BUSH FIRES – PART 5
7th January 2020
I’ve been out this morning to a Wildlife Rescue Emergency Meeting held at the Berry Pub, where about fifty people gathered to make a plan for providing water and food to our animals. What started as a face book post by a young woman, Nicole, who works at the Bomaderry Vet Clinic, has become a full scale battalion of people, from children to older men and women on walking frames, willing to work to save our wildlife.
Plans and materials for making ‘a water station’ – a PVC pipe, sealed at one end, with an angle joint at the bottom(which you fill with water) – to be tied to trees at strategic spots, and refilled at regular intervals by the volunteers. Three of us, Jo Lill, Melissa Angove (another South African) and I decided that as we were not handymen, we could make ‘Roo Balls’ – which will be collected and taken to where the need is greatest. We were provided with a recipe, so I’ve bought 10 kg of rabbit and guinea pig food, molasses, peanut butter, and rolled oats, and this afternoon four of us will be making them.
Its so much quieter and calmer today – and yesterday, when we sadly attended a funeral of 42 year old Jamie Strong, a Legend in his lifetime, a local builder/artesan/artist who built the most beautiful homes in Berry and elsewhere. He was first diagnosed with bone cancer in his leg aged 14, and survived – and flourished – for another 27 years, winning many battles along the way. He is survived by his childhood sweetheart and twin sons, aged ten years old. His father, older brother, younger brother, and best mate and business partner spoke, with such beauty and love, to hundreds of people crammed in and around the Berry School of Arts. Afterwards, his hearse drove slowly down Queen Street, the main road in our town, and hundreds of people bowed their head and waved and cheered as they drove slowly by. People went to the Berry Pub for a beer and a meat pie afterwards. It was such a sad and poignant day, a day to remember and realise how very precious life is, and at this particular time of anguish in our country, it hit home. I looked at his sons and sobbed.
I went for a walk, without the dogs, on our beach, which was very lonely. The beach is black with ash. I saw a beautiful dog, a huge dog, a cross Alsatian and Norwegian Elk Dog, something like that – she was tethered to a tree, and gazing longingly at his master, surfing in the sea. He was howling and sobbing, fixed on his master’s tiny image on the surf board. I went and sat with him and cuddled him, and talked to him – he answered me with heart rending howls! After a few minutes, I resumed my walk, and as I returned by him, his owner walked out of the ocean, and I introduced myself to him. Damion Stirling, he rescued Sampson eight years ago, and Sampson still suffers separation anxiety from him. Damon has been defending his home in North Nowra after sending his wife and kids to Wollongong and he and Sampson decided on some r and r at the beach.
June Spurr, my dear old friend, went to Melbourne with David her partner, after Christmas for a few days holiday with her daughter Julie. I called to see how she was, and she casually said she was returning home the following day. I urgently and insistently told her DEFINITELY not to, she seemed quite unperturbed, and I told her she didn’t realise how serious it was. That night, whilst watching the news, she saw HER OWN HOUSE on the news, she recognised the letter box, with two fire trucks parked outside. Her house has survived, how, I do not know. Many stories like that of survival, and many others of terrible loss and destruction. People are hugging in the streets, holding hands in coffee shops, greeting strangers.
Things are returning to ‘normal’. Our local ABC has done nothing but report on the fires since before Christmas, but yesterday, there was time for a song or two, and ‘other news’. For us, there has been no ‘other news’, and even social media has been all about the fires. Managing the messages of good will that came in has taken a lot of time, so many people sending love and luck and thoughts. I met a Chinese lady at the Berry Christmas Parade when we took Rene’s two children in to see Santa. We were dressed up and she has travelling with a group, who asked to take our photos – they did, dozens of them! – we exchanged email addresses so as to exchange them, and that dear lady has sent me an email EVERY SINGLE DAY, asking how we are, offering for us to go and stay with her in China, and sending prayers and love. Her name is Bing Li Xie. I shall post some of her sweet messages.
We were asked not to use our washing machines – as we are using electricity and water which is vital elsewhere. Thousands and thousands are still without electricity. And despairingly, several appalling reports of deserted homes in fire zones which have been ransacked. My heart breaks. Who ARE these people??? Another story, told to us by our neighbour, who met a young woman evacuating her town further down the coast. She was stuck in the car for eight hours with a small baby, and was so exhausted, she found a motel, and checked in for some rest. They charged her $380 for one night. THREE TIMES the price of a normal motel at the side of the highway.
This morning, there was a ray of sunshine – literally – which pierced the smoke. I could hear the water lapping at the edge of the river onto our beach. The house still stinks of smoke, as we do, and everything in it – carpets, blinds, furniture – and the ash is still thick. I washed my hair for the first time in over a week. I met Julie on the river front and we hugged - she generously gave me a large bag of frozen whiting fillets, caught from their jetty by a friend. We fed and watered Mary and her family’s chickens and guinea pigs, as they are overseas.