It has been a while since my last post for two reasons. I recently spent a whole week camping four hours from any internet, electricity, or western civilization with a family of aborignial australians. It has taken me a while to write about because I struggled, and I still am struggling, to find away to put down in words all of the amazing things that happened on the trip.

A group of 30 students along with two leaders from the school departed from Broome early Saturday morning and loaded into a convoy of “utes” (utility vehicles). The 4-hour drive down what one of our guides called a highway - a narrow red dirt path carved through the bush that quickly turned to mud and ponds at certain points - brought us to the Mudnunn community in the West Kimberley part of Australia.

While camping we saw a series of amazing things. The first day we were taken to a beach that had 11,000 year old footprints of a man and his wife running down the beach on a hunt. That means that those people were walking on the beach 6,000 years before the pyramids were being constructed in Egypt. We were constantly reminded throughout the trip about the timeless and sacred connection the aborginial people shared with their land.

Along with hearing stories about the past, dreamtime stories and personal tales of racism, we also got to take part in a few aboriginal customs. We carved boomerangs and spears out of nearby trees and later used the spears to go hunting for crab and caught our own dinners. I also got a chance to learn to play some dijeridoo - an aboriginal instrument made naturally from termites hollowing out the inside of the snappy red gum trees. We went swimming almost everyday on amazing beaches - some of them we later learned we were also swimming with 20 foot long saltwater crocodiles.

Despite all of these cool experiences, it is hard to explain how the trip was really a life-changing experience. The people on the trip with us were the ones who made it a week that I will never forget. The wundargoodie mob, or the Morgan family in their Christian name, were all incredibly open to our questions about their culture and were quick to laugh and have a good time. One night sitting up at the campfire with the head of the family, Colin, he turned to me and told me that he was the richest man in the world. Then he pointed up at the sky and said, “Look at all my Kimberley diamonds” He was right, the sky was more lit up than I had ever seen it, and no matter where you looked it was sparkling with the southern sky. Looking at that it was no wonder why these people felt so connected to the land. But for me, and most of the other 30 students on our trip, it was them being there that provided the connection for us.

A relatively well-maintained and flat part of our road to the Kimberley.

A picture of our whole camp when we arrived back at the Broome airport before leaving for home. If you can see a little disappointment in my eyes, it’s because about 2 minutes before this picture was taken I realized that my passport was in the back seat pocket of the plane that I took from Perth to Broome and I now had no identification to get myself home. Luckily air security in the outback is a little more lax than, well, LAX so I was able to talk my way on to the flight and by some miracle my passport was waiting for me at the lost items counter when I arrived in Perth.