perth

I once taught myself to like cottage cheese by eating one spoonful every morning for a month. In the beginning, I would gag. Between the chunky consistency of milk gone bad, the yellowish liquid layer on top, and a smell that manages to be both innocuous and rancid, there is not much to like about cottage cheese. But after a week or so, my taste buds relented. It’s not so bad. At the end of the month, I was dumping half a container into a cereal bowl and topping it off with a splash of canned peach juice. Mission accomplished. I am a person who enjoys a bowl of cottage cheese, I thought to myself, trotting off to middle school in my mint green Converse.

So help me God, I will become a person who enjoys camping.

There are many reasons to dislike camping but here I will present two of them: sleeping in a tent and serial killers.

Tents are annoying and they smell bad. Putting up a tent is like trying to tie a Moby Wrap around your torso while standing on one foot under a waterfall. Tents come with long metal rods that you must shove through skinny plastic sleeves, and when you do this incorrectly, you must remove the long metal rods, throw them on the ground, and whimper as you strive to read the faded instructions in the quickly disappearing daylight. When you want to enter your tent, you have to first unzip the “door” and then step in awkwardly like a toddler learning to walk up stairs, only to find your clothes splayed out before you in various states of disgusting. You find one sock but not the other. You don’t change your underwear for three days. It’s all an embarrassing mess.

Dave strongly disagrees with me on this next point, but serial killers are rampant at campgrounds. I don’t need data to back me up because it’s common sense. If your hobby is, say, flying kites, you are going to spend time in large, open fields with few tall obstacles. If you are more into, say, chopping people up into little pieces, you will seek out a remote location where you will find your victim waiting for you in a poorly assembled tent with limited cell reception. Dave and I once camped in South Dakota and I saw several serial killers.

When our friends Rochelle and Geert learned we had not yet camped in Western Australia after living here over a year, they took it upon themselves to help. Rochelle is originally from Perth and moves through life with a sense of exasperated goodwill. It’s not that she assumes people are stupid, but she knows, with plenty of evidence, she was put on this planet to help people be less dumb. Her husband Geert is Dutch, which is pretty much all you need to know about him. I don’t fully understand what he does for a living, but it involves managing the operations of massive construction vessels. He moves seamlessly between taking an emergency call in the middle of the forest to helping four children navigate white water rapids on kayaks.

Rochelle chose the Collie River as our destination, which is about two hours south of Perth. We drove for miles on a bumpy red dirt road and claimed a campsite right next to the river, a location that felt very covered-wagon-gold-rush and also took care of the grime problem. Majestic jarrah trees surrounded our tents, and the river sounded like wind. At the adjacent campsite was a large family gathering, which made me feel better about my odds in the serial killer scenario.

The weekend had many wondrous moments, including a large black lizard spotting, the starriest of starry skies, and most notably, a kangaroo bouncing through our campsite. I loved watching my daughters dismiss scrapes, splinters and bug bites in favor of sprinting through the forest and jumping in the river with new friends. I am grateful to Rochelle and Geert for not once referring to me as a pussy. Likewise, I am in awe of my nature-loving-happy-camper husband who did not throw me in the river at midnight when, in a tent-induced panic attack, I tried to blame him for my inability to chill out. (“WHY DON’T YOU SAY WHAT I WANT YOU TO SAY?”)

Learning to like cottage cheese was much easier than this business of camping. But I am determined.

“And now let’s hear from Alastair, a Year Eight student. He enjoys math and rugby.”

Alastair walks up to the podium and thanks us all for coming. He is tall, blond and tan, wearing a white dress shirt, necktie, and shorts. “I love it here. I’ve learned loads from every subject. There’s heaps of sports and clubs.”

“Thank you Alastair. Next up is Anjali. Anjali wants to be a scientist. She lives in the country and travels more than an hour each way to school.”

“I used to think I had the IQ of a pear. It turns out, pears are quite smart,” Anjali giggles. As she returns to her seat, I notice her shiny black braid cascading all the way down her back. My mind wanders. Does Anjali need to wake up even earlier to do her hair, or does she braid it on the train?

The Year Eight String Quartet starts playing Vivaldi’s Spring. I decide that Anjali does not braid her hair on the train.

If we are still living in Perth next year, my daughter will start secondary school in Australia. Having ruled out girls-only and religious schools, we are left with few options. Today I am visiting the Perth Modern School (“Mod”), a magnet public school close to home.

