Here is part two of my film diary from Swift's Creek. This week was more challenging than the first, for many reasons, but enjoyable all the same.
The next day is Laura's twenty-first birthday. I take a photograph of her at breakfast but she, predictably, blinks. Today was a hard day for me. Rude comments and a six hour conference do little for a peaceful state of mind. We have a little time before the conference starts, about twenty minutes. Laura, Amy, Casey and I rush down the street and have a look in the shops. I buy a purple beanie to take with me overseas, mostly because it has a fluffy pom-pom on top. I snap Amy searching through the skirts in one surf shop, where there are photographs on the front counter of the owner eating friend tarantulas. Rushing back has us at the conference room just in time for it to begin (though it couldn't really without four out of five of the guests). The rest of our time in Lakes consists of listening to our lecturers. The highlight was performing a short skit about an airport for our lecturers. I take a photo of my lecturers, but am choosing not to share it here.
On the Tuesday I go on an excursion to Omeo with the year fives, sixes and sevens. We visit Jeff Cooper from the local lions club, who shows us the court house and the old log jail. He tells us all about some of Omeo's lawless history. The town has a well deserving reputation (at least during the 1800s) as Australia's most lawless town. One story sticks with me. About six young girls, aged around sixteen, decided to go out one night in the mid-1800s. For a laugh, they head to the 'Oriental section', where all the Asian miners lived. They entered, and it is speculated unknowingly, into a gambling institution, where they were promptly arrested. At their trial it is stated that any young girl mad enough to go into the Asian part of town had to be clinically insane and the group were sentenced to three months in the local insane asylum. It is arranged at the end of the three months for their parents to come and take them home, but none of their parents ever came and the girls lived their whole lives in the asylum, eventually going insane from abuse. Their story is tragic, even more so because there is no court record of who their families were. Last names were never used. Out of all the stories Jeff told, of miners and bush rangers and pub brawls, this was the most heartbreaking. I do not believe I will forget it.
1 Comment
Amy
20/10/2014 02:44:09 pm
Hey Louise!! :) just stalking your film diary of placement last year! Brings back memories :) xxx
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Hi! I'm Louise. I am a writer, photographer, traveler, book fanatic and blogger. I love to post about my adventures and the little things I do that make life fun.
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