A few weekends ago we were all piled onto a bus at 6am and we headed off four hours to Canberra the capital of Australia. Most of the Wesley students either visibly shuddered when we told them where we were going or straight up laughed and told us to have fun. So I was a little apprehensive about this trip especially when the program directors said multiple times, “Remember guys, Canberra is as fun as YOU make it”. Yes, this combination made me a bit unsure of how “fun” this weekend was going to be BUT I’ve never been to Canberra obviously and so was excited to add it to the list of things/places I’ve been to and seen here in Australia!
Kimberly and Melanie (directors) jam packed our two days in Canberra with more museums, galleries, and embassies than I would have thought possible to visit in only forty-eight hours. It was so busy in fact that on the bottom of our schedules they put the number of three taxi services because if we weren’t on the bus when we were told to be we got left! They meant business. On Friday we stopped at Parliament House and looked around outside then we went to the Indonesian Embassy, New Zealand High Commission, and the Aboriginal Tent Embassy. I never realized how interesting and neat New Zealand was! We had the best speaker meet with us and they had afternoon tea set up for us. From that visit I realized that New Zealand may be small but what they lack in strength of size they make up for in brain power. I really enjoyed that visit. On Saturday we visited the Nation Portrait Gallery, the National Museum, the National Gallery of Australia, and the Australian War Memorial. The Australian War Memorial was amazing too. There was a tomb of an unknown soldier there as well and a wall similar to the United States Vietnam War memorial with the names of those who gave their lives for Australia. The one I really want to focus on however, is the Aboriginal Tent Embassy.
The Aboriginal Tent Embassy is not really an embassy, but rather it is an ongoing protest that started back in the 1970’s. The Aboriginal peoples of Australia have had a pretty brutal history especially the Stolen Generation (if you don’t know what I’m talking about watch the movie Australia or even better rent Rabbit Proof Fence). The Stolen Generation is literally when the government went in and took Aboriginal children away from their families and put them in missions and group homes because it was “better for them”. Rabbit Proof Fence left me with my mouth hanging open in disbelief. Children were taken and the excuse was given that the Aboriginal parents couldn’t care for them and that their lives would be better with white families. Some of the children did have good lives, but most of them didn’t. It’s a really sad reality that Australia is still dealing with because this didn’t stop happening until the 1970s!! We heard from one Aboriginal lady named Bettina that her mother was drugged in the hospital and when she woke up her baby was gone and they told her she had signed adoption papers and that her daughter was gone. The Tent Embassy is protesting the mistreatment of Aboriginals and there are people camped there in tents with signs everywhere saying things like, “Sorry is okay, Sovereignty is better”. We were welcomed so warmly by a lady named Aunt Jodie and she told us her story about being stolen from her family and being placed with a white family and her journey back to her Aboriginal family and her roots. I felt so blessed because she was willing to be so open with her story. After she told us her story she allowed us to take part in putting eucalyptus leaves onto the fire that they keep burning at all times. The Tent Embassy was really humbling. When we left she asked us to please tell people about the embassy and their fight for rights and for us to please tell our embassies and ask our president to come. Right across the street from the embassy is the Parliament house and not once have they come over to the embassy. The grass at the Parliament house is mowed once a week, the embassies once every six weeks. Aunt Jodie said that all she wants is some money so that she can have a piece of land to grow her food on and to live in peace and as she wants to live. 
Even after watching the movie Australia I didn’t realize that effects of the Stolen Generation were still being felt. This didn’t just happen a long time ago in World War II and a heroic drover like Hugh Jackman didn’t come and get all the children and take care of them. We had a panel of Aboriginal Australians come talk to our class and the older gentlemen who came in was so hurt and so bitter that it broke my heart. His father fought in the both of the World Wars and when he came back his children were gone. All his children had been taken and split up into different homes and even when he went to get them after fighting for his country he couldn’t have them. Listening to Cecil talk, the pain in his voice and on his face was still so strong even after so many years. Bettina was more hopeful, and she now is a lawyer who works with Aboriginal foster children and helps make laws in order to make sure their adoptions are legal and necessary. Australia is a beautiful and amazing country and yet like every country they are still dealing with issues of injustice. When I left all I could think of was, “What can I do?!” It’s a bit overwhelming to be honest. In all of our group discussions of foreign policy, land and environment, social-justice, and learning about the Aboriginal culture here and comparing it to the Native Americans back in the states it makes my head spin because I feel like I should be doing something. I have to remind myself that God puts passions in our hearts for causes and that prayer cannot be underestimated. If I open myself up to the possibility God will give me opportunities to do something. I just have to be quiet enough and pay attention so that I can see and hear them.
Canberra was not anywhere close to be boring for me. It was an eye opening experience. It was indeed a lot of education packed into a short time span, but for the most part it was incredible and opened my mind a little more.
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