Anyinginyi Manuku Apparr: Stories from Our Country

After School

Pankurrpankurr
P. Frank Narrurlu

When we was at BB station they had single woman's and single men's camps.

One teacher and one teacher's aid, different ones come through. I remember one of the teachers that was there, she used to be frieghtened of the lightening. This lady teacher used to get frieghtened when lightning storms coming, she used to go pick Suzzana Nelson up to stay with her, she used to pick any Wumpurrarni from the camp to go stay with her, keep her company.

We used to go hunting a lot, kids, after school with shang-hi's. We'd shoot the birds, weekends we'd go all day. Just shoot birds and live on birds all day. Shang-hi the birds. Me, HH sometimes, Elizabeth Johnson, Pauline, my brother and Clive and HH's brother and GJ, we used to go shoot use the shang-hi, go hittin' birds, eat it for lunch, eat it for smoko. We used to get finch. Pluck the feathers, gut him and cook him on the coal and rock pidgin, them king finches, gray pigeon.

I remember me and Pauline and Clive and Ruby we went after school one day, we seen them old people packing up, we seen them packing up cause they were going for manaji, bush potato, hunting out at other side of Kajunpura, Marnjarriparta we call-im, they used to call-im. They camped out were HH was and they went camping them old people, well HH must have been there.

All them others went, them kids, we knew they was there so we wanted to go to. Cause Pauline, Clive, Ruby and myself we used to, they used to stay with use and we used to share the same bed, share the same room, we used to sleep, so we, everyone went from BB station and there was no one else left there they went hunting and we wanted to go, but we didn't get to go, so us four decided to walk from BB station, long way. Further from Kajunbura, were that plain ends on the other side of the hill there.

We walked from BB station to Marnjarriparta and we didn't tell our parents and they went looking for us. We lived on birds with shang-his all day and it was a very hot day and water we had water from along the creek so we drank water from the creek. It took us a whole day from there to there, to walk there. But then when we got there our parents just arrived to, they followed our track all the way. We got a hiding for it.

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