Hope Vale 1

Our second community visit was to Hope Vale, about an hour further north from Cooktown.

[This is a great time to pause and talk about how BIG Australia is. For many of us growing up in the U.S., Australia is this funny little country, which also happens to be a continent, down on the opposite side of the globe, in all ways--opposite hemisphere, opposite pole. But Australia is actually quite large. It's nearly the same size as the mainland U.S. The difference is that the center of the country is basically a big desert, and the population is both much smaller and more concentrated. Queensland is one of seven states (unlike our 48 for roughly the same space, which tells you a lot), and it's the second largest. So even though we were now about 2000 km, or 1250 miles, from Brisbane, there were still hundreds of miles of coast to get to Cape York, plus all the Torres Strait, plus all the inland area, which is just huge. So I saw a lot on this trip, but relatively, I still saw nothing.]



In any case, Hope Vale is another Aboriginal community, and they were celebrating NAIDOC week when we got there. [See the post on the Ball for more info on this important cultural celebration.] The festivities began with a parade, and with an honoring of the elders.






Then, students joined with one of their elders to release balloons to symbolize the generations and working together.


Since our groups were present, they asked us to be part of the guest speakers, one of the philanthropic group, and us from the museum.


Dancing, with grass skirts and a more Pacific Island style, was next.

Again, we were warmly welcomed, and had a wonderful morning with the festivities, followed by lunch. After lunch, we met with Shirley, who is the IKC Administrator for Hope Vale. She's an amazing lady too, and the IKC here is very much linked to education initiatives and training.


Student artwork outside the IKC. Below, inside this community hub.




Shirley and Terena talk about the IKC in Hope Vale.


We made a similar donation of books to the library here, and Shirley very much liked the link and similarities for these poetry books, and asked me to put them together and take a photo.