Sweet and sour home

Nobody who hasn’t lived abroad can understand the sweetness of going home. It’s a confronting experience to be reminded all at once how many people love and miss you; to ask yourself why you’re about to leave them again. I never cry so much as when I’m at home, and I never feel quite so happy either.

Going home was wonderful. Bridget and Dave’s wedding, Naomi and Phil’s wedding party, my 30th birthday, Huntah’s christening, Jonah’s birth, Jaclyn’s twins, Angus, Harry, time with the family, mad dinner parties at Jeremy’s. It all happened in February.

Unfortunately it took up so much of my time that I forgot to blog. What a slack start to keeping all my friends up to date with my travels! I was going to put some photos here of the gorgeous nephews that preoccupied me in Australia as some kind of explanation. Once you see them you will understand how I was so easily distracted. I am on a Spanish wireless network however and they don't seem to be uploading very well. At all, actually, and I don't understand the Spanish explanation very well. At all actually. See, there is a reason I have to learn Spanish. You will all just have to wait for that.

So...the sour part? That Man. John Howard. I can barely type his name without spitting venom at the keypad. Just before I left for Sydney I read a pretty amazing article by John Pilger in the Guardian. Love him or hate him, this article is an eloquent and apt summary of the current state of Australia. Let me quote two sentences to entice you:
"Australia is not often news, cricket and bushfires aside. That is a pity, because the regression of this social democracy into a state of fabricated fear and xenophobia is an object lesson for all societies claiming to be free."

That Man (I can't say or type his name without getting angry so I will avoid it as often as I can) is singularly responsible for Australia's descent. I grew up proud of living in a multicultural society. At school and home I was taught that Australia was the great nation it was thanks to the hard work of immigrants. We were taught about the White Australia policy as a lesson in how far we'd come as a nation. And why we\d never go back. The Australians I knew were generally fair and open-minded. They still are. I will never understand how That Man managed to change all that in so short a time: how he could vilify Pauline Hanson and appropriate her policies without most people seeming to notice, or care. Then again, maybe they all knew, and the PC-obsessed Hawke-Keating governments had really repressed our inherent racism and small-mindedness. My mum is adamant it's not the case. She thinks Australians haven't changed, that the average person is still the same. I hope she's right.

I won't carry on about this, because it's too upsetting, and besides, the sweetness of my time at home far outweighed the sourness of That Man and all he does. This election year promises to be entertaining if not particularly edifying. Anyway, read the article if you can.