26th January 2016
Aussie Aussie Aussie
It wasn’t the most relaxing Australia Day I’ve ever experienced but it will be an Australia Day that I will never forget and always remember with emotion.
Not because it was incredibly hot, reaching about 43 degrees Celsius but because when we arrived at our home for the first time since the tornado struck three days earlier, at least sixteen of our friends and family members had turned up to help us begin the massive clean up of our property. We hadn’t asked anyone for help but they realised we would need it. Instead of spending the day having fun at a beach or park with their friends and family, they would spend their day doing hard labour and some of the dirtiest work imaginable with only bottled water to help relieve the absolutely unforgiving and oppressive heat.
We divided the volunteers into an indoor and outdoor team, with Jamie designating tasks for the outdoor team,
and me the inside team. My Mum would take care of the baby and Jamie’s Mum feed and water the ravenous troops.
By the end of the day an enormous amount of clean up had been achieved and we had managed to clear, sort, photograph and itemise all the contents that needed replacing and restoration from the back three rooms of the house. Broken ceiling plaster, roofing timbers, glass and wet and mouldy rugs were all shovelled out of the only not-broken and boarded up window on the damaged side of the house and into waiting wheelbarrows.
The outside workers armed with chainsaws and the mulcher managed to make a huge dent in the almost metre deep tree debrit covering the property as well as disposing of a huge amount of broken glass from the busted solar panels.
At lunch our two Mums fed all the workers with lunch that they had organised and brought from home.
It was one of the most humbling experiences of my life and will go down as my favourite Australia Day ever for as long as I live because it epitomises everything that I believe Australia Day should stand for; solidarity, mateship, working together and a fair go for those who need some help.