Sorry folks for the lack of blog postings the past few days. I see that my Trooopy blog was my last...I'm still sad we had to depart from Trooopy. We switched hosts from Kyogle to Goonellbah (Gone-Ill-i-Bah) near Lismore, NSW last Friday. That handoff occurred at the hippie capital of Australia known as Nimbin. It was certainly an interesting little town...My hosts for the Lismore club don't exactly live in Lismore but in Ballina. The bad part of Ballina is that it is about 25 minutes from the rest of the team...but the great part of Ballina is that it is only one dune crossing from the Beach! Unfortunately it's been raining the past couple of days so my stint at the beach has been limited to two occasions.
Then Saturday was a free day/rest day with nothing scheduled. Our team spent most of the day at Mike's host Tom and Meg's compiling photographs for our district presentation.
Sunday it was raining. My host Rob accompianied me to Sunday Mass in Lennox at this quaint little beach church with a very spartan interior. So spartan that the kneelers were wooden. No padding, just wood. As one would expect at a Catholic mass, the service was the same as in the states. There was a few words of the creed that I didn't quite know...and the accents and low mumble that is the creed...I still don't know what I missed. But still an interesting thing to cross off my list in Australia.
Sunday was also my host Judy's (Rob's wife) birthday. For breakfast we went to Shelly's on the Beach...a seaside cafe where I had pancakes with berries. For lunch we went to the House with No Steps' cafe. It is staffed by persons with physical and mental disabilities. They are trained at the site's many divisions...macadamia farm, avocado farm, cafe, nursery, gift shop, fruit packing, etc. Judy got a Hawaiian birthday cake of which I am enjoying a piece of as I type this blog. Dinner was at Rob and Judy's house and consisted of salad and prawns.
Monday was a vocational day for me. We first met again at the House With No Steps and was given a tour of the facility by the president Bill Buddee. He showed us around and we got to see macadamia sorting in action. First the green husk is removed by machine, then the nuts are visually sorted by workers and then sent through a water bath. If the nut sinks it's good and it is taken from the bottom of the tank by an auger to the storage bin where it will be shipped to a processing plant to remove the kernel. Any bad nuts will float to the top where they are discarded...sort of...to be sold but at a lower rate because of the lower grade. The House With No Steps also has the largest fruit packing facility in the region. They pack their own grown avocados and also pack for other growers in the area. Other fruits they pack include limes and many other stone fruits (peaches, plums, etc). Beth and I both toured this place and we decided to buy a sampling of thier macadamias to take home with us. The cafe had an assortment of nuts and we purchased ours there. The staff noticed our uniforms and we gathered quite an audience. We gave each worker there a Missouri quarter and posed for pictures....and they all held up thier MO quarters! It was a great moment.
After that Beth and I headed to the TAFE (Technical and Further Education) at Wollongbar. I was toured around by Dave, a horticuture faculty member and Beth was toured around with a culinary faculty member. Like Linn State, the horticulture students maintain much of the campus. We talked all the business end of education (classes, schedules, competencies, and the like) and then walked around looking at various student projects. Nearly all of the funding of TAFE, and other higher education in Australia for that matter is fully government funded (federally and state). The number of students is dependent on how much funding they get. There is virtually no tuition. I asked what the average student would pay per year...the first answer was "nominal" and after a little searching for data...the pricetag was somewhere around $600. My jaw dropped to the floor.
After my tour, I met briefly with Greg who is the head of the horticulture department. I traded him an LSTC golf towel for a Wollongbar horticulture t-shirt. After TAFE, we headed into Lismore to meet with mayor Jenny Dowell. She welcomed us with mid morning tea. Tea doesn't just mean tea...it means (tea or coffee, juice, miscellaneous cakes and nibbles, summer sausage with cheese) Australians refer to each meal as a tea. Morning tea, evening tea, and sometimes they do just stop for a cuppa tea and that's it. You have to pay attention to what tea means. Sometimes you eat, sometimes you drink, and sometimes it means both. Mayor Jenny was very gracious. She gave us a book of Lismore history and we capitulated with various Missouri items (a MO book, miscellaneous pins, Rotary banners).
Since she was mayor I presented her with a "Visit Jefferson City" pin, a "Missouri State Seal" pin, and a book of quips from Mark Twain. I said I "was the unofficial bearer of the official seal of Missouri" and she joked "So what sort of buildings does this get me into?"
Tonight we have a big meeting. The Missouri team (us) will cross paths once again with the Arizona team (them). It is completely coincidental that two teams from the States are on GSE at the same time. There is no trophy to win, there is no official competition...but we want to WIN. I suppose the only thing we get is bragging rights...but that's good enough for me. We had one joint presentation at the beginning which in my unbiased opinion WE beat THEM. Our uniforms were coordinated, we had a personal touch in our presentation...good first outing to size up your competition. We have this meeting tonight for round two. Then next weekend we have presentations at district conference. It's the final...it's our March Madness...and Missouri will be victorious!
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