"What you want to go away from your country?" Djewarri demanded. "You gone silly along head or somethin'? That proper rubbish-country long way away. This country knows you, now you want to go along country that doesn't know you. You die there."
He was emphatic about that. "When man leaves the country that knows him, soon he die," he said.
I tried to explain to him the beauties of Mooloolaba. I told him about the surf, and the people swimming, and the fishing trawlers, and the pineapples and the bananas, but he was unimpressed.
"They got fat kangaroo there?" he asked.
"No Kangaroos," I admitted.
"Plenty lizards?"
"I didn;t see any lizards."
"Well that must be rubbish-country all right," he said.
Taken from: The Shady Tree by Bill Harney and Douglas Lockwood
1 comment:
Bill's a nice enough fellow - but he is inclined to kill snakes and he wants all of his speeches to be recorded.
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