Roommates

There were some teeny tiny noises around the apartment, but there's always something rustling and crackling around (half of the apartment moves when a heavy-load train passes anyway), so I didn't give it much attention.

Long story short, this thing has been haunting me for the next couple of days (well, one, but it was bad enough), keeping me up and edgy, waiting for it to pop up from all around the apartment.

It took moving the fridge at 1:30 in the morning (sorry, neighbor) and vacuuming it up (after which it creeped back out, but I was smart enough to put something at the end of the pipe), hitting the bed and sleeping for nine hours straight.

Here is Mr Roach, Cock Roach.

The Great Shave

After finally having achieved her life goal and when her life started following the path she had hoped for, life gave her thorns instead of roses.

She was diagnosed with breast cancer, had to have an emergency (double) surgery and is now in chemotherapy.

There was a fundraiser where a couple of us cut our hair to show our support. The ones who didn't dare do the same could donate.

Check this link over here and this link over here for more info and donate if you can...

Desert storm and Lives on threads

It's gonna be a crazy week, I think to myself as I'm standing in front of the calendar white board.

There's a lot going on, a lot of people are involved, and there are surveys and meetings planned all over the place. People, cars, fuel stations, homesteads, keys, satellite phones, potato chips, fucking lamb chops and eggs and whatnot.

I flow in on Monday, do one survey on Tuesday, and start another one on Wednesday, drive out, sleep over and finish it on Thursday, drive back, sleep over and fly out. So much for theory...

Even before we head out, it was obviously going to be a total mess. It's funny how people are sometimes laid back, especially when it comes to them. "Funny", because that's the only sound I can utter.

Pfft.

We pick up the guys at a station where about thirty people live. It's packed with meat ants that bite on to your skin and won't let go. As soon as we head out, all of a sudden there's a cyclone cloud the size of Switzerland in front of us. We, of course, have to drive straight into it.

The guys take it easy because they're used to it, but I see some with their eyes out and think to myself that this is no bueno. We end up in the storm's centre, we have to stope and brace ourselves because the car is rocking that hard and we wait. There's a loud crack and we see one of the side windows is cracked.

It's not hail. It's the wind passing us some stones. We open the other window and keep the broken one from popping out. We keep driving slowly, but the storm keeps following us. The Dutch guy who's running the homestead runs out with a torch and welcomes us to the dongers.

The old guys think there's no way way we can do the survey the following day. The area is full of small lakes anyway, which have definitely filled up and merged together by now.

Luckily, there's only so many large puddles along the way, so we manage to get to the GPS-de rendez-vous point. The guy we're supposed to meet is not there. In my head I see images of him bogged up somewhere in the middle of the desert. If you can call a gigantic flooded area a desert.

We run around, drive around, consult, talk, discuss and do the survey. The guy's arrived with a flat tyre saying it's one of those days. We finish up, make sure the guy's okay and get on our way. Back at the community, the meat ants are even hungrier.

After getting back to where we would spend the night, I try to check how the bloke's doing, but the satellite phone isn't working. I go to bed with a stomach ache and a bit tipsy, and dream a bunch of weird stuff, on of them being the guy ending up dead in the desert.

I talk to the office who checked with the guy's office and it happens that the guy did indeed end up stuck in the desert, bogged up or something. It just makes me realize how much we risk on a daily basis. Over and over again.

I e-mail the guy, hoping that he's all well, type this up and am off to the airport.

Hopefully the weekend will be calm, boring and quiet.

Survivor Western Australia

This last week has been, for lack of a better word, a reality show. I'll try to write something up once I'm back in Perth. Hopefully it'll stick around in my memory. Or maybe I should hope it doesn't.

A short photo post

Australia bread

Sigur rós at the Belvoir amphitheatre

Staying healthy alright

We don't need a map' at the Freo Arts Centre.

Road closed for chalk drawing

Spring in the city

Afternoon psychedelia

Getting ready for another field trip

Geographic

I am watching a documentary called Australian Geographic - Best of Australia and I have several things on my mind.

I've noticed that it's usually people who are totally out of the loop who get to travel around the world, make documentaries and meet all these different cultures. At least that's how it feels at times.

Not that I've been around for a long time, but I believe some things need to be picked up before you even set your foot in a vehicle of any sort. Basic rules of communication and manners are, in my opinion, something you have to get familiar with beforehand, especially when it's you who's going into someone else's territory.

That's how you get people who don't turn back on people, who don't interrupt someone in the middle of a sentence and thread where one's not supposed to.

On the other hand, you get people who'll do things I could never imagine - or at least not at the moment - like dealing with snakes, poisonous toads and crocodiles. Nevertheless, I guess that may come with time.

I remember being a kid and wanting to work for National Geographic, travelling the world and getting to know all the interesting cultures. Maybe that's what got me on this path that I'm on, dealing with peoples, languages and cultures.

You really do get to see amazing places and, maybe even more than "see" - be there. I've been lucky enough to experience something like that and I can only hope there's more yet to come...

Paranoia

After writing the sweet story about a lady stopping and offering me a ride when I had my hands full of grocery bags, I was told to read something about someone on the Internet.

To avoid everyone checking it as well, I won't post the names, but I'll say it got me paranoid alright!

I ran into an article which led me to a dozen more talking about kidnappings and events thereafter. Sick shit, I can tell you that.

Thanks for the paranoia.

:D

As I was walking back from the store carrying three bags of groceries, a woman in her forties stopped her car, lowered the window and asked me if my bags are too heavy and if I need a ride...

Coles

I went to Coles yesterday, to stock up on some groceries. I needed some juice and nibbles, as the weekend was in full swing and the one thing I planned to waste it on was lying around and going through my hard drive's Torrents folder.

It was really busy, as it was almost closing time on a Saturday. The parking lot, already famous for the utmost insanity that goes on it during rush hour, is a Russian roulette for pedestrians like me. The only and unavoidable way through is dodging pensioners who don't even look around, crazy mums who don't give a fuck about anyone (because they have to run and feed their kids) and random, seemingly homeless, people who keep nicking trolleys.

I felt like I was on candid camera as I walked in and did what felt like twenty-four three-sixties. I went out of the store and back in three times in search of a basked, but I guess there were so many people that they were all taken. The downside is that these situations totally stupid me out and I'm lost within seconds.

Not knowing whether to just chuck stuff in my reusable bags or get the mere basics and carry them in my hands (or just run away), I was still circling the entrance like a goldfish in a circular jar-style aquarium. I finally came to my senses and went toward the cash registers, where I took one basket which was sitting on the side.

Bingo!

I grabbed some stuff as soon as I could and decided to leave the isles lying furthest away for another day. A better day.

The queues at the cash registered were already beginning to take a snake shape, so I went for one with only three people in it. Phew! Being all drawn into my own shopping, the tiny Einkaufszettel* that reminded me of all the things I needed to get and figuring out how I'd carry all that shit home, I raised my head and boy, did I have something to see.

Busy mums with three kids in their trolleys, romantic couples that basically can't wait to get home (but can't keep their romance to themselves), Tibetan monks, barefoot hipsters grabbing a refreshment after an evidently crazy night out), a nose-wiping boy at the cash register, probably totally fed up with having to repeat flybuys? and cashout?, and me.

Me, with my three bags, a French baguette sticking out of one and the gusts of wind pushing me from side to side at times. If I don't get blown away, I will have made it.

Next stop, LiquorLand!

*See the photo below, taken from the Internet.