history.

His key note address was titled “Australian’s Failure to Know its History”

This is not a summary it is just my notes from his inspirational speech. ( Michael wrote notes too and comparing our noted,we realise everyone picks up different things.

Aborigine knowledge is all around us, deep in the earth, in the waters, the rivers and the lakes and high in the sky, if you but change your perspective and listen and look around . 
Sometimes i sit and watch mother earth my mother talking to me: she teaches me how to behave.
We  have to shift our understanding of Indigenous life. In the future the young ones, will please God learn the truth of history.
Aboriginal people  had a fishing and agricultural life. They were the first agriculturalist .  They had the first tools: Picks have been found ,  grooved where a wooden handle was held probably by reeds and spinifex glue.
Grinding stones have been found. They are the rosetta stone in telling the story of culture  for starch in embedded in grooves up to 65, o00 years old. Impregnated grain in stone .
 They were the first bakers. They made a nutritional  bread from a grass seed.  
They irrigated the springs to catch a  eels high in protein .  They built the first traps to catch the fish.  Google fish traps of Bewarana for illustrations,detailed fishing weirs across rivers. (from diaries of Leichhardt)
They sowed seed,
 they harvested crops, 
they irrigated the earth. 
The seed of the kangaroo grass does not need plowing, 
it needs no extra water, 
it needs no superphosphate 
no insecticides . 
Like early Australian’s old rice it was valuable. Kangaroos nibbled it for food but the first herd of sheep that came through trampled it to the ground and ate it to the bare earth. They ate the heart out of it and their hard hooves pounded the ground. So it did not rise again. 
Aborigines were the first inventors of tools,  the first agriculturalist with their seed 
the first chemist creating dough  and the first scientists, that they heated the dough making a chemical change to cook it , to make it light and sweet.
In a diary written “for 9 miles the stooked grass in bundles of sheaves stood”  and Mitchell saw fields of yams stretching to the horizon, 
he said’
“It was as if God had prepared the land for for me”
The aborigines traded along a great web of songlines. Trade, gossip and journey followed these lines, intricate connection of Australia. 
Much research is done by Biomolecular, GIS maps, oleography and palaeography. 
Much was so quickly destroyed by British occupancy. It was gone with the first herd of sheep, before records.  It was gone before the reality was recognised. If we had  but listened.
 
“ Breath there a man with soul so dead
who never to himself has said 
this is my own , my own sweet country “
 A British slogan yet the British went out and and took others land and pillaged their culture and their language.   They needed credence, so a Papal Bull  was found that said they could invade any land that did not know Jesus Christ,  so occupation of soil took place under the banner of bringing the LIGHT.
Change language:  
We no longer speak of bush tucker and damper and other diminutives . This is BREAD
No longer huts or humpies these are HOUSES 
No longer speak of camps but TOWNS
They had the oldest towns on earth. 
So you see our beautiful country is a lot more then, 
‘put another shrimp on the barbie’  or 
‘where the bloody hell are ya’
We have here the oldest people, oldest culture , oldest civilisation on the earth.

By the end of the Symposium I felt the grit in the oyster grinding around in our struggles and our deafness to the truth of our history. Through our mutual LISTENING it will become the the pearl of our story.  And the story of Myall Creek in time is a beacon of hope. Our nation depends on us, working and walking to a shared history

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Aunty Marg and myself enjoying a break at the symposium

 

 

 

Myall Creek Memorial Commemoration Weekend

Myall Creek Memorial CommemorationWeekend

In memory of the Wirrayaraay people who were murdered on the slopes of this ridge in an unprovoked but premeditated act in the late afternoon of June 10th 1838.

 

DAY 1

Left Sydney early heading north to Scone to have lunch with  Sharon our dear friend. 

 

 

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Then up over the Liverpool Range to Tamworth for the night.

Here are a few moments of beauty from the window of our car as we drove the New England Highway with sun setting in the west. 

 

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DAY 2

Today from Tamworth the journey is like a poem in itself. 

tell me about the magpies

their song croons our picnic table 
our soul knows the song 
it plays the strings of our heart 
we leave  the cracked aroma 
of the pepper tree but not the magpies
sadly farewell the tamed Peel River
but not the magpies
they come with us
climb the Liverpool range 
windmills, tanks, cattle and sheep
Goonoo Goonoo, Wallabadah 
Moonni Range, 
Thunderbolt and Hanging Rock
Katingle, Bendemeer, Uralla  
and massive boulder and grass trees 
along the way
and in Armidale the magpies welcome us.
Tell me about the magpies 
and I’ll tell you about me.

Turn west onto the New England Tableland into Armidale. 
Autumn is lingering in the cool crisp highland air. 
The gardens of our motel are stunning with their late rich autumn dress.

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The Aboriginal Cultural Centre and Keeping Place

Our evening began amidst smoke with a eucalypt aroma 
a smoking ceremony and deep earthy sound of the didgeridoo 
under a dark starry sky around an open fire.
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The young people dancing the echidna dance 
and to more modern music 

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then to the opening of the exhibition  Looking Beyond the 1838 Massacre.

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WE REMEMBER THEM
Ngiyani winangay ganunga

 

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Leonie who gave the welcome to country and her dancers from Duval  High School,
with me at the Opening of the exhibition Myall Creek