10 March

While at the 2003 Joshua Tree Didjeridu Festival we managed to make friends with a lovely gal named Aimee Anderson. Though she was accompanying the Gurruwiwi family to the States, she regularly resides here in Yirrkala. Couple Wednesdays back she gave us a panicked call,"Do you guys know about Net Ball?" she said, "Do you want to play? We need a few more players to make up our co-ed team. You need to wear a red t-shirt and don't worry because we are all out of shape, see you at 7:30."

Now what we thought was going to wind up just a single friendly game of Net Ball, (which we had heard of, but never played and only witnessed once, and when we did we said, "what the hell is this.") has turned out to be a weekly league committment and Randy (who is the blur of red you see at the top there), has turned out to be a team hero. He's a natural! The truth is, I really like playing this sport, which is amazing because I usually don't really like playing team sports, they're too competitive against others. I usually prefer the solo sports where you compete against yourself, like snowboarding, or yoga. Anyway, its pretty fun.

The really fun part about playing co-ed sports in Australia is that the boys and the girls don't distinguish from each other, women and men are considered equally strong, so you can't expect to have the opposition go easy on you because you are a girl. I have huge bruises to prove it. Gender relations here are a whole other topic, but fascinating! Anyway back to netball

What is netball? Imagine a cross between volleybal, soccer, tennis, basket ball and a trip to the DMV. I'd explain the rules but you wouln't believe me. The important points are, everyone is labeled, you can only go in certain areas depending on your label, you can not move if you have the ball, and everyone must keep a 3 feet distance from anyone who has the ball. The objective is to make sense of all of this until you get it to a person with a label that indicates that they have the right to put the ball into the hoop. Don't let the basketball standards fool you those have been moved out of the way--the hoop is just a teeny tiny thing with no backboard. I'm amazed everytime a goal is made. We don't really understand the game, but the good thing is once you get the gist of your label, you're good to go. If you want to know more, check out netball.org.

Speaking of rules, there's another set of rules of living in Yirrkala, as far as politeness goes. One of the most important is to never refuse food that is offered to you. Earlier in the day our friends Rick and Sally dropped off a freshly caught tuna for us. It was big, beautiful and bloody and we didn't have the slightest idea what to do with it. We put it in our freezer, which is more like a refridgerator because our refridgerator that is more like a cupboard wouldn't keep it cold. It looked up with a big vacant stare and said, "eat me." Of course, we had this net ball committment first, and then it was my last night in town before leaving for Cairns for the weekend and most importanly, we didn't know what to do with a whole fish on such short notice. More than once we looked in the freezer and there it was, looking, saying, "you know you have to eat me tonight."

So after the game (which we won, our second in a row which means that we qualify for the finals!) we had to do something with that fish. When we were kids my mom used to take us fishing. And I remember her showing me how to gut a fish, a trout anyway. I think I may have even helped. First we smacked its head violently to kill it,then, we slit it from its bum to its gills and scooped out its guts buy running our thumbs along the spine. Of particular interest were fishes with eggs inside, we felt sophisticated opening those fish because that was our only brush with "caviar" and we thought rich people were funny for wanting to eat such slimy stuff. Anyway...gutting a tuna is not like this! They are much more complicated inside, besides I hadn't done any buchering since the Gibb family chicken masacre of 1987.

My first cut seemed right on the mark, but the guts wouldn't com all the way out until I cut off the head. This is not easy to do with a semi sharp knife! Sea fish has cartilage too, which I didn't account for and a thick corridor or blood and nerves running along the spine. When it was all finished, I did manage to get most of the meat off the body, but not to the level I would have liked. All the while, I the fish looked up at me as if to say, "don't waste me! I'm dead!" I wish now that I had been brave enough just to eat it raw, certainly I've consumed tuna in sushi bar's not near as fresh as this (caught hours before) but I couldn't do it because I didn't trust my buchering job. Next time I will for certain! Instead we sauteed it up with a little butter and lime.

I'll use my favorite Australianism to describe the fish, "It was gorgeous!"