The experienced GP isn't talking about me. He’s talking
about the lack of consistent allied health and child development services.
But I am standing next to him as he throws this out, and it cuts as it flies
past.
I’m learning a new system, new places, new cultures. As for any other new
cultural immersion, having read the right books and knowing the right words are
important. It
seems a necessary step to read, and that I am doing. I am reading government
reports, internal audits, historical narrative about Jandamarra and watching The Circuit. In Cambodia, it was pronouncing Khmer “kmai” not “kmair”; here I
speak of “Bidgy” and am going there for the first time this week.
Learning a new lingo is fun, and we throw ourselves in
enthusiastically. The novice scuba diver buys a full gear set before learning
how to equalise her ears. The gardener starts discussing the merits of heirloom
tomatoes before he ever hears the words, “dynamic lifter.” We pontificate and debate, demonstrating that
we’re in the club, to anyone willing to listen.
The experienced craftsmen just get on with it.
This adoption of new words and places is a developmental
stage – one that enables new perspective, hopefully enlarges the world-view in
the process. For some, the debate and the cause becomes the issue – and lord
knows we need strong advocates.
But for me, I’m not sure where I stand. I know I barely
qualify as adolescent in the world of Aboriginal healthcare. I’m
perpetually tempted to blurt out, “When I was in…” or “In North Queensland we…”
and I need to consciously tie down my tongue to avoid it. I remind myself that
spouting my credentials lessens their value, if they ever had relevance anyway,
and that getting defensive when people assume I know nothing is a guaranteed
way to stay there.
So how to avoid being that enthusiastic young white woman, who
brings her PC notions and her bleeding heart to the desert – for a few months
only? I’m white. The GPs seem to think I’m young. I’m a woman. I’m here
(partly) because of health inequity. And I only have a three month contract,
and am not ready to commit to twenty years just yet.
I’m not sure that it means signing up for the rest of my
career, though. I think it means to learn whenever I can, to listen and absorb
and be curious, not to take my brief experience working elsewhere in Australia
and interpreting my current situation to fit. To shut up in order to learn the
local situation. To mature in my understanding, and just get on with it.
I hope that, as I do so, I can move beyond the Cause. To see
individuals and negotiate solutions. To be energetic, not blindly enthusiastic.
To advocate for the people I meet.
And in the meantime, forgive me if I pontificate every now
and then.