Mod’s tagline is “Exceptional schooling. Exceptional students,” a sharp contrast to Australia’s tall poppy syndrome, the tendency to belittle others’ skills and accomplishments. The campus is large and grassy. The students wear blazers and lug heavy backpacks across a courtyard. The school is funded by the state. Teachers are paid well and there are ample resources and activities.

The principal approaches the podium and looks out at the crowd of apprehensive parents. She tells us not to worry about the three-hour exam our children will be taking next month. “It’s designed to be hard. Just make sure they have breakfast.” She exudes warmth and strength. I can equally imagine her teaching an art class for seniors or running a country.

As she’s talking about the school’s curriculum, photos are projected on a screen behind her. Kids in front of blooming cherry blossoms! Kids on a trip to NASA! Kids on stage in pirate shirts! Kids with seeing-eye dogs! Kids in the library!

I glance down at my information packet and see the phrase, “Delivering leading edge learning to gifted students.” I think about raising my hand and asking what leading edge learning means but decide I don’t care that much, and anyways, I would probably sound like a dick.

The quartet plays again. More Vivaldi. I check my calendar. Tomorrow I’m visiting a tiny private school that provides each student with a laptop and something called a “personalized learning plan.”

Everyone starts clapping. I skip the morning tea and walk to my car. I have an urge to pick up my daughter from school and take her to the beach. We could play in the waves and dig a hole. We could make a big mess.

The first thing I notice at Bogan Bingo is the bouncer’s fake tattoo: “Dilligaf.” I ask him what it means. “Does it look like I give a fuck?” he growls. Wow, that’s rude. As I make my way to the bar, it makes sense.

The event, held at our local primary school, is a fundraiser for suicide prevention. The invitation had stated, “Bogan Bingo gives everyone’s inner Bogan a chance to escape for the night. There will be beer, wine, pies, sausage rolls and sauce.”

I am wearing denim shorts, a Balinese beer tank top, sheepskin boots, purple eye shadow, and a tattoo with the name of my high school sweetheart. Dave is wearing more or less the same outfit, minus the makeup. One of our friends is in a Jack Daniels t-shirt that was a gift from his mother. Another has big hair, big cleavage, and a tattoo that says, “No Ragrets.” I spot close to 100 mullet wigs, a handful of fake pregnant bellies, and one pack of menthol cigarettes. We’re drinking white wine that tastes like Jolly Ranchers.

You Give Love a Bad Name is blaring on the speakers and bingo cards are scattered on our foldout table. The emcee yells out numbers followed by helpful hints: “Seventy-six! Eat a bag of dicks!” There’s also some call and response: “I say Up The Bum, you say No Babies!”

Bogan is a word that gets tossed around frequently in Perth. It’s a derogatory term for someone who is considered low status, unsophisticated. Rebel Wilson hit it big with Bogan Pride. A popular show here is Upper Middle Bogan. In America, Bogan translates to “white-trash” or “redneck,” two words I stopped using sometime in the early 90’s, along with “retarded” and “Benetton.”

Although Bogan is used by ladies in pearls to describe ladies with belly button rings, it is more often used by people who identify as Bogan. At the bar, a woman in an Aka Daka (AC/DC) t-shirt tells me she feels affection for the word because it describes her family. Her friend leans in, agreeing, “Bogans like to have a good time.”

Last week, I asked a few Australian children what they think of when they hear the word Bogan. “Heaps of tattoos and piercings,” one giggled as she reached for a biscuit. “They’re really loud, and they like cars,” another said. At needlepoint class, I asked my fellow students if they’d go to an event called Bogan Bingo. Looking up over her bifocals, Hazel said, “It’s in bad taste.” (She’s from England.) “Take pictures,” she added.

Dave nudges me. “This is amazing,” he whispers as I take my meat pie out of its plastic wrapping. A song I later learn is called Am I Ever Gonna See Your Face Again comes on. Everyone chants, “No way! Get fucked! Fuck off!”

I don’t think I’d attend a redneck-themed party in the U.S. I’d feel it was, at best, in poor taste, and perhaps offensive. Some Australians believe that Americans take certain things too seriously (what to say and how to say it) and other things not seriously enough (gun violence). I guess we’re livin’ on a prayer.