Chapter 11 - Firstness, Foundness and Rebirth
A few months after my Norway trip I was running a poetry workshop in the eastern suburbs of Melbourne. It was a grade 3 class in a rather multi-cultural school. I had this strange little conversation with one chatty boy: "Where you from?" he asked. "From the hills." I say. He looked confused. Clarifying, I say, "I live up in The Dandenongs." "No," he says "where you originally from?" "Oh, well, originally from Tassie, but I lived in Sydney for a while." "No." he says more insistently, "like, I'm from Egypt," and pointing to a friend, "he's from Ethiopia. Where you from?" "Aaah" I say dumbly... "I'm just Aussie." "What?" he says, and gives me a strange look. "I suppose" I go on, "most of my ancestry goes back to England and places in Europe." "Oh, that's weird." he says. And it is weird. Here I am