Former intern collecting bush tucker with aborigines

13 November 2001

Robyn Goodin, who trained with Seed Savers early in 2001, has been working as a teacher and principal of an aboriginal community school in north west Northern Territory. She encourages the children in their love of bush tucker and of their "walking" the bush to harvest it.

Here is Robyn's report on some of the plants she took up from Seed Savers Gardens, and on the childrens' love of bush tucker:

The Cassava is amazing!! It has grown soooo much and the snake beans love it here. The hibiscus spinach also loves it and the taro are doing pretty well also. I have a secondary class now and my students are spread between Peppimenati and an outstation.

Your mention of the PNG project sounds really exciting and I would definitely like to be kept posted. I am hoping that the course I will take in NZ will place me in a confident position to offer skills and knowledge to projects overseas.

The people out here are beautiful people, but the larger social issues of alcoholism, domestic violence, etc., and consequent behaviours and the social isolation for us make it pretty damned hard to maintain balance and sanity. I would love to be able to say that I have done lots of Seed Saving education, but a lot of the time it is survival. The realities of the climate also have effects on what you want to do outside ... it is so hot!!!! There is a very small window of time in the day that you can work in the garden.

BUSH TUCKER

One neat thing I can share is the absolute fascination and motivation that the children have for collecting Misuyani. It is a bush potato that grows during the wet season and has a long grass like shoot with bell like flowers. They eat this raw, the potato that is, but they will spend hours walking through the new grass growth looking for it. They really love it. They dig it up with a screwdriver or the like. Great for me to see them so motivated by something that is their own.

Actually, they are motivated by all Bush Tucker, and it raises for me that importance culturally of the gathering aspect and I find myself questioning the appropriateness of domestic gardens for these people. Cheze talked with the kids about collecting bush tucker seeds to have near home ... I think that this is great but I also see how the act of going into the country and walking the country is an important and vital part of their culture and their relationship with the land and what lives there. Today on the way home from the outstation, we stopped and went looking for Misuyani and my boys got sidetracked trying to get a goanna ... all these interrelationships. Robyn Goodin

For further information

Classification

Subject  School Seed Activities
Regional relation  Australia - Northern Territory
Audience  Friends of Seed Savers - Teachers and Educators