Before class starts

Sunday, April 24, 2005
Elmira
Cold, cloudy am, clearing evening.
Sprinkles and flurries
4960 steps

We start the course tomorrow. I'm in the office this evening wrapping up a few things.

We always spend a few days on campus before heading out. Since we spent many Sunday nights during our winter term talking to the students about Australia, most of what we will do tomorrow and Tuesday involves procedural things: how the course will work, what's expected of them, how to act while traveling and while in Australia.

It's heartbreaking at times. For example, consider the matter of panhandling. When you or I are approached by someone begging for change, we either give them money or we don't, but we never think of it as a matter of law, only of conscience. We had an eye-opening experience the first year in Cairns. An elderly Aboriginal man approached a group of us as we were waiting for a shuttle bus, and starting saying "How're you doin'?" as he rubbed his thumb over his two fingers -- the universal sign (I suppose) asking for money. A younger woman standing some distance away hollered at him to get over to her, so he shuffled away. When he got to her, she slapped him hard and glared at us -- I don't think I'll ever forget the mixture of shame and anger in her eyes.

After she led him away, a couple of Australian men approached and asked if we had given him any money. We had not; the woman had intervened before it could have come to that. The men identified themselves as plainclothes policemen and told us that in Australia, it is illegal for Aborigines to beg for money, and it is illegal for anyone to give them money if they beg.

Of course, as a practical matter, we must tell the students things like this; we don't want them inadvertently breaking the law. And I think I understand that the Australian government is trying to do the right thing here, and perhaps is even working with the Aboriginal tribal leaders in enacting and enforcing such laws. I do wonder, though, about the place in a country's spirit from which such laws emerge.

As a part of the course, we are requiring the students to make a presentation at a reception for the course on May 30, when we return. I don;t ask the students to do anything that I won't do, so I'll probably do one of my own. The above incident has been on my mind for quite awhile. Maybe that will be my project.