I should be so Injalak-y: Part the Third

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The dilemma of what to do with your spare time in a remote indigenous community is one that plagues most balanda (white people) who decide to doff the trappings of civilisation – coffee, live music, films, theatre, restaurants, shopping, university, and the obligatory drunk-on-Saturday-seedy-on-Sunday pantomime – and go bush. The easiest way to deal with this is simply not to allow yourself any spare time. This worked pretty well for me, and I found a 6 day, 46 hour working week infinitely preferable to the alternative, which involved reading till my eyes fell out of my head, more Sudoku than your average inner-suburban, Age-reading yuppie could do in a month of Sunday mornings and the discovery that 9.3 days worth of music in an iTunes library is not necessarily all that much.

Other people react differently. Those with more of a penchant for exercise than me (i.e. an inclination to raise their heart rate for anything other than boogie or booty) did crazy things like swimming 2 kilometres per day in the local pool and biking round the community in leggings and a shroud of sweat. Those with more of a penchant for the moving image than me splashed out on Foxtel and spent hour upon hour watching reruns of Futurama and American Dad. The Vietnamese family who run the local store invested in a $5000 karaoke machine and spent their nights competing with the curlews, warbling along to ‘My Way’. Honestly, some stereotypes just don’t seem to want to be debunked. Those who’d been in town long enough to genuinely be able to call Gunbalanya home, which was a very small percentage of the white population, engaged in such wholesome activities as pig-shooting, buffalo hunting and haring around on quad bikes scaring the bejesus out of native and introduced animals alike.

All these activities were pursued either solitarily or in the company of other balanda. In my case, I was fortunate enough to join a karaoke session and misguided enough to believe that I would be remotely interested in swimming any approximation of a kilometre in the murky waters of Gunbalanya ‘Community’ Pool (I use the term ‘community’ very loosely, as access to this pool cost $150 a year, somewhat beyond the means of 95% of the community). The only social sphere in which binninj (aboriginal people) and balanda interacted was at the institutional heart and soul of Gunbalanya and raison d’etre for many of its denizens: the Gunbalanya Sports and Social Club.

It’s hard to know where to begin with the Club. Although it’s called the Sports and Social Club, it’s really just a drinking hole, more than that, the only drinking hole in a 60 km radius. It’s managed by a guy named Alex Seibert, whose family pretty much owns Gunbalanya, as they run the Club, the Service Station and the Air Charter Service and thus all the booze, fuel and wet season transport this side of Kakadu National Park. Technically, Mr Seibert merely administers, rather than owns the Club, which has an Aboriginal executive committee, but he seems to be able to take whatever salary he chooses out of its enormous profit, judging from the $400,000 Winnebago that sits in his yard. In a touching, Brady Bunch-esque display of family bonding, the entire Seibert family ran on the same ticket in recent council elections, meaning that if things go their way, they may actually, rather than effectively run the town. I anticipate an episode of ABC’s ‘Dynasties’ on these guys some time soon.

The Club’s opening hours govern the operation of the town. Since the intervention, the Club is only open four nights, as opposed to six lunch time and evening sessions, per week. At Injalak, it was always noticeable when it was a Club night. On nights the Club was open, the centre was packed with artists furiously working on various forms of art, organising advances and working hard around the centre for their CDEP ‘top up’ – a cash payment to augment the meagre payment they received from the government and acknowledge the full time hours they put in. At 4.30pm sharp, the Injalak troop carrier would depart for the first run to the Club, after which either Rebecca or Murphy would have to drive up and back so that no one would have to bring it back again. On days when the Club wasn’t open, the buying desk would be near silent, frequented only by regulars and non-drinkers.

A visit to the Gunbalanya Sports and Social Club is unlike any drinking experience to be had in the city. Almost entirely outdoors, the place is always packed. Attracted by the floodlights, cane toads lollop in hordes across the lushest grass in town and people are ranged across picnic tables, the air abuzz as Kunwnjku, English and Video Hits compete with the whine of voracious mosquitoes. On approaching the bar, you squish yourself into a throng of people that four people are furiously trying to serve all at once. There are no rounds, as you are only allowed to purchase one can at a time, two if the person you are buying for is standing right next to you. Choice is not difficult – cans of VB, Carlton, Crown or XXXX, all mid-strength and all yours for the bargain price of $5. I can say, after careful research and the adjusting of my palette to distinguish the subtle distinctions between each incarnation of watery beverage, that VB is the most drinkable of the lot. Unsurprisingly, mid- and full-strength XXXX taste pretty much as bad as each other.

At 7 o’clock, an ear-splitting siren that you are never quite ready for generally causes you to throw your unappetising beverage all over yourself. This alarm tells all children and ‘banned’ patrons that it is time to leave. There is an intricate system when it comes to barring those who commit misdemeanours, and punishments are meted out according the severity of these transgressions. Punching Alex Seibert in the face, for example, carries a ban of three years, which some would believe is worth it for the comic effect. More minor offences are punished with bans from a week upwards, or the lightest penalty of leaving at 7pm, an hour and a half before the Club shuts its gates. Most bizarrely, at times when the Police Station finds its cells too full, the police will dole out Club bans as punishments for minor offences to save themselves the paperwork.

Going to the Club can be a great experience, as it provides a sphere in which to relate to binninj one on one and learn things that would not be possible in a professional capacity. People are more likely to open up after a few cans of anything, mid-strength or otherwise, and it is at the Club that a lot of balanda, including me, get their Kunwinjku skin names that will, for better or worse, define your relationship with people in the community in many ways. There is the standard humbugging to buy people cans of beer, and you find yourself saying ‘no’ for a decent portion of the night, but at the Club I learnt about people’s families and histories, met Traditional Owners and those not involved in the arts centre but intrinsic to the community, as well as learning a great recipe for damper.

The Club’s position in the community is problematic and everybody has an opinion on its merits, or lack thereof. It’s hard to assess having only been in Gunbalanya four months. From my experience, it seems that the Club was managed in a manner that benefited its management more than the indigenous population it was supposed to serve. The changes the Intervention brought – limited opening hours and the serving of mid-strength beer – have been beneficial in many ways. When I arrived in town, there was a young men’s initiation ceremony, a Kunapipi, in progress that traditionally occurs every year, but that until then had not taken place for a decade. The spare time that people were given with the Club’s closure for three nights had resulted in the revival of one of the most important ceremonies in Kunwinjku culture. On the flip side, the practice of grog-running – driving to Jabiru, getting as drunk as possible and taking the treacherous road back, croc-infested tidal river crossing and all – increased, which in my short time resulted in a death, some serious injuries and, gruesomely, a car driving into a wild horse and splitting it clean in half. It’s hard to weigh it all up, and the question of the Club’s position is intrinsically tied to that of alcoholism, so obviously rampant in the community, but it is unequivocally there, showing no signs of leaving, and the place that most people choose to spend their time.